should I wait until the amd 64 before upgrading

[Zarick]

Would it be wise at this point to wait until the amd 64 is released before considering an upgrade?

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

It depends what you're using right now. Though, you may want to upgrade some other things in the meantime.

 

[mcveigh]

I won't upgrade until there is better OS and application support for 64bit computing.
Linux will have support earlier, but I don't think MS will really support it till longhorn which is at least a year away.

 

[sciencewhiz]

do you mean upgrade to an Athlon64, or wait till the Athlon64 comes out so that you can buy a current Athlon at a lower price?

 

[CrackityJones]

That depends on if you are planning on running an operating system that will even use the 64bit processing power.

 

[Zarick]

okay
I am running an 1.2 t-bird on an asus a7v133

I upgrade once (my mobo, proc and ram) every couple of years to play games.

So should I upgrade now.. or wait for the athlon 64. It looked like the opteron beat the snot out of the p4 3ghz. So I wonder if the athlon 64 will be also as good.

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: Zarick
okay
I am running an 1.2 t-bird on an asus a7v133

I upgrade once (my mobo, proc and ram) every couple of years to play games.

So should I upgrade now.. or wait for the athlon 64. It looked like the opteron beat the snot out of the p4 3ghz. So I wonder if the athlon 64 will be also as good.

For serving yes. For A/V no. For gaming, we still need to see.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Originally posted by: dexvx

Originally posted by: Zarick
okay
I am running an 1.2 t-bird on an asus a7v133

I upgrade once (my mobo, proc and ram) every couple of years to play games.

So should I upgrade now.. or wait for the athlon 64. It looked like the opteron beat the snot out of the p4 3ghz. So I wonder if the athlon 64 will be also as good.

For serving yes. For A/V no. For gaming, we still need to see.

It could go either way at that time, because keep in mind Prescott CPU's will ramp up in speed fairly quickly, because they will be able to reach 5Ghz with that core. They will also start out with a 1mb L2 cache but none have said beyond that but one interview mentioed increasing L2 cache beyond 1mb.

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: AgaBooga

Originally posted by: dexvx

Originally posted by: Zarick
okay
I am running an 1.2 t-bird on an asus a7v133

I upgrade once (my mobo, proc and ram) every couple of years to play games.

So should I upgrade now.. or wait for the athlon 64. It looked like the opteron beat the snot out of the p4 3ghz. So I wonder if the athlon 64 will be also as good.

For serving yes. For A/V no. For gaming, we still need to see.

It could go either way at that time, because keep in mind Prescott CPU's will ramp up in speed fairly quickly, because they will be able to reach 5Ghz with that core. They will also start out with a 1mb L2 cache but none have said beyond that but one interview mentioed increasing L2 cache beyond 1mb.

I was solely comparing the Opteron 244 to the 3.06 HT. You'd probably wanna add about 10-15% to the scores when comparing it to a 3.0C/Canterwood board (some as extreme as +25%).

When prescott comes out with 1MB of L2 cache, it will certainly increase serving performance by a wide margin, from the L2 cache improvement alone.

 

[Zarick]

but will the prescotts be able to sit on the current set of intel boards?

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: Zarick
but will the prescotts be able to sit on the current set of intel boards?

Even if will, would you want to?

New chip will undoubtedly debut with new FSB speed and chipset plus mem, hdrive, and vid cards will all be more advanced. Worrying about forward upgradeability of the CPU is likely not worth the calories.

 

[Hanzou]

will the new Prescott have 64 bit architecture?

 

[randumb]

If your system can handle your needs till the Athlon 64 (this fall I believe) comes out, then I'd stick around to: a) See how well the Athlon64 performs b) See Intel's new Prescott performance c) See how much the prices on current AMD and Intel Processors dropped to.

 

[CrackityJones]

The prescott will not have 64 bit Come on they cant get Itanium right yet... (I'm an intel guy by the way don't start flaming me)

 

[bjc112]

Grab a 2100+ from newegg for like $75 or so...

See how far you can push it, that should tidy you over for a bit...

 

[mikecel79]

Originally posted by: Zarick
but will the prescotts be able to sit on the current set of intel boards?

It's been pretty much confirmed that the Prescott will plug into the 875P/865PE boards. The Prescott is to debut with a 800Mhz FSB.

I think the Prescott is going to be what the PIII was to the PII. It's a P4 core with some new instructions, more cache, more optimizations, and built on a new process. It's not a huge drastic change like the PIII to P4 was.

If you look in the past Intel has a history of going about 3 generations of processors before doing a total redesign of the core.

386>486>Pentium all have very similiar features. Each generation built on top of the previous one. The we have the Pentium Pro>PII>PIII. Once again the PPro was a complete redesign of the core and then each generation added new features. I think we'll see the same thing with the P4>Prescott>???

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: Zarick
but will the prescotts be able to sit on the current set of intel boards?

Even if will, would you want to?

New chip will undoubtedly debut with new FSB speed and chipset plus mem, hdrive, and vid cards will all be more advanced. Worrying about forward upgradeability of the CPU is likely not worth the calories.

What are you talk ing about? As previously said, it will debut at an 800mhz FSB. It will then move onto a 1ghz FSB speed which most boards today can handle as we have seen and once we have RAM modules fast enough, then I think its just a matter or companies officially support it. That a little skeptical, but what I think can happen.

Hard drive - By then, not much will change other than obviously maybe drives with a larger size, for most people it won't matter since they aren't as aggressive with getting a fast HD compared to a fast video card or cpu.

Video cards - Yes they will be advancaed but what does that have to do with Prescot? What does the hard drive have to do with prescot?

And yes, they will be able to work on current 875P boards easily, atleast the first few prescotts. (865PE for that matter as well)

 

[EeyoreX]

To steer the thread back in the difrection of the question, I'll answer by saying: If the games/programs you run now run slowly or choppy and you want to improve this, upgrade now. If you are not having any trouble with performance, wait. That's my thinking anyhow.

\Dan

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: AgaBooga

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: Zarick
but will the prescotts be able to sit on the current set of intel boards?

Even if will, would you want to?

New chip will undoubtedly debut with new FSB speed and chipset plus mem, hdrive, and vid cards will all be more advanced. Worrying about forward upgradeability of the CPU is likely not worth the calories.

What are you talk ing about? As previously said, it will debut at an 800mhz FSB. It will then move onto a 1ghz FSB speed which most boards today can handle as we have seen and once we have RAM modules fast enough, then I think its just a matter or companies officially support it. That a little skeptical, but what I think can happen.

Hard drive - By then, not much will change other than obviously maybe drives with a larger size, for most people it won't matter since they aren't as aggressive with getting a fast HD compared to a fast video card or cpu.

Video cards - Yes they will be advancaed but what does that have to do with Prescot? What does the hard drive have to do with prescot?

And yes, they will be able to work on current 875P boards easily, atleast the first few prescotts. (865PE for that matter as well)

All I can say Aga is you need a few more years under your belt to see what people really do when new chips come over the course of technology generations. Then you'll know what I am talking about. If you don't get my point from what I've already posted then you likely won't get it if I elaborate further still.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: Zarick
Would it be wise at this point to wait until the amd 64 is released before considering an upgrade?

In my opinion, I wouldn't bother getting the initial Athlon 64s. It is supposed to debut at 3400+ (and slower) performance ratings. This will very likely be measured on the same benchmarks that gave the 3200+ Barton its name. So on average a 3400+ Athlon 64 will be 6% faster than the 3200+ Barton for programs that are widely in use now. It may have a few percentage extra boost over the Barton in new programs that aren't reflected in the current line of tests that AMD uses. So for the sake of arguments lets say it is a full 10% faster. Yes I know this is a very rough generalization, but on average it will be pretty close.

Now look at these benchmarks and add 10% to the 3200+ speed. The 3400+ would be roughly tied with the 3.0 GHz P4 (leading in a few, and trailing in a few). So performance wise it isn't going to be stunning. Especially since we may see a 3.4 GHz Prescott not much after the Athlon 64 release (even a 3.4 GHz Northwood would win in the vast majority of tests if my rough assumptions above are correct).

So if performance isn't the main reason, what about price? Since I haven't seen any real numbers, I'll make two estimates (based on current pricewatch.com prices).
1) Lets look at the Opteron. The 240 model costs $299, the 242 model costs $708, and the 244 model (which still isn't in stock in any reliable stores - will the top 3400+ Athlon 64 also be paper launched?) is $849. Now comparing the Athlon MP to the Athlon XP, on average the MP costs 90% more than the equivalent XP. Lets apply the same rule to the Opteron. Thus the top Athlon 64 at 3400+ speed would be roughly $447 street price (447*1.9 = 849).
2) AMD said the Athlon 64 will carry a "significant" price premium over the equivalent Barton. The 3200+ Barton sells for $450. Thus to me a significant price premium may be $100. That puts the 3400+ Athlon 64 at ~$550.

So there we have two estimates, between $450 and $550 for the top Athlon 64 3400+ chip. The 3.0 GHz P4 right now costs $415. So by the time the 3400+ Athlon 64 is available it should be down in the $280 price range. So for roughly the same performance, the Intel route would be much cheaper. Heck even if you don't want to go Intel, the 3200+ Barton should be in the $260 range by then.

Yes these are rough estimates, but I just cannot justify getting the 3400+ Athlon 64 when it comes out. What about slower Athlon 64s? I suppose you could buy a 3000+ Athlon 64. But the question comes to mind: why wait since you can get a 3000+ Barton now?

 

[DurocShark]

Wait no longer...

 

[mboy]

Originally posted by: bjc112
Grab a 2100+ from newegg for like $75 or so...

See how far you can push it, that should tidy you over for a bit...

Thats what I am doing with my 8rda+ and pc3200 (upgraded a couple months back) and running at 2.34ghz.

I will go to the 64bit when the price is the same as the current price for the xp2100

 

[piasabird]

People are claiming the newer P4 processors with 800Mhz Bus can overclock the bus to 1000. The Asus P4P800 deluxe is $148.00. You can get a 2.4 Gig 800Mhz P4 for less than $200.00?? Dont expect Intel to just sit around and wait for AMD to make something better! Wait for some benchmarks for games if that is what you are interested in. I imagine there will be some 533Mhz Celerons soon.