Socket 939 has a worse price:performance ratio than 754, so why would anyone want it?

[SonicIce]

Looking over benchmarks, I haven't seen any performance advantage with socket 939 vs socket 754. A good socket 754 motherboard like the Chaintech VNF3-250 costs $60. The Chaintech VNF4 costs $85. Why would anyone want 939? It can't be because of PCI Express because 6600 GT AGP's cost the same as PCI-E ones and are equally available. An AGP 6800 GT costs $300. The best card you can get in PCI-E for $300 is the X800 XL, which is generally a tiny bit slower than the 6800 GT. The Athlon 64 3400+ is faster than a 3500+ on average, or about the same. A 3400+ costs $231. A 3500 costs $270. Why would anyone want to pay more for the same performance? Why would anyone want to pay more for worse performance?

 

[FlyingPenguin]

Well one thing I can throw at you is that only socket 939 mobos are upgradable to dual core.

 

[SonicIce]

Originally posted by: FlyingPenguin
Well one thing I can throw at you is that only socket 939 mobos are upgradable to dual core.

How do we know current socket 939 motherboard will be compaticle with whatever AMD comes up with in 2 years? DDR2, DDR3, PCI-E generation 2, but the old CPU's will still work? I don't think so.

This doesn't apply to you if you upgrade your CPU every month but for some reason keep the same videocard.

 

[smithdj]

Sonic Ice, after 1000 posts I must say I am disappointed with your thinking. Socket 754 is already obsolete for the most part and you are ripping 939 because you dont know if it will still be the AMD standard in 2 years. I am sure when AMD switches to DDR2 socket 939 will be gone. Get use to it, every tech company is like this.

 

[SonicIce]

Originally posted by: smithdj
Sonic Ice, after 1000 posts I must say I am disappointed with your thinking. Socket 754 is already obsolete for the most part and you are ripping 939 because you dont know if it will still be the AMD standard in 2 years. I am sure when AMD switches to DDR2 socket 939 will be gone. Get use to it, every tech company is like this.

Yeah we all know the PC industry makes you buy all new stuff frequently. I'm talking about right now, how 754 is cheaper now.

 

[ryanv12]

You have a good point, but I think a lot of the people on these forums like s939 for its overclocking abilities that you don't find on s754. For someone who is going to run a stock CPU though and not upgrade for a while, you're right - s754 would be the way to go.

 

[JackMDS]

Hmm.

One Sunny Day in the near future you would need to switch to 64bit OS.

:sun:

 

[osage]

I tend to agree with your assesment as well.

if you want/need a computer today S754 will get you good performance for less money.

there will always be something better faster around the corner.

PS: my S754 3200+ Clawhammer runs XP-64 just fine.

 

[imported_Noob]

That's the only thing I don't like aobut AMD: much more frequent Socket changes.

 

[SonicIce]

Originally posted by: ryanv12
You have a good point, but I think a lot of the people on these forums like s939 for its overclocking abilities that you don't find on s754. For someone who is going to run a stock CPU though and not upgrade for a while, you're right - s754 would be the way to go.

Thats true, 90nm CPUs run cooler. However, I got my 2800+ Newcastle to 2.2GHz prime stable on stock cooling with no effort, stays under 50c load.

 

[knothead34]

your also comparing two chaintech boards. thats not a fair comparison considering other companies make socket 939 boards besides chaintech.

 

[batmanuel]

Originally posted by: Noob
That's the only thing I don't like aobut AMD: much more frequent Socket changes.

Compared to Intel, AMD has been the model of stability as far as sockets go. AMD came out with socket A not long after Intel introduced the socket 370 FC-PGA Pentium III. Intel soon went to s423 with the P4 and then quickly went to 478 and finally settled on LGA775 interface for their new P4s. Of course, even if you bought a 915 or 925 board last year and want to move to a dual core P-D or P-EE, you have to chuck your brand new board and get a 945 or 955 to replace it. While socket A is still hanging on in the form of the low end Semprons, you'd be hard pressed to find a current Intel product that still uses s370 or s423.

Compared to this mess, the quick transition of the A64 from 754 to 939 is nothing to terribly annoying, espeically since most people are using it as an excuse to move over to PCIe graphics at the same time. Not to mention that over on the workstation/server side s940 looks like it is the new Socket A as far as platform stability goes. It really isn't that bad on the AMD side of things, once you get the whole PR mess worked out and figure out what Sempron is what socket.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

No dualchannel on 754's and as far as I know.. most of them only support 3 sticks of ram. Besides.... limited graphics card upgradability (agp).

 

[Greenman]

Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
No dualchannel on 754's and as far as I know.. most of them only support 3 sticks of ram. Besides.... limited graphics card upgradability (agp).

Limited? You can get almost any card in an agp verision. And I'll bet you nickles to rat terds that the next gen cards will come out in agp as well. The installed base of agp platforms is to big to ignore.
I agree socket 754 is a dead end, but every platform is, 939 goes away in a year. The astounding thing is that sosket A is still around, and can still hold it's own. Bound to go down in history as one of the best platforms ever.

 

[FlyingPenguin]

How do we know current socket 939 motherboard will be compaticle with whatever AMD comes up with in 2 years?

Try NEXT year.

And how do I know? I just attended an OEM system builder's tech conference. Direct quote from the conference:

ALL 939 mobos will support dual core with (at most) a BIOS update.

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Sonic, I pretty much agree with you. Socket-754 is hands-down the best choice for mainstream consumers who don't want to bother with overclocking. So, in that sense, it is foolish for people to automatically choose socket-939 for the 3000-3700 range.

However, you have to remember that at the moment, those 3400+ and faster CPUs are still pretty expensive--about $250 for a s754 board and 3400+ CPU. Well, for a little more, you can get an overclocker's socket 939 board and run a "Venice" 3000+ at 3500+ speeds. Personally, I'd rather just run a s754 CPU at stock speed than overclock a Venice, but some choose otherwise.

Still, for that $250 motherboard+CPU price point and below, I agree that s754 is the right way to go, overclocker or not.

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
No dualchannel on 754's

It doesn't matter. If anything, lack of dual-channel memory is a benefit for s754. See, AMD's model numbers reflect performance running ideal RAM. For example, a socket-754 3200+ running single-channel memory is about as fast as a socket-939 3200+ running dual-channel. For s754, you get the same performance as s939, but without having to worry about matching DIMMs.

and as far as I know.. most of them only support 3 sticks of ram.

So, that's 1.5 GB using the popular 512MB DIMM capacity. Sounds like plenty to me. And, if you do need more, you can always get 1GB DIMMs.

Besides.... limited graphics card upgradability (agp).

Socket-754 supports PCI-express just like socket 939. And SLI is a specialized feature, only of interest to heavy gamers.

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Originally posted by: FlyingPenguin

Try NEXT year.

And how do I know? I just attended an OEM system builder's tech conference. Direct quote from the conference:

ALL 939 mobos will support dual core with (at most) a BIOS update.

For consumers who won't upgrade for at least a year or so, dual-core support makes no difference. Even those who do plan on it aren't necessarily best-served by socket-939. For example, let's say you want to buy a 3700+ for right now, then upgrade to dual-core in one year. Well, the socket-754 CPU is $280, while the socket-939 version costs $329. Meanwhile, a socket-754 board is $53, while a socket-939 costs $70. All told, that's a difference of $66--enough for a new motherboard when you want to upgrade to dual-core!

 

[Goi]

I agree if you're gonna be keeping your system for a while and not upgrading parts of it along the way. I bought the Chaintech VNF3-250 and a Newcastle 3200+ last August and clocked it to 2.5GHz. Even today, I think my system can hang with the best of them.

If I were to buy a new system today though there's no doubt I'd choose a S939 simply because of better upgrade and overclocking options. S939 systems were really expensive last year, but now they're reasonably priced. More expensive than S754 systems, but still reasonable.

 

[SonicIce]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
Hmm.

One Sunny Day in the near future you would need to switch to 64bit OS.

:sun:

 

[IEC]

Originally posted by: FlyingPenguin

How do we know current socket 939 motherboard will be compaticle with whatever AMD comes up with in 2 years?

Try NEXT year.

And how do I know? I just attended an OEM system builder's tech conference. Direct quote from the conference:

ALL 939 mobos will support dual core with (at most) a BIOS update.

That is not true. VIA-based chipsets (not the new ones coming in now) for socket 939 are NOT compatible due to VIA's incorrect design. So it's not a net benefit for socket 939, only certain boards.

 

[imported_Starman]

Originally posted by: ariafrost
VIA-based chipsets (not the new ones coming in now) for socket 939 are NOT compatible due to VIA's incorrect design.

FALSE

The VIA K8T800Pro chipset is 100% compatible with X2 processors. Further, the VIA K8T890 chipset will be compatible on the forthcoming revisions. Currently, one can buy an S939 board like the ASUS A8V Deluxe and be all set...there's even a current (final, non-beta) BIOS that supports the X2 processors (version 1013).

 

[Tarrant64]

Originally posted by: hurtstotalktoyou

Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy

Besides.... limited graphics card upgradability (agp).

Socket-754 supports PCI-express just like socket 939. And SLI is a specialized feature, only of interest to heavy gamers.

I agree. Thanks for pointing that out. I remember hearing everyone say that pci-e wouldn't be on a skt754 and that it was dead, yet as of late I've seen a few of those boards around. Are they NF4 chipset as well? Only real thing I see missing between skt. 754 and 939 is no dual channel, and no path to upgrade to dual-core(should you chose to do so). However, I doubt that dual core will be mainstream anytime too soon. I was thinking a couple months ago I'd go ahead and get me one, but looking at prices and availability now, changed my mind. I'll wait...

 

[cryptonomicon]

Originally posted by: ryanv12
You have a good point, but I think a lot of the people on these forums like s939 for its overclocking abilities that you don't find on s754. For someone who is going to run a stock CPU though and not upgrade for a while, you're right - s754 would be the way to go.

could you elaborate a little? AG from dfistreet just made the most massive OC I have ever seen on air, 1ghz on a 754 sempron. what does 939 have advantageous for OCing?

 

[biostud]

PCIe, Rev E. cores, X2, fastest processors.

If these things are not important to you buy a s754, since they're better value for money.