Socket 939 Upgrade Dillema...

[SickBeast]

My current rig:

Opteron 144
1.5GB DDR1 PC3200 RAM
Asus A8N-E
GF8800GTS 320MB
Vista 64-bit Home Premium

I'm finding Vista and C&C 3 sluggish with my current setup, so I would like to upgrade.

I want to run 4GB of ram, however if you guys think I should stay with Socket 939, it may be possible for me to live with less.

Locally, I can get:

1. An Opteron 175 for $175, plus another gig of RAM for $57 ($227 total).

2. A C2D 4300 for $139, 2GB of RAM for $70, a motherboard for $100 or so ($309 total).

3. An A64 3600+ (AM2) for $80, 2GB of RAM for $70, and a motherboard for $100 or so ($240 total).

OR I could wait for the $250 quad cores in 2 weeks.

What should I do?

What's a good C2D motherboard if you're going to suggest that route?

Will the AM2 boards offer a good upgrade path to Barcelona, or will I need an AM2+ board for that? Thanks! :beer:

 

[MarcVenice]

No opty 165 ? Or a x2 3800+ toledo core ? What resolutions do you play ? Another 512mb of ram will help a fair bit in Vista. I can barely imagine it feeling sluggish though, I played C&C3 on my 3000+ venice at 2.4ghz, and a 7600gs, and it played pretty darn good on medium, 1024*786.

I dunno, I recently bought a 3800+, s939, oced it to 2.6ghz, and now I bought a 8800gts 320mb over my 7600gs. I'll be done upgrading for about 12-18 months. I did have some second thoughts though, I spend 500 euro's, had I sold my current rig, I could probably have gotten 250 euro's for it, for 750's euro's I could have bought a e4300 or a e6420, with a 8800gts, 2gb of ddr2 667/800, and 250hgb harddrive + a gigabyte DSR p35 mobo, and a new psu, and cpu wise it would have been better then my current rig.

If you are can or want to sell your current rig, I would really consider doing that, and wait till the price drops and buy a e6420 or perhaps a e6600. Not a qaudcore, better of with a faster clocked dualcore. Keep the 8800gts 320mb though, unless you game at resolutions over 1600*1200.

- Oh and if you wait for intel price cuts, OC the hell out of that opty 144, at 2.4ghz or so it should be quite fast and not hold you back in C&C3, even in Vista.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
No opty 165 ? Or a x2 3800+ toledo core ? What resolutions do you play ? Another 512mb of ram will help a fair bit in Vista. I can barely imagine it feeling sluggish though, I played C&C3 on my 3000+ venice at 2.4ghz, and a 7600gs, and it played pretty darn good on medium, 1024*786.

I dunno, I recently bought a 3800+, s939, oced it to 2.6ghz, and now I bought a 8800gts 320mb over my 7600gs. I'll be done upgrading for about 12-18 months. I did have some second thoughts though, I spend 500 euro's, had I sold my current rig, I could probably have gotten 250 euro's for it, for 750's euro's I could have bought a e4300 or a e6420, with a 8800gts, 2gb of ddr2 667/800, and 250hgb harddrive + a gigabyte DSR p35 mobo, and a new psu, and cpu wise it would have been better then my current rig.

If you are can or want to sell your current rig, I would really consider doing that, and wait till the price drops and buy a e6420 or perhaps a e6600. Not a qaudcore, better of with a faster clocked dualcore. Keep the 8800gts 320mb though, unless you game at resolutions over 1600*1200.

- Oh and if you wait for intel price cuts, OC the hell out of that opty 144, at 2.4ghz or so it should be quite fast and not hold you back in C&C3, even in Vista.

The only Socket 939 CPUs available in my area are the Opteron 175 and 185.

I game at 1920x1200.

I can get more RAM, but DDR2 is *much* cheaper. I actually had 2GB before and it still chugged along.

I'm still leaning toward the quadcore for its better multitasking performance, plus I figure games will use it down the line.

C&C 3 chugs during large skirmishes with the AI, so I figure it's a CPU issue.

My Opteron 144 is at 2.7GHZ.

 

[LightningRider]

Personally I voted for waiting for Intel price cuts. Wait for Penryn if you can hold out longer. But the price cuts are coming in less than 20 days!

 

[MarcVenice]

Hmz, C&C3 doesn't support dualcores as far as I know. You're 2.7ghz opty is pretty fast, I dare say it will give the same performance in C&C3 as a stock e6420. I can barely imagine a game requiring THAT much cpu power. Especially at those resolutions it will be the graphics card holding you back, not the cpu. Qaudcore won't help in that area either

Also, you won't notice much difference in multitasking between a qaud and a dualcore, unless you encode/rip mp3's/ and game at the same time. For normal kinds of multitasking, for the day to day pc user, a faster clocked dualcore will be the better buy.

But, since going to dualcore is never a bad thing, and keeping the s939 rig and buy a 175 opty doesn't sound to cheerful for me, I would wait for intel price cuts and go C2D, an overclocked e4300 to 2.6-3ghz will easily outperform your current cpu, even in single threaded games like C&C3. I spent 85$ on the x2 3800+ toledo, but I didn't feel like spending more then that. And if you can sell your current rig it's a no brainer.

 

[SickBeast]

Hmm...it seems as though waiting will be my best bet.

The trouble is that the price cuts to the intel dual cores haven't been announced yet for the most part; they just have the quad cores listed mostly.

I'm very tempted to jump on the 4300 now as I don't think the dual cores will drop below $100.

 

[doggyfromplanetwoof]

I have 939. I am getting the cheapest thing there is. Or in my case an opty 170.

I upgrade when I need the performance. Do you need it? get something now.

Why wait? LOL I hate people who wait for computer hardware, because you WILL always wait.

If you get an e4300(non OC), it will be slower than the opty 175. But you have to buy new mobo, new ram, reformat... Damn. Anyways, I voted for the opty.

 

[google01103]

"The only Socket 939 CPUs available in my area are the Opteron 175 and 185." HUH??? ain't you ever heard of the Internt? http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?Item=N82E16819103588

So here's my 10 cents worth - buy a used 3800+ 939 for $50 on the "for sale forum" (as I did within the last 2 weeks, or was it the Hard Forum?) and buy the extra gig for $57 for a total of $107. OR buy the ram at $57 and see if you're being memory bound and if not .... OR drop Vista and go back to XP.

have you done any analysis to see where your bottle neck is? Are you currently oc'ing your oppty?

 

[firewolfsm]

Originally posted by: doggyfromplanetwoof
Why wait? LOL I hate people who wait for computer hardware, because you WILL always wait.

Waiting 20 days for a MAJOR price cut is more than worth it.

I'm in the same situation as you except I have even less ram and my 144 is only at 2.5GHz, I had it at 2.8 but recently it's been losing stability.

Anyways, I decided go Quad hoping the upgrade might last another two years like this one did. I'm getting the $266 Quad when I can be sure about G0, a $130 GA-P35-DS3R and $70 in ram, I get about three times as much speed as an Opty 165 for $466...

 

[SickBeast]

I just ordered a Q6600 from Frys.com. I get to have my cake and eat it to.