Gigantopithecus
Diamond Member
My current rig is in my sig. I've been very happy with it, but prices for DDR2 memory are ridiculously cheap, as are C2D & high-end AM2 cpus given the recent AMD & upcoming Intel price cuts - I'm thinking I could upgrade to a significantly better system.
I do not play games, so I have no desire to SLI or upgrade my video card. My pc usage is 60% productivity (SPSS, document creation, some specialized scientific software), 40% media (music & video encoding, dvd duplication).
My current system is adequate for my needs, but merely adequate isn't enough, right? There are two things I like most about my current setup: its 'snappiness' & stability. Snappiness meaning programs open nearly instantaneously (well, except Office 2007 is a bit slower than I'd like); the only time I notice a slowdown is when I'm encoding video, crunching a dataset in SPSS, crunching another dataset in another program, have a few instances of Acrobat open, & am making a PowerPoint presentation. But since I do this often, it would be nice to never have this slowdown. In terms of stability, I've never had any issues with BSODs, random lockups, crashes, or anything like that.
I was initially leery about making the move to C2D or AM2 because of the higher latencies of DDR2 memory vs. DDR memory. I noticed a huge difference between CL3 & CL2 DDR when I upgraded a few years ago, and dread what going from CL2 DDR to CL5 DDR2 might do to my snappiness. Is this really an issue? I've never seen any benchmarks about this & don't have any friends with self-built C2D or AM2 systems (a few have Dells with C2Ds but there's so much bloatware on them I can't assess them).
From what I gather DDR2 speed (i.e. 667 vs. 800mhz) isn't so much a factor with C2Ds as it is with AM2s, unless you're aggressively overclocking (which I won't be doing) - is this accurate? I just dropped $95 on 2gb of Patriot Signature 667mhz CL5 memory as it seems these prices can't go any lower & will probably go back up sooner than later. Would it be a better idea to pair these lower speed, higher CL sticks with a C2D rather than AM2 chip? I also picked up a 1gb matched pair of OCZ Gold 800mhz CL5 on the FS forums here, what type of chip would those be best paired with?
Also, have C2D & AM2 chipsets/mobos matured to the point where they're rock solid stable? If so, which ones would you recommend?
From what I gather, people rave about the Biostar TForce 550 AM2 mobo, but I don't really like the looks of its layout. The abit Nview NF-M2 seems to get good reviews, but lots of people are reporting NIC issues, which is unacceptable. Finally, this mobo looks good to me but there's not much chatter about it. I've not yet researched C2D mobos at all.
My budget is $300-400 for the cpu & mobo. I'd like to stay closer to $300 unless there is a huge leap in performance, snappiness, or stability towards $400. Thanks in advance!
I do not play games, so I have no desire to SLI or upgrade my video card. My pc usage is 60% productivity (SPSS, document creation, some specialized scientific software), 40% media (music & video encoding, dvd duplication).
My current system is adequate for my needs, but merely adequate isn't enough, right? There are two things I like most about my current setup: its 'snappiness' & stability. Snappiness meaning programs open nearly instantaneously (well, except Office 2007 is a bit slower than I'd like); the only time I notice a slowdown is when I'm encoding video, crunching a dataset in SPSS, crunching another dataset in another program, have a few instances of Acrobat open, & am making a PowerPoint presentation. But since I do this often, it would be nice to never have this slowdown. In terms of stability, I've never had any issues with BSODs, random lockups, crashes, or anything like that.
I was initially leery about making the move to C2D or AM2 because of the higher latencies of DDR2 memory vs. DDR memory. I noticed a huge difference between CL3 & CL2 DDR when I upgraded a few years ago, and dread what going from CL2 DDR to CL5 DDR2 might do to my snappiness. Is this really an issue? I've never seen any benchmarks about this & don't have any friends with self-built C2D or AM2 systems (a few have Dells with C2Ds but there's so much bloatware on them I can't assess them).
From what I gather DDR2 speed (i.e. 667 vs. 800mhz) isn't so much a factor with C2Ds as it is with AM2s, unless you're aggressively overclocking (which I won't be doing) - is this accurate? I just dropped $95 on 2gb of Patriot Signature 667mhz CL5 memory as it seems these prices can't go any lower & will probably go back up sooner than later. Would it be a better idea to pair these lower speed, higher CL sticks with a C2D rather than AM2 chip? I also picked up a 1gb matched pair of OCZ Gold 800mhz CL5 on the FS forums here, what type of chip would those be best paired with?
Also, have C2D & AM2 chipsets/mobos matured to the point where they're rock solid stable? If so, which ones would you recommend?
From what I gather, people rave about the Biostar TForce 550 AM2 mobo, but I don't really like the looks of its layout. The abit Nview NF-M2 seems to get good reviews, but lots of people are reporting NIC issues, which is unacceptable. Finally, this mobo looks good to me but there's not much chatter about it. I've not yet researched C2D mobos at all.
My budget is $300-400 for the cpu & mobo. I'd like to stay closer to $300 unless there is a huge leap in performance, snappiness, or stability towards $400. Thanks in advance!
