To socket 939 or not to socket 939?

[Spamdini]

im in the market looking at an after june 6th purchase and i was wondering if i should go for the socket 939s or if its not that much more of a bang for my buck up from the 754s?

 

[jdogg707]

If you are waiting, wait a little longer to see what the next round of Intel Socket 775 chips and the updated chipsets do. Around that time hopefully you'll see boards with PCI Express on them, that way you can kill two birds with one stone, an updated PCI Express video card and the latest and greatest processor/chipset. If you do not want to wait, grab the 3500+ Socket 939 chip and a nForce3 250GB board, that should give you a solid upgrade.

 

[Spamdini]

ive got a $1600 CDN budget and i dont wanna wait for PCI express

 

[drag]

Get dual Opterons. They have PCI Express already.

Dual 1.8ghz (244) and a nice (independant memory busses for each proccessor, cheaper boards share one memory pathway for both proccessors which puts a choke) will run you about a 400 dollars for the motherboard and 327 for each proccessor.

Or get a dual cpu board and a single proccessor (should work) and pay for the 2nd cpu later when the next upgrade comes around and they are cheaper. A 2.4ghz (248) Opteron costs 670 dollars or so.

That way you can have a computer that you can play doom3 + ripping DVD's + downloading crap + whatever else with the same ease as a guy with one Althon64 CPU just plaing Doom3... SMP rocks.

Prices are US.

 

[Algere]

I'm sticking with socket 754 @ this time since.

I) 754 is probably cheaper than 939 initially(not sure).
2) Extremely small performance improvement over 754 @ the same frequency according to the benchmarks I've seen so far.
3) I can recoup by selling my old hardware on eBay & use the $ to upgrade my CPU/MB & sometimes RAM(DDR2 or so) if the new CPU supports it at the same time. In this case though I'll probably have to sell off my PCI/AGP devices if the new MB is PCI-E only(assuming I won't be able to use regular PCI devices in conjunction with PCI-E slots).

With socket 939 it may be simialar to the upgradability of socket 478 to 423. e.g. if you had a socket 478 MB based on the Intel 845D chipset and wanted to upgrade to a CPU faster than a Pentium 4 w/ 400MHz FSB. Your gonna have to fork up some $ to upgrade the motherboard also to support higher FSB/memory speeds and to a further extent a MB that supports dual-channel mode, Hyper-Threading, etc.

Right now socket 939 is what's on the horizon but what about other technologies and speed improvements further down the road e.g. SATA 2/3, PCI-E & HyperTransport next, DDR2/3, etc. Your pretty much gonna be left behind if you only upgrade the CPU cause that's the only thing I can see socket 939 has over 754 @ this time.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I'm thinking I'll be getting a s754 machine sometime this summer. I don't usually upgrade much, just collect. So the price drops should be nice.

Over all, I'd rather have s940 opterons though.

 

[Cerb]

Unless you do a lot of video or sound ripping (dual channel memory helps more there), 754 is the way to go until probably around Christmas, unless boards reach price parity real soon.

 

[SilentZero]

Im going to stick with my 754. There is not enough of a performance gain to warrant me to move up to a 939 yet.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: drag
Get dual Opterons. They have PCI Express already.

Dual 1.8ghz (244) and a nice (independant memory busses for each proccessor, cheaper boards share one memory pathway for both proccessors which puts a choke) will run you about a 400 dollars for the motherboard and 327 for each proccessor.

Or get a dual cpu board and a single proccessor (should work) and pay for the 2nd cpu later when the next upgrade comes around and they are cheaper. A 2.4ghz (248) Opteron costs 670 dollars or so.

That way you can have a computer that you can play doom3 + ripping DVD's + downloading crap + whatever else with the same ease as a guy with one Althon64 CPU just plaing Doom3... SMP rocks.

Prices are US.

Where is this mystical Opteron board with PCI-E slots for sale?

 

[SONYFX]

when will the price of 754 drop?

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Cerb

Originally posted by: drag
Get dual Opterons. They have PCI Express already.

Dual 1.8ghz (244) and a nice (independant memory busses for each proccessor, cheaper boards share one memory pathway for both proccessors which puts a choke) will run you about a 400 dollars for the motherboard and 327 for each proccessor.

Or get a dual cpu board and a single proccessor (should work) and pay for the 2nd cpu later when the next upgrade comes around and they are cheaper. A 2.4ghz (248) Opteron costs 670 dollars or so.

That way you can have a computer that you can play doom3 + ripping DVD's + downloading crap + whatever else with the same ease as a guy with one Althon64 CPU just plaing Doom3... SMP rocks.

Prices are US.

Where is this mystical Opteron board with PCI-E slots for sale?

My my. Aren't we condensending tonight?

Sorry got PCI-X and PCI-E mixed up again.

Although a few of them do have AGP 8x

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: Cerb

Originally posted by: drag
Get dual Opterons. They have PCI Express already.

Dual 1.8ghz (244) and a nice (independant memory busses for each proccessor, cheaper boards share one memory pathway for both proccessors which puts a choke) will run you about a 400 dollars for the motherboard and 327 for each proccessor.

Or get a dual cpu board and a single proccessor (should work) and pay for the 2nd cpu later when the next upgrade comes around and they are cheaper. A 2.4ghz (248) Opteron costs 670 dollars or so.

That way you can have a computer that you can play doom3 + ripping DVD's + downloading crap + whatever else with the same ease as a guy with one Althon64 CPU just plaing Doom3... SMP rocks.

Prices are US.

Where is this mystical Opteron board with PCI-E slots for sale?

My my. Aren't we condensending tonight?

Why yes, we are.
/me sips from dainty tea cup

Sorry got PCI-X and PCI-E mixed up again.

Although a few of them do have AGP 8x

And a few even have PCI-X, AGP and dual sockets.

 

[drag]

Why yes, we are.
/me sips from dainty tea cup

 

[Xsane]

So if I have a computer that I bought in 2001 and haven't upgraded since (Athlon 1.2GHz TBird, 256MB PC133, 30GB HD), should I get the socket 939 with say a 3800+? Or is that just a huge waster of money and the 3500+ would be better to get?

I am definately getting a new computer. Bleeding edge. I have been waiting since July of last year to get it. But there was always something 'just around the corner' and so I have now waited for a year. I have set about 3 definate deadlines since July and the last one expired 4 months ago. So June/beginning July is when I will upgrade. Just a question of what to get.

Thanks.

 

[Cerb]

It's not worth it to go to 939, unless the prices make it $30 or less for the upgrade from 754. PCI-E is the thing to wait on. Once you can get a mobo w/ PCI-E slots and within your budget, buy. Video and sound depend on what you have and what you do, but for the core components, PCI-E is all you should really wait for.

 

[imported_NoGodForMe]

I'll wait. 939 uses regular memory.

Review sites we're telling everyone that 939 was a month away. Yeah, for them. But for everyone else, it's more like 3 months. I predict August is when 939 boards with PCI will be in stores, and it will be a great Christmas season.

 

[jdogg707]

Originally posted by: Cerb
It's not worth it to go to 939, unless the prices make it $30 or less for the upgrade from 754. PCI-E is the thing to wait on. Once you can get a mobo w/ PCI-E slots and within your budget, buy. Video and sound depend on what you have and what you do, but for the core components, PCI-E is all you should really wait for.

Agreed, not waiting for PCI-E is like people who decided AGP wasn't important. It will be a big part of computing over the next years and will save you the trouble of tossing out all your components for new ones just because you can't find non-PCI E cards.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: NoGodForMe
I'll wait. 939 uses regular memory.

Review sites we're telling everyone that 939 was a month away. Yeah, for them. But for everyone else, it's more like 3 months. I predict August is when 939 boards with PCI will be in stores, and it will be a great Christmas season.

Socket 754 uses regular memory as well...
Personally, I'll be waiting until they hit 3GHz, and maybe then some--until I need PCI-E.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

ASRock has that K8 combo board coming out that supports 754&939 so it looks like you may soon be able to go skt754 and then upgrade to 939 later when prices fall K8 combo Trippy.....

 

[ath50]

If you plan on buying within the next few months, I would stick with 754. Next time you upgrade your processor you will probably get a new motherboard with PCI Express, BTX Form, DDR2 memory...even if the old one was 939 socket.

 

[Illissius]

754, no question.
The /only/ drawback is the limited upgradability (supposedly the 3700+ will be the last), so you'll have to get a new motherboard if you want upgrade to anything faster. However, the price premium on socket 939 is such that the money you save will actually /pay/ for that mobo, and then some .
Caveat: AMD seems to base its pricing entirely on Intel's, so they should drop rather significantly once they get 3.6GHz Prescotts out. No idea when that's happening, though.