To Socket 939 or not to....

[ionoxx]

Alright ladies and gents... i need you advice!

I currently have the setup indicated below in my signature.... The K8T800 chipset has no PCI/AGP lock and well... that poses a few difficulties for OCing. Here are my options:


Option 1:
Sell Asus K8V (K8T800)
Buy Asus K8N (nForce3-250Gb)

Option 2:
Sell Asus K8V (K8T800)
Sell AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Skt 754
Buy Asus A8V-Deluxe
Buy AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Skt 939

I already have another Ballistix Dimm on order for my b-day so i can put them in dual-channel. With the buying and selling it costs me 15$ for option 1 and about 50$ for option 2. Will i see a significant improvement with dual channel mem during gaming? Does it justify the extra money?

 

[Ike0069]

If you plan to OC, you should go with an nVidia chipset. Which means don't go with the A8V Deluxe. I would look at just getting a DFI Lan Party MB for the S754. That board OC's incredibly well.

 

[Woody419]

You will see absolutely no change during gaming. Maybe 1% faster, will you notice 1%? Not likely.The biggest inprovement and the only place to put your money is to upgrade your graphic card.

Think of memory as the sparks plugs in a car. Say changing to a hotter, high performance spark plug will give you a 1% performance boost. Before your car went from 0 - 60 mph in 10 seconds. With the 1% boost is will now go 0 - 60 mph in 9.9 seconds. Is it faster? Yes. Will you ever notice? No.

You forgot to put in
Option #3:
I need to go out more and get a life

 

[Hyperlite]

Originally posted by: Woody419
You will see absolutely no change during gaming. Maybe 1% faster, will you notice 1%? Not likely.The biggest inprovement and the only place to put your money is to upgrade your graphic card.

Think of memory as the sparks plugs in a car. Say changing to a hotter, high performance spark plug will give you a 1% performance boost. Before your car went from 0 - 60 mph in 10 seconds. With the 1% boost is will now go 0 - 60 mph in 9.9 seconds. Is it faster? Yes. Will you ever notice? No.

You forgot to put in
Option #3:
I need to go out more and get a life

whos this guy?

add another 512mb of RAM and call it good, or if you really want to go 939, get an MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum or a DFI Lanparty (dunno exact model) and a winnie 3200 or 3000+ and oc your brains out.

If i were you, i'd just get another 512mb of ram and wait for dual core and sktM2.

 

[ionoxx]

I see, well... thank you for your help woody... Comments like that are always helpful and welcome. Some people need to relax sometimes, and thats where gaming comes in. I plays games to get away from my busy and stressful life.

Thank you Ike.

Anyone else have any good ideas?

 

[Hyperlite]

yeah read my edit ^ ^ ^ ^

 

[wseyller]

If you look at my sig you'll see I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. I regret not waiting and getting a board with pci/agp lock, but there will always be something better a week after you buy something. I have wondered the exact same thing as you. I think you should stay away from another 754 board. There is not much future there. If you do get another board I would go with the 939 which means you will need another processor. Chances are unless you are strapped with cash it's not really worth it because what you have is not much slower. I would wait another year until something better comes along. What you could do is buy another stick of 512mb ram which will make a big difference in most games. Another item would be your video card. Those two items being upgraded will give you the most boost in performance especially when considering gaming. My next item will be a videocard but I'm waiting a little while to see how mine runs with a the BF2 game i'm waiting on for release.

 

[Cares]

I say got for a 939 for sure. 754 chips don't support dual memory and that'll give you a huge performance hit. 939 is the win!

 

[ionoxx]

From what i've seen from a single comparative benchmark, the DC memory only gives about 1-5% increase in performance.

How well do the NewCastle A64 overclock? From the anandtech review of the K8N, they were significantly limited? And how well can you overclock the Winnies or even the older while air cooled. I have 4 case fans, 1 slot fan, ThermalTake TR2-M6 and a TrueBlue480 PSU.

 

[MTSteel]

ionoxx,

Is your PC slow at anything you currently do? Games not performig the way you want? If that is the case, go with a new video card, x800xl or 6800GT.
I would not waste my $$$ on upgrading the CPU/mobo you currently have simply because you cannot OC it. That thing should run great!
Now, if you can get a good penny for the system you have, I would go 939 without a doubt!
Honestly though, with the system you are running, I would sit back, enjoy the speed, and see where AMD is going with Venice and Toledo before I moved! You may regret it once again if you move now.

I jumped to a new system now because I had a KT266a and 8500le that was not doing so well online with CS:S I could play, in DX7, with no eyecandy, which got old real fast!! Tired of dieing because of 20FPS..hehe!!

GL (pssst, save your cash right now)

Ok I am done

 

[ionoxx]

Won't the Venice and Toledo run on Skt 939? Anyways, Toledo is Dual Core, Its a home PC and unless games become multi-threaded anytime soon I won't need one. From my current standpoint, aside from 1-5% increase in speed, the only reason i see need for 939 is more room for future upgrade, right?

Venice will be what anyways? Single core more speed?

 

[MTSteel]

You are correct, you do not really need a 939 setup. ( I do not think you need a new mobo either(but that is not my choice, hehe))

So, if you really want a good mobo for OC, and stick with the other parts you have, there is one good answer, and that is the DFI Lanparty UT nf3.

 

[Woody419]

Originally posted by: ionoxx
I see, well... thank you for your help woody... Comments like that are always helpful and welcome. Some people need to relax sometimes, and thats where gaming comes in. I plays games to get away from my busy and stressful life.

Thank you Ike.

Anyone else have any good ideas?

OMG, I forgot the Smiley Face :laugh:
Please excuse my feeble attempt at humor if you were offended. No need to defend your lifestyle here.

I think you will find my comments regarding your system upgrade is spot on. More memory will make things seem snappier, but frame rates are still limited by your graphics card. I just upgraded from a 9800 Pro, playing games on a 22" CRT at 1024x768 with the eye candy off was not cutting it. By the way, I also have a K8V, 3200+ (939) with a gig of ram. The speed difference between a 754 and 939 is minimal and not worth the effort to change over. A graphic card based on an nVidia 6600gt would be a great upgrade with a very definite performance jump. You can still sell the 9800 for $150, which would make a new card cost a little over $50. If you are strapped for cash, this is what you should have done instead of buying more memory. (Don't shoot the mesenger).

 

[Demonicon]

Just stick with what you have. Overclocking isn't going to make or break your system anyway. Remember this experience next time you upgrade your computer. It pays to do some research before buying.

 

[ionoxx]

Actually, The new 512Mb of ram i got for Free, essencially, gift from friends. So from that is why moving to 939 would be cheaper. I do see your point with keeping the K8V and getting bigger better GFX. But that upgrade would be too much money. I'm willing to spend up to 50-75$CDN for an small upgrade, but a significant upgrade would require 200-300$, here's what i mean.

These are prices near me on new parts:

289$CDN: Sapphire RADEON 9800 PRO-128mb
415$CDN: Asus V9999GT, Geforce 6800GT,8x,128mb,GDDR3
525$CDN: Sapphire RADEON X800 Pro-256mb
555$CDN: Asus V9999GT, Geforce 6800GT,8x,256mb,GDDR3

 

[Ike0069]

If you can sell your current MB, I still say just get the DFI and OC the crap out of that 3200+. The cost would only be a few $$, and think of the fun you can have OC'ing. You will see some performance increase in games, but that's not the point. OC'ing is fun and the DFI Lan Party just makes it easy.

 

[Trente]

If you want to improve gaming experience, upgrade your videocard and add another 512MB. Do NOT invest in a new CPU/motherboard combo...

 

[ionoxx]

From the prices i can get, it would cost me the same upgrading to Asus A8V as it would DFI NF3... strange, eh?

Changing the proc doesn't cost me anything. I have a buyer for 239$CDN, and a Skt 939 costs 239$CDN...

As for the MB i can get:

A8V-DELUXE 169$
K8N 115$ (I don't need theextra gadgets from the Deluxe version i have them leftover from an old MB)
DFI LanParty 167$

the asus i can get good prices on from a friend, but the DFI he can't get so i have to go get it from TigerDirect.ca

The two dimms of Crucial i already have, the 2nd one not listed below i got as a gift (which i'm leaving to pick up now )

 

[Ike0069]

Well, maybe sell the 3200+ and buy a S939 3000+. It will be a Winchester and should easily get to 2.2 GHz (3500+ speed). With a good OC'ing board (MSI Neo2 Platinum), you could probably reach 2.4 - 2.6 GHz. The Winchester's run cool and OC very well.

 

[ionoxx]

Yeah, that might be a possibility, but I am not touching an MSI board with a ten foot poll! I've had 2 crap out on me, a K7T266 Pro2 and the KT3 Ultra that replaced it too!

 

[Ike0069]

Originally posted by: ionoxx
Yeah, that might be a possibility, but I am not touching an MSI board with a ten foot poll! I've had 2 crap out on me, a K7T266 Pro2 and the KT3 Ultra that replaced it too!

Well, I can understand that. But ASUS doesn't mak3 a S939 NF3 board, so maybe try the EPOX. You will want the Nvida chipset when you OC.

 

[ionoxx]

Well, I have a good one for you guys....


I just added my 2nd 512Mb Dimm of ballistix mem. Fortunatly it had quite the dramatic effect. I used to run CS:Source Video Stress Test at 60FPS... now with 1GB mem... it runs at 90FPS!!! Who da thunk it?

Now its playing at 1024x768, 6xAF, 16xAA, and everything else at high. I love it!

Screw the Mobo Upgrade!

Could it maybe somehow related with a change in PSU, I too the liberty of also changing my TruePower 330 to a TrueBlue 480W?

Woohoo anyways!

 

[Woody419]

The computer gods are smiling on you.

 

[wseyller]

We told you another stick of ram would make a huge difference in performance. When you play games like CS:S or BF1942 that use 75% to 95% of 1gb of ram including what it takes to run everything else in memory this makes a big difference. Before with 512mb, when your memory gets full while loading the game it will have to put it in virtual memory which is on your harddrive. Harddrives run many many times slower than ram. The next item that is holding you back the most would be your video card. Let's say you did improve your cpu clock speed you would get faster cpu performance, but in gaming it will be slight due to the bottleneck from your videocard.