Ketchup
Elite Member
My computer has served me well for the past three years, and it is still plenty quick, but I find it lacking in the gaming department. I don't do a lot of gaming, but right now I currently play Need for Speed Carbon, Sid Meyer's Railroads, and Hitman Blood Money. Here is a brief overview of my system:
Athlon 64 Newcastle 3200 (2.2 GHz 512k)
DFI Lanparty NF3 250gb
1.25 GB DDR
Gainward Geforce 6800 vanilla
Thermalright XP90
Skyhawk 580-watt power supply
At first I contemplated getting a higher end AGP card, but soon realized I could get a PCI-Express card and board for the same money or less. Which then lead to the question:
Socket 754 or 939? (Remember I am going pretty cheap here)
The Abit NV8 has the NF4-4x chipset so I could drop in my cpu and ram and a nice PCI-Express video card, and I can find the board pretty cheap on eBay, but
there is a much wider selection of 939 boards available. I could get a 3200 Venice from Newegg for about $40, and it should overclock better than my Newcastle, which I can't get much above 2.5.
The only thing I am sure of is the card: an EVGA Geforce 7950GT listed here:
card
So what would you do?
1. just get the Abit 754 board and the card
2. get a 939 board, cpu, and the card
2a. and if so, what board?
3. One other thing: If I stay socket 754, I will probably also pick up a 754 3200 Venice for about $30. Which chip would be the best to get: The Socket 754 with 1 MB Cache, or the 939 Chip with 512 cache and the dual channel memory controller? I want something that will overclock well, as I am am not quite satisfied with the 2.5 I get out of my current chip.
Thank for reading, I would appreciate any input.
Athlon 64 Newcastle 3200 (2.2 GHz 512k)
DFI Lanparty NF3 250gb
1.25 GB DDR
Gainward Geforce 6800 vanilla
Thermalright XP90
Skyhawk 580-watt power supply
At first I contemplated getting a higher end AGP card, but soon realized I could get a PCI-Express card and board for the same money or less. Which then lead to the question:
Socket 754 or 939? (Remember I am going pretty cheap here)
The Abit NV8 has the NF4-4x chipset so I could drop in my cpu and ram and a nice PCI-Express video card, and I can find the board pretty cheap on eBay, but
there is a much wider selection of 939 boards available. I could get a 3200 Venice from Newegg for about $40, and it should overclock better than my Newcastle, which I can't get much above 2.5.
The only thing I am sure of is the card: an EVGA Geforce 7950GT listed here:
card
So what would you do?
1. just get the Abit 754 board and the card
2. get a 939 board, cpu, and the card
2a. and if so, what board?
3. One other thing: If I stay socket 754, I will probably also pick up a 754 3200 Venice for about $30. Which chip would be the best to get: The Socket 754 with 1 MB Cache, or the 939 Chip with 512 cache and the dual channel memory controller? I want something that will overclock well, as I am am not quite satisfied with the 2.5 I get out of my current chip.
Thank for reading, I would appreciate any input.
