Upgrading socket 754 for last time: Need advice.

[Salvador]

First off I have two main systems. A socket A system based on the Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe and Barton 2500+ and a system based on a socket 754 ECS nForce3-A and Sempron 2600+ (purchased in a Fry's combo). I'm looking to upgrade, but I'm not sure which path I should take and need some advice. The advice that I'm looking for here is what to do with the socket 754 system.

I'm looking to upgrade the cpu on the socket 754 to a 3200+ A64 Venice because it's dirt cheap ($36). I've heard that it's a nice bump over the Sempron that I have. Now.. Newegg has a combo deal right now with an ECS K8M800 chipset MATX mobo that I could get for $30 more ($35 with shipping). The reason why I want a second board is because then I could use the Sempron on one of the boards and use the Venice on another board making two systems with the leftover AGP and DDR that I have. The problems that I have with this K8M800 is that it's MATX and because I would want to use an ATI 9800 Pro with this board and I've heard that people have issues with the ATI cards and VIA chipsets.

The other option that I have is to buy a MSI K8N Neo (nForce3 250) for around $35 and use the Venice chip, but keep the ECS/Sempron socket 754 system intact, yet have another system. The problem that I have with the nForce3 chipsets at this point is the lack of Vista support if I want to go that route. I wouldn't want to go witht he nForce4 because I don't want to move away from AGP just yet.

Is the MSI K8N Neo a better board than the ECS nForce3-a even though it uses the same chipset? Which chipset is better (faster)? The nForce3 or the VIA K8M800?

Should I be messing around with socket 754 at this point even though it's really cheap or just save my pennies and get something else?

Sorry for all of the questions. For some reason, I just can't make a decision here. I want to maximize my money, but I don't want to be penny wise and pound foolish.

 

[Peter]

I'm pondering that move (Sempron 2600 -> Athlon 3200 Venice) too.

Chipsets aren't much of a factor to AMD64 board performance, simply because the RAM controller is on the CPU, not in the chipset. VIA's chipsets perform nominally in storage and USB, and that's what counts. If you're actually going to use the integrated shared-memory graphics on the K8M800, that's going to make RAM access slower obviously.

So if you have DDR RAM to spare, why not make that move. If you had to buy new RAM, then I'd say go with a current platform.

 

[Peter]

(triple post due to forum hickup. sorry.)

 

[Peter]

()

 

[covert24]

Well the Venice core has been proven to be very stable on the 939 platform so there shouldn't be any reason for it not to be good on the 754 platform. id go with the MSI board as if you run vista your not going to be getting any type of good performances out of either of those choices. The nforce is the better one im pretty sure because its newer. Personally i would have just scraped both systems and went with a nice core2duo or AM2 system. much better value in those 2 then anything else.

 

[Peter]

Problem with the older NForce chipset is lack of Vista drivers. VIA in turn have been particularly good at driver support.

 

[Salvador]

Thanks for the replies guys! I appreciate it.

Originally posted by: covert24
Well the Venice core has been proven to be very stable on the 939 platform so there shouldn't be any reason for it not to be good on the 754 platform. id go with the MSI board as if you run vista your not going to be getting any type of good performances out of either of those choices. The nforce is the better one im pretty sure because its newer. Personally i would have just scraped both systems and went with a nice core2duo or AM2 system. much better value in those 2 then anything else.

Actually, I believe that the VIA K8M800 chipset is newer than the nForce3. It replaced the VIA K8T800. I lot of people don't like it either because it's MATX and has crappy onboard video. I'd rather have the extra pci slots. This has created a little demand for the K8T800 boards because they have drivers for Vista.

I think that the Venice chip would be a nice upgrade, but I hate to throw any more money at a dead platform. I'd just like to utilize my DDR RAM and AGP cards. I have two sets of 2gb DDR RAM and one set of 1gb RAM. I also have two ATI 9800 Pro's and one 6600GT AGP. Both with silent coolers on them.

I guess I could just buy the Venice chip for my ECS nForce3-a board and skip the extra board. If I had an extra board though, I could make another cheap system for just the price of another socket 754 board because I have all the parts to make another complete system. I could replace my dad's or mom's socket A system with it even though the socket A system works fine for what they do with a computer.

There might be support for Vista from nVidia for the nForce3. I've read that they are working on it. I'm not going to hold my breath though in case it doesn't happen. If the socket 754 won't run well with Vista, it's a moot point anyway.

How much would it cost me to get into a core2duo or AM2 system? I'd like to use one of those asrock mobo's, so I could utilize my AGP and DDR. The Intel system seems popular right now, but I don't know if I'd like it considering that I've only built AMD systems. Some people really don't like the Intel systems for some reason. I don't know why exactly. All I hear them say is that they are not Intel people and that they want to go back to AMD.

 

[Salvador]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: Peter
I'm pondering that move (Sempron 2600 -> Athlon 3200 Venice) too.

Chipsets aren't much of a factor to AMD64 board performance, simply because the RAM controller is on the CPU, not in the chipset. VIA's chipsets perform nominally in storage and USB, and that's what counts. If you're actually going to use the integrated shared-memory graphics on the K8M800, that's going to make RAM access slower obviously.

So if you have DDR RAM to spare, why not make that move. If you had to buy new RAM, then I'd say go with a current platform.</end quote></div>
What do you think you're going to do Peter? Upgrade your Sempron to Athlon?

No. Not going to use the onboard video at all. The only reason why I was considering this mobo was because Newegg is knocking off $20 on the cpu/mobo combo and because it's a VIA chipset. I'd rather have the extra pci slots and skip the onboard video. I thought that I might keep my options open with Vista, but since the VIA chipsets have a problem with ATI (I would use an ATI card with it), I don't see the point.

 

[Peter]

Who says that the VIA chipsets have a problem with ATI? Some trusted source, or just the usual internet forum hearsay? I wouldn't bet on any truth in this, other than that people are usually VERY quick in blaming "cheap" manufacturers for their own DIY fsckups.

By the way, K8M800 didn't replace K8T800, they're both versions of the same thing - with and without graphics inside.

 

[Salvador]

Originally posted by: Peter
Who says that the VIA chipsets have a problem with ATI? Some trusted source, or just the usual internet forum hearsay? I wouldn't bet on any truth in this, other than that people are usually VERY quick in blaming "cheap" manufacturers for their own DIY fsckups.

By the way, K8M800 didn't replace K8T800, they're both versions of the same thing - with and without graphics inside.

I was reading through the forums that said that the VIA chipsets had issues with the ATI cards. It's probably like you said.

Thanks for clearing up the info on the K8M800 and K8T800.

So, would you go with the VIA board then instead of the MSI if I went with the socket 754?

Also, how different is the quality between my ECS and MSI nForce3 boards if I go that route? Is the MSI quite a bit better or are they similar? I'd want to put the Venice chip in the better mobo of course.

 

[Peter]

ECS are the much bigger manufacturer, I've been using their boards a lot (typing this on a 755-A2, SiS chipset). Cheap because they're straightforward, no-nonsense designs made in huge production volumes. I wouldn't have to think twice before using one.

Regarding CPU compatibility with the Venice, I'd check the BIOS update pages for the board you'll be putting it onto first.

 

[Salvador]

Originally posted by: Peter
Regarding CPU compatibility with the Venice, I'd check the BIOS update pages for the board you'll be putting it onto first.

I don't know. What do you think? Here's a list of compatible cpu's on the ECS site.

 

[strafejumper]

i just upgraded my socket 754 amd 64 3000+

went with the ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA mobo
e4300
and i ended up getting ram but you may not need to

kept my IDE drives, my AGP card, my psu, optical drives, case, fans, etc.

you may only need to get the asrock mobo and the e4300 making it under $200 to upgrade.

only benchmark i have from before and after the upgrade is from quake 4 (heavily cpu dependant settings ie: 800x600 lower graphics settings)
Before:
90 fps timedemo : with the amd 3000+ socket 754 and 512 pc 2700 ram
After everything is the same in the system except new cpu/mobo/memory:
160 fps timedemo : with the c2d e4300 + 2gb pc2 8500 dual channel ram
200 fps timedemo : with c2d e4300 and smp support enabled (dual core support)

not a bad improvement for about ~$270 after shipping etc, i'm def satisfied

system:
intel c2d e4300 (new)
ASRock 4CoreDual-VSTA BIOS P1.50 (new)
2gb dual channel crucial ballistix pc8500 ram (new) (overkill: rebate offer of $85 made me impulse buy)
---------------------
AGP nvidia 6800 (old)
IDE 400 seagate 7200.9 hdd (old)
IDE 320 wd hdd (old)
creative soundblaster x-fi xtrememusic (old) (overkill: onboard prolly not that different sounding)
350 watt enermax whisper psu (old) (350 might still be enough!)

 

[Salvador]

Thank you for posting this! That seems like what I need to buy.

Someone else suggested an asrock dual sata II socket 939 with an Opteron 165. It's close to the same price and since the socket 939 is dying, I'd probably be better off with the Intel option.

I'm a little afraid of the unknown though because the only Intel systems that I've owned were pre-built boxes from Dell before I put together my own systems. AMD are the only systems that I've built.

Then again, I see a lot of people in the same situation as me (like you strafejumper) that went from an AMD system to the Intel and it doesn't seem like a big deal at all.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Peter
Who says that the VIA chipsets have a problem with ATI? Some trusted source, or just the usual internet forum hearsay? I wouldn't bet on any truth in this, other than that people are usually VERY quick in blaming "cheap" manufacturers for their own DIY fsckups.

By the way, K8M800 didn't replace K8T800, they're both versions of the same thing - with and without graphics inside.

I remember a specific BIOS fix for my MSI KT4-VL (KT400) for Radeon 9600 AGP card compatibility. That being said, I ran that rig with a R9200 and later an X850 Pro, both ATI AGP cards, without much of a problem.

 

[nick5ter]

i used the 4core-dual vsta as a jumping platform,

ive now finally moved all my stuff to DDR2 and PCI-E and a new motherboard was done just a few weeks ago

defo a good board for a jump onto Intel if u have all the old stuff from say a Athlon Platform.

will be using it as a server when i get abit more cash tho, so it dont go to waste

 

[Peter]

The "Radeon 9600" fixes were all over the place, not tied to particular chipsets. Problem was pure software - the 9600 was the first chip to dispose of AGP 1x/2x modes altogether, and some BIOSes were confused by that.

 

[Salvador]

Originally posted by: Peter
The "Radeon 9600" fixes were all over the place, not tied to particular chipsets. Problem was pure software - the 9600 was the first chip to dispose of AGP 1x/2x modes altogether, and some BIOSes were confused by that.

The biggest problem that I heard was with the ATI 9800 Pro and that's the card that I wanted to put into this VIA chipset board. Like I said, I'm just reading what people were saying on the internet and didn't know if it was true or not.