What will Socket 754 owners do?

[Gusty987]

I am going to buy a socket 754 processor and motherboard today because:

A. I'm told S939 equipment won't be available for a while after June 1st.
B. I'm told S939 equipment will be highly overpriced early on.

I'm wondering what will all of us Socket 754 users do as time goes on? Will you get the highest 754 processor and be happy with that for a while, or will you upgrade straight to Socket 939 CPU and mobo when they are widely available and justly priced?

 

[Dufrane]

I also could not wait until June so I too have a socket 754. However I am not worried about upgrading since I have a good friend who will be interested in my current setup when I upgrade.

 

[mitchafi]

Well I just built my socket 754 system recently and am not worried about a thing. Down the road perhaps I'll upgrade to a K8T800 pro for better overclocking, or maybe If I can hold out longer I'll get a socket 939 processor and mobo when they aren't so expensive.

 

[Nyati13]

I always upgrade CPU and motherboard at the same time, so Socket 754, Socket 939 whatever.. It doesn't make the slightest difference to my upgrade cycle.

Jeremy

 

[Dman877]

Originally posted by: Nyati13
I always upgrade CPU and motherboard at the same time, so Socket 754, Socket 939 whatever.. It doesn't make the slightest difference to my upgrade cycle.

Jeremy

Yup. New cpu's = new chipsets. 939 performance doesn't look that great anyway, a 3400+ was beating a 3500+ 939 in many benches. When a 3700+ drops to 200$ I might drop that in but at that time I'm sure we'll be at 4000+ with NF3-450 and K8T1200 boards or whatever and I'll be too tempted by the newer technology. With me its all about how long I can hold out against the urge to upgrade . I just bought a new car though, so that should keep me satisfied for a bit.

 

[Ronnie]

I could not hold out and bought one back in january. I'm glad I did. Next january if the 939 socket is smoking my 754 I will upgrade to it.

 

[Bar81]

You enjoy the elite performance S754 offers for the next year and then upgrade to S900 with DDR2 667 in Q2 of 2005. S939 is nothing but an interim stopgag until S900; in fact I'm not even sure why it exists as the dual channel interface offers little in the way of tangible benefits to the A64 platform.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Considering those of us who have good overclocking skt754 boards are averaging 2.4ghz with a 2ghz chip, and that's 200mhz faster than the 3400+ I'd say there will be little incentive to upgrade given the aforementioned minimal difference in performance between skt754 and 939. I'll be swapping my nF3 150 for a nF3 250GB solution but will be content with 2.4ghz on my 3000+ for sometime to come otherwise.

 

[McArra]

My PC should last me at least a year from now...

 

[Jeff7181]

I'm pretty sure the only benefit socket 939 has over 754 is dual memory channels. One disadvantage is it seems as though the only socket 939 CPU's with 1 MB L2 cache will be the FX line. But it looks like socket 754 will continue to have 1 MB of L2 cache for a while longer. I guess the question becomes, what's more important, a large L2 cache to reduce the amount of "RAM hits," or less L2 cache, but more memory bandwidth?

 

[jrphoenix]

Here is a little twist to the original question. I have been holding out for socket 939 and the new top end video cards to hit retail. One of the reasons I am waiting is because I am moving from Colorado Springs to Florida on June 18. I don't want to attempt my first build and have to cart (maybe break in the move) my new system. So.... if a person is buying near the end of June / begining of July, would you still recommend socket 754 or will the 939 be reasonably priced then?

BTW... I don't know how to overclock really (I understand the principal) so, I was going to get a top end Atlon 64 3700 or 3800.

Please let me know what you think?

 

[Schnieds]

Originally posted by: Nyati13
I always upgrade CPU and motherboard at the same time, so Socket 754, Socket 939 whatever.. It doesn't make the slightest difference to my upgrade cycle.

Jeremy

Exactly

 

[Gusty987]

How much will the S939 CPU's cost at launch?

 

[mechBgon]

The biggest single attraction of S939 for me would be support for at least four DDR400 DIMMs (at DDR400 speed). That means 2GB of RAM without investing in 1GB DIMMs. Since I own three DDR400 DIMMs already, being able to pick up one more and reach 2GB would be nice.

 

[imported_JGF]

Amazingly enough I think I'm going to go with a new socket 754 solution too. My reasoning?

1) Initial socket 939 chipsets/boards arent going to support PCI-E. PCI-E support (for athlon64) wont arrive until late summer/early fall (ie august - septemberish). So obviously if I want to upgrade a video card in 18 months I'll need a new motherboard anyways.

2) Initial indications are socket 939 Athlon64s performance numbers arent all that impressive vs socket 754 performance numbers. In fact in most gaming benchmarks the 939 chip is actually slower (albeit pretty much insignificantly so).

3) 939 availability is apparently going to be limited for first several months. Not until Q4 is production supposed to really ramp up. That means they'll be hard to find and will likely carry a premium price.

So, amazingly enough it looks like my forthcoming (and long overdue) new system will be built around a Athlon64 3700+ on an nforce250 platform. Of course if official reviews show that the 939 processers DO have a performance edge (contrary to what initial leaked numbers are showing) I may consider the 3800+ but the availability/pricing will also come into play.

 

[JBT]

If I was going to get an A64 I would just got for a 754 anyways. I upgrade mobo's pretty much whenever I get a new CPU so no problem for me. I don't plan on upgrading for awhile anyways so I will be waiting.

 

[essasin]

I just upgraded to a64 3400 and msi neo fisr and waiting for abit, dfi or new plat to upgrade if anything

 

[SickBeast]

It's very very rare to have an upgrade path this year. I would say just buy whatever suits you for the moment and don't worry about it.

The only CPU platform I've ever seen with a nice upgrade path was Socket-A. It lasted like 3 years or something, maybe more. I guess you could say Socket-370 as well, but it required mods to get the newer chips to run.

I would say that the S-754 owners are going to do like the rest of us and buy new hardware when they need to.
:beer:

 

[imported_Aelius]

I wouldn't put any stock in leaked benchmarks. I have seen them before for the current A64 generation and it was false because they were looking at a pre retail CPU.

A good example of this is Tom's Hardware where they pretty much declared the new A64 CPU as trash, but at least they commented at the end that it was a pre retail CPU.

I will hold out judgement until the retail CPUs actually hit reviewers.

 

[RockGuitarDude]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I'm pretty sure the only benefit socket 939 has over 754 is dual memory channels. One disadvantage is it seems as though the only socket 939 CPU's with 1 MB L2 cache will be the FX line. But it looks like socket 754 will continue to have 1 MB of L2 cache for a while longer. I guess the question becomes, what's more important, a large L2 cache to reduce the amount of "RAM hits," or less L2 cache, but more memory bandwidth?

less cache means lower production costs via less trasistors needed. more profit for AMD unless they should decide to pass it onto the end user to offer a more competitive price point.

 

[imported_Aelius]

If indeed the performance on new CPUs does end up being lower then they will have no choice but to drop prices, possibly quite a bit. That's gona hurt AMD but not as much as it will hurt AMD's image. Currently AMD has a head and shoulders lead over Intel but this could cause them to take a major tumble that could take them as much as a year to recover from when the next batch of CPUs arrive.

The best thing going for them would be that the CPUs pretty much stay at the same performance level. Anything above that would be pure gravy for us.

One can hope anyway.

 

[Jhatfie]

I'm sticking with my A64 3000+. Then in about a year or so I'll move it to be my secondary machine and build a new one based on whatever I feel is the best option for me at the time. I do not think that socket 939 will be all that much faster initially than my A64 @ 2.5ghz anyway.

 

[stardust]

I bought 754 and overclocked my A64 3000+ to 2.4ghz. I'll upgrade when newer technology can beat my current setup for the same price at stock, that's always been my philosophy. Then overclock the crap out of the new setup and wait for even newer cheaper faster parts..etc..

I think that 939 won't have huge performance leaps over 754 clock for clock, but the 939 will allow for higher speed grades..

 

[nvfx]

Hmm. Excuse me guys, i'll get an 64 3000 my self next 4 days BUT have any one thought about the largest chip maker INTEL. What do you think about thier progress in 64 bits. Believe me or not when the Big boys going to come up with 64 bits, its really going to kiss some butts, now believe that. Ya sure dude a 64 3000 will last for an year atleast. Go for it.

 

[joe2004]

For now Hammer rules, and 754 is the way to go given the prices. I am done with mobile Bartons, A-64 is faster and better, Intel offers are in disarray. I don't know what to wait, if you want to wait then you'll never have anything because it is always "in a few months ... something better comes out".