Which one of these combos is better on this budget upgrade.

[mellondust]

I'm looking for a cheap budget upgrade for wifes/kids computer. I was going to get the biostar athlon 64 3400+ combo deal from newegg and with the ram and heat sink I picked it came to around $165. I would put my old gf4 ti4200 in this. I started looking around to see what I could get for a few dollars more. For $10 or $30 more I can get one of these combos with a 939 3000+ or a 939 3500+. Comes with integrated 6100 video that I would be using becuase I don't have a pci_e card. I could get that later and they do seem to be cheaper that their agp counter parts in the low end. Any recomendations which one is going to be better. I don't mind paying $10 more if it is a better deal all around but it needs to be a bit better to pay 30$ more. I decided I'm trying to keep this as close to $175 as possible.

Thanks

 

[Lord Evermore]

Keep in mind the Socket 939 combos come with retail CPUs, so you don't have to buy a heatsink.

I'd say the Athlon64 3000+ and GF6100 combo looks like a better deal if you think you might ever want to upgrade the video. AGP simply isn't going to be around a lot longer, and fewer and fewer cards will be made as time goes on, and their prices will not be competitive after awhile (even now really only worth getting if you simply can't afford a whole new system). The GF6100's performance is probably dismal compared to the Ti4200 in 3D usage, but it is at least usable, and gives you support for newer features of DirectX where the Ti4200 can't even be compared.

Going to the 3200+ for only 10 dollars more wouldn't be a completely bad idea, and if you went to that, then the jump to the 3500+ for only 8 dollars more would be nice.

 

[counterstrikeman]

first off, theres no use in buying something thats dead. Do you need to buy top of the line like AM2 or conroe, no but dont buy anything that is dead ie socket 754. If you go socket 754 thers not really much headroom there. However people will argue that 939 is dead/dieing however i disagree. Even if AMD stops making 939 chips theres still ALOT of headroom for a person to upgrade. If you start off at a venice 3000, you can work your way up etc, also deffinately go with PCI-E with the onboard because later on down the line if you decide you WANT to upgrade to a better card, you will have a very nice system. Some of the systems that are around now that are 939 that are budget rigs are VERY VERY powerfull. Also for around that same price, let me shoot you this.

Asrock 939 dual sata 2 for around 60 i believe
Venice 3000 is around what 72 now i think
and then 1gig of cheapo ram for 70


thats a little more then you were going to spend, but would allow 1, agp and pcie, 2, an upgrade option to later processors, and 3, if you know or chose to overclock thats imo the 2nd best o/c board on the market.

ya....so this is getting pretty long heh, i hope my opinion helped, thanks.

 

[BlackTigers]

For $148, the Egg has a combo deal:

Biostar TForce 6100-939 (Retail)
AMD 3500+ VENICE (Retail)

Which is an absolute steal .

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: BlackTigers91
For $148, the Egg has a combo deal:

Biostar TForce 6100-939 (Retail)
AMD 3500+ VENICE (Retail)

Which is an absolute steal .

Agreed, nice deal and the 6100 is fine for now even for light 3D gaming. Later you can spend $70-100 on a good PCI-E card if they need better 3D.
newegg - click combo deals

 

[mellondust]

Would this be good paired with this card for the price?

geforce 6600