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Which one should I have? I can't decide, please help me.

Bad Dude

Diamond Member
Hi everyone,
I have the Intel Northwood, P4 3.4Ghz@3.6Ghz on the Abit AI7 board with the i865PE chipset. I am considering going to the AMD Athlon64 socket 939, 3000+ chip with the Abit AV8 board with the VIA chipset. I am also considering the Epox Epox 9NDA3+ more likely also. I just like the Abit with their hit a key on the keyboard and the system turns on.

The remaining of my hardware:
-Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB
-4X512MB OCZ PC4000 Gold Rev. 2
-Two Maxtor sATA 250GB in RAID 0 setup.
-I got the MCX4000 heatsink.
-SB Creative Audigy 2.

Should I move on to AMD Athlon64 or keep my Intel setup.

I am playing a little games like Half Life 2. But most of the time not enough time to play too much. I do some video editing and encoding, but very minimal. Most of the time normal web surfing. I will probably play more games than video stuff.
I am having difficulty deciding b/c of the hyperthread. How much better to do other things?
I am also concern that my 4X512MB OCZ PC4000 Gold Rev. 2, won't run at least at DDR400 on any of the Socket 939 boards. With 4 sticks it runs at DDR333.
What's the chance of the P4 2.4C to overclock to 3.6Ghz?
Thanks for helping me out with a tough decision.
 
Well you have a nice setup right now. If you have the money to spend on an A64 then go right ahead. As of right now WindowsXP64 hasn't been officially released so drivers are hard to come by. If your not playing that many games then save your money. You could upgrade your video card if you would like. With that Ram and Processor it would run any game you would like without a problem. X800XT or the 6800 GT or Ultra will do wonders. Or save up your money and buy SLI or NForce 4 or even Dual Video Cards for the SLI.
 
Sheesh man, your setup now is killer!

Don't change anything unless you want to get a better video card for games.
 
Thanks guys. I think I am going to keep my setup. Did I tell you guys that I have a 30 caps too? For some reason, I can't get it to go higher than 3.6Ghz. Any pointers?
Thanks.
 
Hi guys,
I am going to revisit this question again. I would like higher FSB to get a little more responsiveness from my system. Should I get the P4 2.4C? Which of the Northwood should I get to overclock to at least 3.8Ghz?

Thanks.
 
Originally posted by: Bad_Dude
Hi guys,
I am going to revisit this question again. I would like higher FSB to get a little more responsiveness from my system. Should I get the P4 2.4C? Which of the Northwood should I get to overclock to at least 3.8Ghz?

Thanks.

How do you mean responsive?
Your system should be able to handle just about anything, there are no upgrades that I would consider worthwhile, short of going for an SMP rig, even that depends on what you would use it for.

Don't bother with a new CPU, if anything, buy a new gfx card cause that's really the only weak part of your rig(comparatively speaking).
 
Sometime when I open an application, it seems to take a longer time to open compares even to the Athlon XP system that I got. I was just wondering with going to a lower chip and overclock to run higher FSB will make my system more responsive.
Thanks.
 
Most motherboards offer the wake on LAN or peripheral option (which can be turned on in the BIOS boot screen), so that shouldn't limit your motherboard choice.

Unless you want to go the dually P4 route, might just want to stay with your rig (minus that videocard, as it's on the lowside if you're a gamer or into heavy 2D/3D graphics).
 
Originally posted by: Terumo
Most motherboards offer the wake on LAN or peripheral option (which can be turned on in the BIOS boot screen), so that shouldn't limit your motherboard choice.

Unless you want to go the dually P4 route, might just want to stay with your rig (minus that videocard, as it's on the lowside if you're a gamer or into heavy 2D/3D graphics).

I am thinking for a P4C 2.4Ghz@3.6Ghz.
 
Thing is look at the upgrade path coming up. P4's will be in a dually config in the near future. If you have money to spend and OC that's fine, but personally I'd wait and save the money for a processor that can run like Xeons. You may not need that type of processing power and ultra multithreading, but it'll be possible by the end of this year if you crave raw power (and on a folding team you can run through work units in no time). 😉

I don't OC my system -- heat and electronics to me don't match, critical stability is more important (why I would even think of paying $300 for a PSU). :/
 
If you want a quieter powerhouse, go AMD.
Otherwise, keep your money for something worthy.
 
Originally posted by: Dru22
Well you have a nice setup right now. If you have the money to spend on an A64 then go right ahead. As of right now WindowsXP64 hasn't been officially released so drivers are hard to come by. If your not playing that many games then save your money. You could upgrade your video card if you would like. With that Ram and Processor it would run any game you would like without a problem. X800XT or the 6800 GT or Ultra will do wonders. Or save up your money and buy SLI or NForce 4 or even Dual Video Cards for the SLI.

Some sound advice.
 
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