Will the wait be worth it?

[AtaruMoroboshi18]

Alright, first off, I have my computer, but it has no CPU. I have been, for the past month or so, trying to figure out if I should wait for the Venice or just grab a Winchester. I will be doing no overclocking on them and will be leaving them at their stock everything. I've got everything except it, I'm getting antsy as I want to play games like DOOM 3, FarCry, HL2, and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory on my computer!

Here are my specs:

Sapphire X850 XT
TwinMOS 2x512MB RAM
DFI Ultra LANPARTY Nf4 Motherboard
Maxtor 250GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS GAMER
Mitsumi Black 1.44MB 3.5inch Floppy
Seasonic 430W PSU
and an Antec black case with a 120mm fan

I put some serious thought into everything that I put into my computer and all I need now is a 3200+ or a 3500+. Which core is better? Why should I wait? Will the memory controller be THAT helpful? What does SSE3 do to games? Is the 300+ difference worth it for some extra FPS?

This is driving me nuts! I've just got to get the final piece of my computer. What would you guys do if you had a really powerful computer that's 90% finished, with $400 in your bank account and another $300 coming your way? This is my moral dilemma...




BTW: Amazing how many posts you can compress into one single one...

 

[AristoV300]

SSE3 doesn't make a big difference now. Just buy a Winchester core.

 

[AtaruMoroboshi18]

Anyone know where to get a good priced retail one?

 

[Ben88]

If you're not gonna overclock at all, you should have gotten a 3700+ skt 754 clawhammer with a DFI nf3 250GB. What a waste to have all those other parts sitting around. Your 3500+ non oc'ed venice core will run about the same as a skt 754 3700+. If you really wanted skt 939, you could have just gone with a winchester 3500+ or a newcastle 3800+. The reason everyone is waiting for Venice is to see how high they will OC.

btw if I had $400 in my bank account, i'd be wondering how i was going to survive through the month, not worrying about a computer chip.

 

[AtaruMoroboshi18]

Waste? Not at all, I WILL be upgrading to higher components, that's why I have all of these. 939 sockets are in now, PCIe will be the new standard, etc. I've got this entirely for games and to make sure that it's future-proofed thoroughly! I just might buy a CPU or possibly overclock a 3200+. I'm just making sure I have a very good list of options at my disposal. I could overclock a 3200+, but I'm not a hardcore overclocker like most people here are and I'm afraid I might damage my computer, I want to make sure that everything is all well and good before I try such a risky activity that could hurt my system.

 

[AristoV300]

Usually NewEgg has good prices on retail chips. If you do plan on overclocking make sure you invest in better cooling like a XP-90 or Zalman 7000.

 

[tallman45]

Get a 3200+, the diff in performance over a 3500+ is not going to be that noticeable

Stay with the stock HS, the .90 core procs run very cool to start with. An XP-90 would be great to quiet down your system if it is bothering you

Pull the trigger, your 90% completed computer is doing 100% of nothing in it's current state

 

[stimpy1]

I'm in the same boat.

A date is set for the Venice to come out, it doesn't come out on that date. Then someone has "insider" info that it's coming out on another date. That day comes; no Venice....and so on.

Now I'm hearing that it may not come out until May :roll:

I wish AMD would make a FIRM date so I could actually make an informed buying decision.

 

[dng29]

I'm waiting on the Venice core too. The best to go about this is pre-order. find a place that does pre-order at a reasonable price and put in your order. that way when all etailers get their share of Venice cores, you'll be first in line to get it. I already pre-ordered a 3200+ Venice core at sparco. just do a simple froogle search for ada3200bpbox. good luck and lets hope Venice comes soon.