What's wrong with 754?

[Lil' Timmy]

what's the fastest cpu you can get with a 754 mobo? 3600+?

edit: uhh........ what the.. :stare:

edit again: forum strageness notwithstanding, i googled a bit and it looks like you'll be able to use an athlon64 3700+ with 754. do you think that'll be fast enough for you in the future? i don't know your budget, but that's probably good for the next couple of years at least.. pop in a new radeon or geforce, and you'd be money, imo.

 

[FictiousWill]

AMD has left socket 754 in the dust, so there won't be any more upgrades in that direction. I am looking to upgrade (and finally get rid of my ti4200) and the 754 looks like a great choice, namely because of low prices. Then again, I won't be able to upgrade then unless I get a new mobo. I was thinking about the a64 3200. If I did go with the 754, would the money saved offset the inability to upgrade? If I did go with a 939 or something, by the time I wanted to upgrade that, would that mobo not be rather out of date too?

Apologies for a very disjointed post. And further apologies for yet another booring 'help me upgrade my comp' thread. I do tech support for my neighborhood and I know how annoying it is. That said, however:


Current rig:
amd athlon 2800+
geforce4 ti4200
asus via kt600 chipset
Hard drives of varying size and goodness
liteon 24-10-40 cdrw (but no dvd)


I will probably replace all of it, giving the current setup to my family who are beginning to need a family computer instead of using mine all the time. As I mentioned above, I was thinking of the socket 754 amd64 3200, a decent mobo (hopefully an nforce with ddr and onboard sound). A gig of decent ram, dunno what kind. I won't get an x800, because it costs more than a major organ transplant. So I'll probably spring for a 9800 pro of some description. Then I'll find some HDs (hopefully over 50 gigs each) and raid them. Top it off with a dvd r/w/r+- whatever drive.


So what should I do? 754? I'm on a budget, but I want a kickass upgrade. What suggestions do you have, and what problems might I encounter? Thanks!

 

[^Ben]

754

They wont abandon this socket for a while will probably turn into AMD's budget range to replace socket A and AMD XP's

 

[Lil' Timmy]

754

They wont abandon this socket for a while will probably turn into AMD's budget range to replace socket A and AMD XP's

yeah, they're going to replace the XPs with the sempron (or something like that), but i'm pretty sure that'll be both 939 and 754 (939 being 3800+ and upwards). i could be mistaken though.

 

[Asus]

AMD has left socket 754 in the dust

AMD hasn't left Socket 754 in the dust but will be adjusting it's purpose.

 

[FictiousWill]

excellent! so a 3200 a64 socket 754 looks to be a good buy.

 

[mortiz]

If you want good (or better should I say) RAM performence go with the 939's because they support Dual Channel RAM.

 

[FictiousWill]

Wait, 754 doesn't support dual channel? crap! The 939 is damn expensive too.

 

[mortiz]

Wait, 754 doesn't support dual channel? crap! The 939 is damn expensive too.

nope, you can use Dual Channel RAM with 754's and it'll work, but only single channel will be utilized.

 

[SidewinderX]

moving to hardware/software.

 

[Asus]

Dual or Single channel memory is a feature of the memory controller rather than the arrangement of the memory.

Socket 754 may not have dual channel but it is hardly needed. They do have 1MB L2 cache rather than the 512KB on the Socket 939 A64's.
They perform respective of their model numbers pretty well. The only CPUs that I think don't are the 2800+ and 3000+ which IMO perform as 2900+ and 3100+.

When did most of you buy your current PCs? Would you wait the same amount of time again before upgrading? You arn't just updating your CPU this time, do you really think you will update just your CPU next time around? Socket 754 is a fine platform.

 

[mortiz]

Socket 754 may not have dual channel but it is hardly needed. They do have 1MB L2 cache rather than the 512KB on the Socket 939 A64's.

That's only because the Newcastle's are the only core available for the S939's at the moment. When the S939 Clawhammers hit retail we should see some real results.

 

[amneziac85]

754 isnt being left in the dust, and by the time you actually upgrade again, your gonna beed to buy a new mobo anyway for other reasons, so go with 754...nothings wrong with it...

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=25077

 

[FictiousWill]

lol @ Lil' Timmy, now that's what I call hijacking a thread!

Looks like the 3200 a64 is the one for me. Thanks for all the responses, you guys are great, as always!

1000th post!

 

[Asus]

The only CPU on Socket 939 (Other than mainstream A64's) that will have anything other than 512KB L2 Cache is the A64 FX's which have the 1MB L2 Cache.

 

[oopsmaster]

Sorry to dredge this topic back up from last week, but I also heavily debate about "future upgradability" when buying new systems, and I was looking at the Socket 754 A64s too...

Here's my NEW (personal) take on this dilemma: Don't bother. Every time I've bought a new system, be it 386, Pentium, Pentium II, or Pentium III I've always tried to factor in the ability for an upgrade and made sure the motherboard had some capability to run a newer, faster processor later on if I needed more power. The only thing is, by the time you really notice the computer is much slower it tends not to make financial sense to upgrade anymore for the amount of performance you gain.

I have only ever upgraded ONE of my computers' processors, and that was the 386 that had a 486 socket built into the motherboard. Plugged in a swapmeet 486, adjusted a few things, and Doom was suddenly running like a mofo. Yay.

All my other computers either get sold or "cascaded" down to people like my brother - just like the way the US dumps their old tanks and stuff to 3rd world nations. The problem is that after a year or so, a new chip comes out that is fantastically faster, and requires a new motherboard, new memory, and who knows what else (ATX power supplies anyone?). Video cards are almost the same way. ISA-->PCI-->AGP-->AGPx2/4/8/etc,etc. I've upgraded video cards only twice. Harddrives? I remember when 120MB was "big". Then there's IDE-->EIDE-->ATA-->SATA.... By the time is all said and done, you may as well spend an extra couple hundred dollars or so and just buy a whole new computer!

So, my new strategy is to simply buy higher performance parts now so that hopefully the system will last as long as possible until it too becomes obsolete. The only good news is, computers are still getting cheaper. I can spend the same amount of money in today's dollars as I did over 10 years ago, and still get into a higher performance bracket or get more goodies (like writable drives) than I could back then.

Just my personal opinion on this issue.


EDIT: This way of thinking really only makes sense if you do not have to always be on "the cutting edge" of course....