going to be building a computer for myself [not one that my 2 brothers and dad can do what the **** they want with hehe] , what i need to know is what cpu is better . can get board chip and memory in both but the athlon is £5 more with 512meg ddr ram less .


what i really want to know is the athlon 3000 + £5 - 512ddr better than sepron 3000 with 1gig ram ???


and on a side note which out the following would u people go for [all 256ddr] radeon 9800 / radeon x800 / gforce 6600gt ???

everything will be slightly overclocked also just to get a little more out of them but all i need is some advice please

the amd64 will be better then the sempron.

grab a socket 939 if you can

i would grab a x800 as well

Quote from dUmAsS :

the amd64 will be better then the sempron.

grab a socket 939 if you can

i would grab a x800 as well

these r the 2 i looking at

GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Valu ... E1GB3200BHDC) (MY-005-GL)
Abit NV8 nForce4 4X (Socket 75 ... s Motherboard (MB-080-AB)
AMD Sempron 64 3000+ 1.8GHz (S ... CPU - Retail (CP-137-AM)

or the athlon

GeIL 512MB (2x256MB) PC3200 Va ... E5123200BHDC) (MY-004-GL)
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice 90n ... ADA3000BPBOX) (CP-117-AM)
Abit UL8 ULi M1689 (Socket 939) Motherboard (MB-079-AB)

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Both are nice specs, but the Athlon chip will be faster. 512Mb of RAM is starting to be on the low side for gaming these days, but you can always get another 512Mb stick for £60-70 later on thus doubling your memory, so I'd go with the Athlon package if I were you.

Edit: I see you're planning on 2x256Mb sticks for dual-channel. I'd get a single 512Mb stick instead so I could pair it up with a matching one later. It seems a lot of people are nervous about non- factory-matched memory pairs not being able to run dual-channel but they've always worked for me in the past.

o forgot to metion they r bundle packs from overclockers.co.uk so i cant pick what i want really also cheaper for me to do this way the gfx card will also be second hand .


ps. how much faster r u taling about noticable?

For god´s sake, don´t buy the Sempron...it´s an office CPU, the Athlon has LOTS of more power!!

Ive got the Athlon 64 3000+ and its fine. Quite fast, but pick up a Socket 939, as mine (7**) unsure what it is, cant upgrade without buying new board :s


Cheers,

754 will be discontinued soon.

939 is the way to go

cheers guys think its going to be the athlon 64 stick with 512ram and upgrade later .

also going for the ati x800 gto and clock it a little . Going to steel audigy 2 sc and dvdrw drive out of dads computer and i be set with new 80 gig hdd

Ive got a 754, whats wrong with that?

Quote from steve :

http://www.techpowerup.com/art ... verclocking/vidcard/127/1

will need to find x800 gto2 though

6600GT is a good GF card and I recommend it, no trouble with mine. Although, from what I've read, the x800 GT out performs the 6600GT in higher screen resolution benchmarking

Athlon all the way if your main use is gaming. You really should try to get one stick of 512 DDR ram now and then another later if you can. In the not so distant future 1Gb ram will be required for gaming as the minimum and not 512... well so I think

Take BF2 for example, it's advertised with a minimum ram needed of 512... my system up until last night had 512 DDR and BF2 struggled. When it first loads a map I was getting so much stuttering for up to 1 minute, even after reducing texture quality which is the main cause of stuttering, and it's so frustrating waiting for the PC to sort itself out while most people are out shooting each other.

Since installing another 512 stick last night I get no stuttering and have been able crank up some decent texture quality So, now the game looks sweet, runs near faultless and frustration is completely removed!

BF2 now uses 905Mb of my ram according to task manager! Some people with 2Gb ram who run the game at the highest GF settings (I use a medium/high GF setting) reported BF2 using up to 1.4Gb. It won't be long till most games will be as ram hungry as BF2. However, LFS isn't ram hungry and 512 is more than enough for it.

Using matching sticks of ram is a much better way then using 2 seperate sticks that don't match. You can get a pair of Hyper X (PC3200) 512MBs for 120USD, that like 65EUR?

no it's about 100€

Quote from Rotary :

6600GT is a good GF card and I recommend it, no trouble with mine. Although, from what I've read, the x800 GT out performs the 6600GT in higher screen resolution benchmarking

Athlon all the way if your main use is gaming. You really should try to get one stick of 512 DDR ram now and then another later if you can. In the not so distant future 1Gb ram will be required for gaming as the minimum and not 512... well so I think

Take BF2 for example, it's advertised with a minimum ram needed of 512... my system up until last night had 512 DDR and BF2 struggled. When it first loads a map I was getting so much stuttering for up to 1 minute, even after reducing texture quality which is the main cause of stuttering, and it's so frustrating waiting for the PC to sort itself out while most people are out shooting each other.

Since installing another 512 stick last night I get no stuttering and have been able crank up some decent texture quality So, now the game looks sweet, runs near faultless and frustration is completely removed!

BF2 now uses 905Mb of my ram according to task manager! Some people with 2Gb ram who run the game at the highest GF settings (I use a medium/high GF setting) reported BF2 using up to 1.4Gb. It won't be long till most games will be as ram hungry as BF2. However, LFS isn't ram hungry and 512 is more than enough for it.

as i dont have alot of cash to play with i need to get the cpu motherboard and ram in a bundle meaning i dont get the choice of ram so 2 x 256ddr is fine with me [maybe phone them and see if they can do a deal] till i can afford 2 x 1gb sticks maybe xmas .

main reason is for games such as hl2dm cs:source quake4 and so on

also to get more fps in live for speed but main reason is i dont have MY own computer that i can lock and stop others in the house filiing it with virusus and bull shit poker games.

don't go with ATI's vidcards, invest in a HQ NV7800GT and you'll be good for a few YEARS to come

Veto!

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Don't listen to graphics card evangelists! ATI are bringing out cards based on the 520 core in about a week's time, and they'll be much the same, performance-wise, as nVidia's 7800s.

not a real "fan boy" of the geforce cards think i going to stick with a ati x800
if i can get it cheap enough


that nvidia card is $699 dont think i will ever spend that on a gfx card lol

A 7800GTX costs around 540$ (450€), and the 520 will be more expensive.
Additionally it does not support PS3, Transparent AA etc.

Both cards suck imo, not much sense to buy them. To expensive, too slow, too low image quality on both. Not only "ATI IQ is bad" or "nvidia IQ is bad". They suck both. Bigtime.

Hopefully the next generation (G80) will be better.

When you put two sticks, say 256x2 or 512x2 and get them working in dual mode you get double transfer speed between processor and memory. This is on 939 socket.

So basicly by putting only one stick you get only half of the speed of memory socket 939 offers.

And by the way, socket 754 is not so much slower than 939. It has less L2 cache and no dual channel. It makes it a bit slower.

Anyway, I recommend you socket 939 because of dual mode memory bus and better upgrade properties (you can put dual core processor for instance).

Take AMD64 3000+ socket 939 (Venice core). It overclocks a lot very easely. It also consumes less power than pentiam4s.

If you buying computer mainly for LFS, there is no point getting the fanciest 3D accelerator. Radeon 9800 pro runs lfs very smoothly even with AA. Take a look at lfs benchmark. http://lfsbench.iron.eu.org/?c=completemax

Quote from thisnameistaken :

ATI are bringing out cards based on the 520 core in about a week's time, and they'll be much the same, performance-wise, as nVidia's 7800s.

but they will cost $100-150 more for the SAME damn performance.

$360 for 7800GT is a killer deal if you ask me

I bought my 754 last year and i never upgrade pc anyway, just buy all new parts when the times comes


Looking at a shuttle next, but waiting untill i can have 2 cd driver (Dvd - Rom & Dual Layer DVD-RW)!!

Quote from afastest :

When you put two sticks, say 256x2 or 512x2 and get them working in dual mode you get double transfer speed between processor and memory. This is on 939 socket.

So basicly by putting only one stick you get only half of the speed of memory socket 939 offers.

And by the way, socket 754 is not so much slower than 939. It has less L2 cache and no dual channel. It makes it a bit slower.

Anyway, I recommend you socket 939 because of dual mode memory bus and better upgrade properties (you can put dual core processor for instance).

Take AMD64 3000+ socket 939 (Venice core). It overclocks a lot very easely. It also consumes less power than pentiam4s.

If you buying computer mainly for LFS, there is no point getting the fanciest 3D accelerator. Radeon 9800 pro runs lfs very smoothly even with AA. Take a look at lfs benchmark. http://lfsbench.iron.eu.org/?c=completemax

cheers for the info m8 very handy if i cant find a x800 for around the £160 mark i will be looking at the 9800 256 meg version ..

need something that will last me a little while and will do hl2 dod2 and quake4 some justice

Quote from Billeh :

cheers for the info m8 very handy if i cant find a x800 for around the £160 mark i will be looking at the 9800 256 meg version ..

need something that will last me a little while and will do hl2 dod2 and quake4 some justice

Well, if you're going to play those games besides LFS and want something that will last a while, then it should be x800. I don't know about Scotland, but you can get that in UK or Germany for less than 160£.

AMD will release new CPU socket and go to DDRII next year...