Is ddr2 worth the extra cost?

[RDN]

I'm torn between two socket system from AMD.

My initial system upgrade is :

1) AMD Athlon 64 3500 (socket 939 venice)
2) Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra * mobo*
3)ASUS Extreme N6600 Silencer GeForce 6600 PCI Express 256Mb
4)DDR400 PC3200 (Cosair or Kingston) CL2

Total cost ~ $364.00

My second option system upgrade:

1) AMD Athlon 64 3800 (socket AM2 orleans)
2) Asus M2N-E nforce 570 Ultra
3)ASUS Extreme N6600 Silencer GeForce 6600 PCI Express 256Mb
4)Cosair DDR2-800 PC 6400 CL5

Tolal cost ~ $415.00

The thing that's confusing me is DDR2 memory.
I've read that it's not that much faster than DDR1; depending on the cpu's
clock speed. DDR2 starts to outperform DDR1 at higher speeds, > 2.4Ghz.
The high latency of DDR2 make me wonder.

 

[VanShania]

If you don't own a socket 939 system already, then AM2 is the best way to go
as this leaves you able to upgrade further as AM2 matures. Since I already
own a 939 system and AM2
offers no significant advantage(yet) over 939, plus the fact I already
dished out $350 for 2 gigs of ram, I don't intend to switch so that I have
to spend another $450 on DDR2 stuff. From what I've read, my opinion is if
you alredy have a 939 system,(and a decent motherboard) might as well hang
on to it until AM2 offers a significant and noticable improvement, or AMD
switches to DDR3 and another new socket type.


--------------------------------------
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Gigabyte GA-K8NSC-939 nForce3, A64 3500+, Stock Cooler IdleTemp 28 C
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Cpu - 4405
3Dmark2001 - 8702 4XAA/8XAF 1280X1024

Games I'm Playing- IL-2 Sturmovick Series
Empire Earth 2, Need For Speed: Underground 2,
Civ IV, Warhammer 40,000 Gold

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

I'm torn between two socket system from AMD.

My initial system upgrade is :

1) AMD Athlon 64 3500 (socket 939 venice)
2) Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra * mobo*
3)ASUS Extreme N6600 Silencer GeForce 6600 PCI Express 256Mb
4)DDR400 PC3200 (Cosair or Kingston) CL2

Total cost ~ $364.00

My second option system upgrade:

1) AMD Athlon 64 3800 (socket AM2 orleans)
2) Asus M2N-E nforce 570 Ultra
3)ASUS Extreme N6600 Silencer GeForce 6600 PCI Express 256Mb
4)Cosair DDR2-800 PC 6400 CL5

Tolal cost ~ $415.00

The thing that's confusing me is DDR2 memory.
I've read that it's not that much faster than DDR1; depending on the cpu's
clock speed. DDR2 starts to outperform DDR1 at higher speeds, > 2.4Ghz.
The high latency of DDR2 make me wonder.

The advantage of DDR2 is that you can buy 2G DDR2 DIMMs while the biggest
DDR DIMMs are only 1G. This allows you to have 8G on an AM2, the 939s are
limited to 4G. Aside from that there aren't any performance differences.
The other advantage of AM2 is that there is a upgrade path, the 939s are
dead end, all new A64s will be AM2.

Before you make any decision you should wait for the Conroes to come out
in a couple of weeks. All indications are that the Conroes will be faster
then the A64s. However AMD is adjusting their prices to reflect that, so
that you should be able to buy an equivalent AMD system for an equivalent
price except at the high end where there will be no equivalent AMDs. At
the lower end you'll probably be better off with an AMD because the
processors are mature. The NForce 5s almost certainly are just tweeked
Nforce4s so they are less likely to have bugs then the new Intel chipsets.

 

[Cuzman]

RDN wrote:

" I'm torn between two socket system from AMD. "


Your socket 939 combination costs $364.00. Your socket AM2 combination
costs $415.00.

Isn't the "extra cost" because you've actually chosen a faster CPU with
the socket AM2 setup?

939 Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz 512KB
AM2 Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4GHz 512KB

Go with AM2. You'll have a higher upgrade path. Even if you don't
upgrade the processor on the AM2 motherboard, you'll still have the DDR2
for the future.

If the small extra expense is pushing your limit, then why not go with
an AM2 Athlon 64 3500+ ? There's an awful lot to choose from on socket AM2:

AM2 Sempron 64 2800+ 1.6GHz 128KB Manila
AM2 Sempron 64 3000+ 1.6GHz 256KB Manila
AM2 Sempron 64 3200+ 1.8GHz 128KB Manila
AM2 Sempron 64 3400+ 1.8GHz 256KB Manila
AM2 Sempron 64 3500+ 2.0GHz 128KB Manila
AM2 Sempron 64 3600+ 2.0GHz 256KB Manila
AM2 Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8GHz 512KB Orleans
AM2 Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0GHz 512KB Orleans
AM2 Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz 512KB Orleans
AM2 Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4GHz 512KB Orleans
AM2 Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz 512KB Windsor
AM2 Athlon 64 X2 4000+ 2.0GHz 1024KB Windsor
AM2 Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz 512KB Windsor
AM2 Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.2GHz 1024KB Windsor
AM2 Athlon 64 X2 4600+ 2.4GHz 512KB Windsor
AM2 Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2.4GHz 1024KB Windsor
AM2 Athlon 64 X2 5000+ 2.6GHz 512KB Windsor
AMD Athlon 64 FX62 2.8GHz 1024KB Windsor

That's 18 CPUs available for AM2 and the socket's only been around a few
weeks, although production of the 1024KB X2 processors is already being
phased out.

 

[Bill]

I'm torn between two socket system from AMD.

The thing that's confusing me is DDR2 memory.
I've read that it's not that much faster than DDR1; depending on the cpu's
clock speed. DDR2 starts to outperform DDR1 at higher speeds, > 2.4Ghz.
The high latency of DDR2 make me wonder.

I wouldn't worry about the performance or latency differences - it's the
future you need to think about.

If you intend to upgrade this system later on with more RAM or whatever,
you should seriously consider going with DDR2 for future compatibility.

But if you're going to build this system and not do any upgrades, then
the 939 and DDR still has slightly higher performance at the same or
lower price.

 

[RDN]

RDN wrote:

" I'm torn between two socket system from AMD. "


Your socket 939 combination costs $364.00. Your socket AM2 combination
costs $415.00.

Isn't the "extra cost" because you've actually chosen a faster CPU with
the socket AM2 setup?

939 Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz 512KB
AM2 Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4GHz 512KB

Yes

But also :
The memory > DDR1-400 to DDR2-800 $ 12 more
Motherboard > nVidia GeForce 4 to GeForce 570 $ 8 more

My concern was with the latency of DDR2 memory.
I just may get the AM2 system (after July 24th) and hope DRAM manufact. will
some day improve on the memory chip latency.

Thanx

 

[Cuzman]

RDN wrote:

" My concern was with the latency of DDR2 memory. I just may get the
AM2 system (after July 24th) and hope DRAM manufact. will some day
improve on the memory chip latency. "


You might find these an interesting read then.

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/mainboard/ddr2-800-am2.html

http://www.legendmemory.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2309

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory/display/ddr2-ddr_5.html