Okay 
As I've mentioned before I'm thinking of doing a massive system upgrade Around Q4 this year, as I start a new uni course then and want a fresh system to install all my programs on as my current set up is starting to need hand cranking! 
I'll be taking my Graphics card (ti4400) and soundcard (SonicFuryXG) with me from the old system, as they are still what I'd consider good, although not cutting edge.
Budget isn't a major problem as I've set aside some cash for this in my budget (yes I am organised lol).
The Opteron looks very appealing, as it has some lovely architectural improvements that would lend themselves well to the way I use my PC (ie I have a shed load of stats packages and databases that will need to be open in memory at once and they will all be very memory hungry. It would easily be doable on 32bit mind you, but the memory limit isn't the consideration as much as how efficiently it manages what it has).
However, I don't want to be stuck with the new day equivilent of a P60, and would still like to play games well. Would the Opte... I mean AMD64 be suitable for this sort of thing or would I be better off going with whatever the current athlon series churns out?
Memory confuses me too. I understand the concept of DDR, and the 266,333,400 numbering system, but when I come to look at places that sell memory I get PC2700 and similar numbers thrown at me. What do these mean?
If I did get an AMD64 solution, does that mean I'd have to buy RAM in pairs like we used to have to do in the "olden days"
Also, does anyone know if current HDDs would work on the SATA interface or do you have to get a special drive to work on that (I'd presume a performance hit if it would work at all). And I heard rumours of IDE drives now with spin speeds of 10K+ that really rival SCSI - is this true? If so what model / brand are they? Is anyone up on this?
Thanks for your advice
As I've mentioned before I'm thinking of doing a massive system upgrade Around Q4 this year, as I start a new uni course then and want a fresh system to install all my programs on as my current set up is starting to need hand cranking! I'll be taking my Graphics card (ti4400) and soundcard (SonicFuryXG) with me from the old system, as they are still what I'd consider good, although not cutting edge.
Budget isn't a major problem as I've set aside some cash for this in my budget (yes I am organised lol).
The Opteron looks very appealing, as it has some lovely architectural improvements that would lend themselves well to the way I use my PC (ie I have a shed load of stats packages and databases that will need to be open in memory at once and they will all be very memory hungry. It would easily be doable on 32bit mind you, but the memory limit isn't the consideration as much as how efficiently it manages what it has).
However, I don't want to be stuck with the new day equivilent of a P60, and would still like to play games well. Would the Opte... I mean AMD64 be suitable for this sort of thing or would I be better off going with whatever the current athlon series churns out?
Memory confuses me too. I understand the concept of DDR, and the 266,333,400 numbering system, but when I come to look at places that sell memory I get PC2700 and similar numbers thrown at me. What do these mean?
If I did get an AMD64 solution, does that mean I'd have to buy RAM in pairs like we used to have to do in the "olden days"
Also, does anyone know if current HDDs would work on the SATA interface or do you have to get a special drive to work on that (I'd presume a performance hit if it would work at all). And I heard rumours of IDE drives now with spin speeds of 10K+ that really rival SCSI - is this true? If so what model / brand are they? Is anyone up on this?
Thanks for your advice
