Should I buy now?

[Craig Coope]

I am wanting to buy a (prebuilt) A64 3400+ (yes I know the 3200+ is better
value right now but....). It has a Microstar K8T800 Mobo but I know that in
the near future things are gonna change ie socket 939 from 940 for FX etc...

Is it worth me waiting a bit longer? Will the 3xxx+ move away from 749 and
become dual channel?

I'm not too bothered about being able to upgrade as I usually just buy a
whole new PC every few years anyway.

I am only really willing to wait until the end of the 2nd quater of
2004...unless something worthy is waiting in the 3rd.......

I am basically wanting a new PC for HL2 but with all this talk of Far Cry I
am getting itchy fingers....

Cheers

Craig

 

[Craig Coope]

Will the 3xxx+ move away from ***749*** and

become dual channel?

***754***

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

Will the 3xxx+ move away from ***749*** and

***754***

939 is going to replace the 754 pin parts not the 940s. The 940 pin
package is being kept for Opterons, the 939 will be used for Athlons. The
first 939 pin packages will only have 1/2M caches whereas the current
Athlon64 has 1M of cache. Because of the reduced cache size the first
939s are going to be no faster than the current 939s. At the end of the
year they are going to introduce 90nm 939 parts that will have 1M of cache
again. If you are going to buy something right now you should pick an
Opteron 1xx rather than a Athlon64. I'd suggest an Opteron 146 with a VIA
based mother board like the ASUS SK8V. The current Nvidia chipset is
crippled by a 600MHz hypertransport bus, the VIA runs at the full 800Mhz.
If you want to wait for the 939s they are supposed to come out in May.
The 939 boards will have second generation chipsets which supposedly have
1000MHz hypertransport bus support, (although that might not matter, AMD
hasn't said if the 939s will have faster hypertransport buses).

 

[Craig Coope]

939 is going to replace the 754 pin parts not the 940s. The 940 pin
package is being kept for Opterons, the 939 will be used for Athlons. The
first 939 pin packages will only have 1/2M caches whereas the current
Athlon64 has 1M of cache. Because of the reduced cache size the first
939s are going to be no faster than the current 939s. At the end of the
year they are going to introduce 90nm 939 parts that will have 1M of cache
again. If you are going to buy something right now you should pick an
Opteron 1xx rather than a Athlon64. I'd suggest an Opteron 146 with a VIA
based mother board like the ASUS SK8V. The current Nvidia chipset is
crippled by a 600MHz hypertransport bus, the VIA runs at the full 800Mhz.
If you want to wait for the 939s they are supposed to come out in May.
The 939 boards will have second generation chipsets which supposedly have
1000MHz hypertransport bus support, (although that might not matter, AMD
hasn't said if the 939s will have faster hypertransport buses).

Thanks for the info....

To be honest I really wish I had the confidence to build a PC myself...It
would be a lot cheaper and I could easily get the parts...I just wouldn't
want to mess up fitting the CPU into the Mobo...I know it may overheat if
not done right etc....hmmmmmm...

Cheers

Craig...

 

[Ben Pope]

To be honest I really wish I had the confidence to build a PC myself...It
would be a lot cheaper and I could easily get the parts...I just wouldn't
want to mess up fitting the CPU into the Mobo...I know it may overheat if
not done right etc....hmmmmmm...

It's really not that difficult, but you should take the time to understand
the pitfalls.

There must be plenty of guides out there for fitting heatsinks etc... and
most motherboard manuals will give you a fairly good idea of what needs to
be done - I suggest you download a manual and have a look, see what you
think.

From time to time, you will find guides in PC magazines as well. It's quite
satisfying when it's all done and working - we can generally help with most
configuration and installation problems.

Ben

 

[K]

To be honest I really wish I had the confidence to build a PC myself...It
would be a lot cheaper and I could easily get the parts...I just wouldn't
want to mess up fitting the CPU into the Mobo...I know it may overheat if
not done right etc....hmmmmmm...

You will never learn how unless you try it for yourself.

There's immense satisfaction to be got from building you own machine over
getting some generic vendor box with components of questionable quality.
The new AMD64 platform has introduced even more safeguards against you
****ing it up compared to Socket A, for instance the heatspreader on the
CPU prevents you from damaging the core, and if you don't secure the
heatsink properly the system will merely shut down, preventing any damage.

As Ben said there are plenty of guides out there and resouces such as this
newsgroup to help if things do go wrong. Do lots of research first and you
can't go wrong.

K

 

[Peter van der Goes]

Thanks for the info....

To be honest I really wish I had the confidence to build a PC myself...It
would be a lot cheaper and I could easily get the parts...I just wouldn't
want to mess up fitting the CPU into the Mobo...I know it may overheat if
not done right etc....hmmmmmm...

Cheers

Craig...

Ben and K are 100% on target. You really should do some research and try it.
Don't count on saving money though. Your research will tell you that buying
quality components will result in a more reliable, better performing PC.
You'll end up spending as much or more than for a "bargain box", but you'll
know what's in it and you'll know far more about your own build so if you
have to fix/upgrade something, you'll be confident.

 

[Craig Coope]

Thanks for the advice guys...I think I will wait for a bit longer and see
how I feel in a month or so.

Just beware I may be asking loads of questions here if I decide to go ahead
with it p

Craig...