what cpu?

[john]

I'm about to upgrade my PC - mobo, cpu & RAM

currently I have an athlon 2400 with PC2100 RAM.

The following CPU's are all a similar price, but which one to buy? a 540 @
3.2ghz with 1mb cache or a 630 @ 3ghz with 2mb cache...? or a prescott? or
AMD? to many cpu's, to many sockets!

3.0GHz Intel Pentium® 4 S478 CPU "Prescott" (800FSB) HT 1MB Cache
540J Intel Pentium® 4 LGA 775 CPU (3.20 Ghz 800FSB) HT 1MB Cache
630 Intel Pentium® 4 LGA 775 CPU (3.06 Ghz 800FSB) HT 2MB Cache with Intel®
EM64T
AMD Athlon 64 3400 32/64Bit CPU S754 Newcastle
AMD Athlon 64 3200 32/64Bit CPU S939 Winchester

Which will give the best overall performance, with the RAM and mobo
included?

 

[Michael Hawes]

I'm about to upgrade my PC - mobo, cpu & RAM

currently I have an athlon 2400 with PC2100 RAM.

The following CPU's are all a similar price, but which one to buy? a 540 @
3.2ghz with 1mb cache or a 630 @ 3ghz with 2mb cache...? or a prescott? or
AMD? to many cpu's, to many sockets!

3.0GHz Intel Pentium® 4 S478 CPU "Prescott" (800FSB) HT 1MB Cache
540J Intel Pentium® 4 LGA 775 CPU (3.20 Ghz 800FSB) HT 1MB Cache
630 Intel Pentium® 4 LGA 775 CPU (3.06 Ghz 800FSB) HT 2MB Cache with Intel®
EM64T
AMD Athlon 64 3400 32/64Bit CPU S754 Newcastle
AMD Athlon 64 3200 32/64Bit CPU S939 Winchester

Which will give the best overall performance, with the RAM and mobo
included?

Try http://www.tomshardware.com/index.html and look at
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20041221/index.html
Mike.

 

[johns]

Mobo .. Gigabyte for reliable long-term support
Mobo chipset .. nVidia .. and NOT VIA !!!!
CPU .. AMD 64 3000 ... benches very high
ram ... Kingston
video .. ATI 9800 Pro 128
hard drive ... Hitachi SATA 160 gig
case ... Antec naturally SLK1650B
cdrw/dvd/abcdef ... Sony
monitor AOC .. flat crt 19 inch

I have that setup benching at 19000+ in 3dmark2002,
and data transfer rate while imaging .. over 1 gig / min.
You can build this for about $1K or less.

johns

 

[Ruel Smith]

Mobo chipset .. nVidia .. and NOT VIA !!!!

I'm curious as to why you say this? In Tom's Hardware testing, Via chipsets
outperform nVidia chipsets. I have a Via KT600 board and it's been trouble
free. nVidia has a long history of buggy drivers. So why do you like nVidia
better? Just curious... Anyone feel free to ring in.