Mobo/cpu recommendation? S939, $350-$400 combined

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dclopper

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May 17, 2006
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Upgrading my P4 2.2ghz AGP system to an A64 / PCI-E, and I've been pulling my hair out with all the different options out there. Not looking to overclock, just trying to find a stable board / cpu combination that will give me the best bang for the buck in terms of gaming performance for around $350 or $400 combined. Would appreciate any help folks might have. A few caveats guiding my search:

- Board doesn't have to be SLI, since I imagine I would probably lean more to getting a better single vidcard than getting a second of my current (I have a 7600GT waiting to be installed).

- I'll be bringing over my old RAM, so the board has to be agile enough the handle old memory (DDR333), but with ability to upgrade down the line.

Thanks in advance for any advice!
 
rodney_ws

rodney_ws

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You said you weren't into overclocking... that said, I think your older RAM will strangle your system... if this is too high, go with a 1 GB kit and you'll be under budget.

Asus A8N-E Motherboard for $94.50
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=240423

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ $192
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80717-5

Corsair Value RAM 2 GB Kit $157.50
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80098-86

$444 total (no sales tax or shipping will be added)
 
rodney_ws

rodney_ws

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Christ ak47is1137 pointed out a cheap AMD motherboard... yeah, his looks like a better deal...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138269

Either I misread your previous post or you edited it... the memory you have should be fine... so yeah, you can get a good upgrade for a little over $200... that should make gaming a more realistic option. If you have less than 1 GB, seriously consider upgrading the RAM as well.
 
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ak47is1337

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If you would like to keep your old AGP card until you can upgrade, get the ASrock 939Dual-SATA2. Good motherboard also, for a few bucks more than the other one.
 
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dclopper

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May 17, 2006
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Either I misread your previous post or you edited it... the memory you have should be fine... so yeah, you can get a good upgrade for a little over $200... that should make gaming a more realistic option. If you have less than 1 GB, seriously consider upgrading the RAM as well.
Click to expand...

Yep, that was my fault -- I realized I had categorized the memory wrong and so updated it --- it's PC2700 DDR333, not PC2100. I have 1.2 GB now, so will probably upgrade down the line.

I see a lot of people giving rave reviews of the San Diego A64 3700+. Is it worth the extra money over a 3500+? Looks to be about $40 more.
 
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dclopper

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If you would like to keep your old AGP card until you can upgrade, get the ASrock 939Dual-SATA2. Good motherboard also, for a few bucks more than the other one.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion, ak! I already have my 7600GT sitting on my table waiting to be installed though, so I can make the full leap to a PCI-E board.
 
rodney_ws

rodney_ws

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I'll post the last page of the article that has the summary...

Conclusion:

Thanks to the 1MB cache in the San Diego, the extra cache proves to be beneficial in certain tasks, as shown in the Linux compiling process. The performance advantage is close to 10% in compiling LAME. In other benchmarks, such as Doom 3, the advantage of San Diego is roughly 5% at best. For Doom 3, we saw a 3-5% performance increase from the Venice to the San Diego, though as the quality gets higher, the performance increase diminished to less than 2%. However, this is partially due to the graphic card used to perform this benchmark. For archiving and extraction, the results were very interesting. Venice performed better than San Diego across the board, and it isn't too difficult to conclude that the extra speed offered no advantage in terms of file archiving and extraction; hard drive RPM and cache are the influencing factors that determine the speed of these actions. When compiling using GCC was really the only benchmark that decisively showed the San Diego as the clear winner over the Venice. This means the San Diego is faster than Venice at compiling LAME by roughly 10%. On with the Opstone benchmarks, the San Diego and Venice ran neck and neck, and the San Diego offered less than 5% of an advantage over the Venice. In conclusion, for average users, we found that the San Diego offers an average of 3% higher return than its counter part, Venice, when running at the same clock speed. With the pricing of the cheapest San Diego around $330, Venice 3200+ around $195, and Venice 3500+ around $275, it comes down to whether paying the premium price of the San Diego is justified. The AMD San Diego is one hell of a screamer for single-core setups, but with its high price tag, the small performance increase isn't truly justified unless you'll be coding and compiling all day or a similar CPU intensive process.
 
ZOldDude

ZOldDude

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Apr 22, 2006
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Upgrading my P4 2.2ghz AGP system to an A64 / PCI-E, and I've been pulling my hair out with all the different options out there. Not looking to overclock, just trying to find a stable board / cpu combination that will give me the best bang for the buck in terms of gaming performance for around $350 or $400 combined. Would appreciate any help folks might have. A few caveats guiding my search:

- Board doesn't have to be SLI, since I imagine I would probably lean more to getting a better single vidcard than getting a second of my current (I have a 7600GT waiting to be installed).

- I'll be bringing over my old RAM, so the board has to be agile enough the handle old memory (DDR333), but with ability to upgrade down the line.

Thanks in advance for any advice!
Click to expand...

Overclocking is not hard at all.

DFI Expert $169 (worth every last cent!)

Optron 146 boxed (3 yrs warrenty) $200
(I have run mine at 2.95Ghz on stock 1.4 volts stable,a P rateing of 4.3Ghz and only 38C with a Thermalright SI-120 cooler)

G.Skill 4000USU2-2GB-HZ DDR500 $160
(runs from 250-280+Mhz on stock volts! Some people have used A64Tweeker to get them up to 310Mhz --DDR620--...still on stock volts)

Z
 
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