New PC Build Questions

[paulypaul]

I have a question for all you system builders and people that know if a switch to AM2 is worth it. The main difference between the two builds i have laid out for myself is 939 vs AM2 which also brings about DDR vs DDR2.

My main question is basicaly if its worth the extra 150-200$ to get a Am2/DDr2 build instead of using 939/ddr?? Will there be a huge performanced difference in the future because as of now there isnt to much?

Thanks everyone.

Oh yea if anyone would be kind enough to check out these cases for me I am kind of torn between the ones here below (all at or below 50 because of budget)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811103003 (nice looking, great cooling, 120mm front and rear, plus monster side fan)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811129152 (antec name, very nice looking)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811119047 (simplistic design, good reviews)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811144001 (nice top blowhole, included psu, will buy another though)

Sorry about it being so long but thanks again for the help.

 

[Kholonar]

Quite simply DDR2 is the newer RAM standard and AM2 supports that. Go for AM2 because that will take you further into the future than 939. Oh, and at the moment DDR2 doesn't offer massive performance benefits over DDR1.

It shouldn't actually be more expensive to go AM2 than 939, try looking at the prices of equivalent cpus and you will see maybe $10 difference. Motherboards and RAM maybe a little bit more expensive for AM2 but I don't think you'll see anything more than a $100 difference.

The centurion 5 is one of the best cases around. I don't have it but I wanted one (it was out of stock) and everyone raves about it.

 

[waylander]

Like the first poster said, there shouldn't be a huge difference in price. I just finished building an AM2 system for a co-worker and it only cost $40 more (only used DDR2-667). The biggest difference is the cost between DDR2 800 and DDR400, the DDR2-800 is as expensive as high end DDR400 (around $200 for 2 gb). If you were using crappy value ram for the DDR400 then that's where you'll see a big jump in cost.