S939 cpu bargains

[marneus]

simple question... 3800 or 3800x2, both going cheap, but which one, (especially in relation to gaming) both now & the next 6-12 months ???

 

[holcar]

if its the same price then I'd go with X2

 

[ZimboBEAR]

don't know what set up you have now, but if you are in the UK and have an old existing 939 mobo then read below...

If anyone like me who has monetary issues and cannot go for the wonderous new conroe chip due to having to replace motherboard and potentially RAM, unless you use the new Asrock board that lets you utilize your old PC3200 RAM with your new Conroe,

there is an alternative in the meantime, overclockers is selling AMD 64 4000+ (2.4 ghz) for under £100 ( this may seem a lot to all US readers but believe me when i say that is quite cheap for a processor that delivers some quite good performance for that price )

you can read how this compares against a AMD64 4800+ X2 in toms hardware's ultimate CPU comparison chart, unfortunately conroe has not been included, but suprisingly this £100 CPU outperforms the AMD 4800+ x2 in quite a few games... of course it can't beat the conroe, but this post is not about that, this is a possible solution to all those people who cannot afford an immediate upgrade to the best cpu today but would still like a decent games cpu ( obviously a good graphics card should be in there as well or you will be gpu limited, but looking at the Toms charts they were using 6800GTs for the review.

ok link to the price for the AMD64 4000+
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Socket_939.html

link to the reviews
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2005/11/21/the_mother_of_all_cpu_charts_...5uk/pag

there are some considerations when looking at this cpu as an upgrade, it will not be as fast as any Dual core cpu when it comes to media encoding, or photoediting, but it does hold its own in gaming which is why my post is called "Need a cheap 939 gaming solution..read this.."

Also, how long support for single core 939 will be, i am not sure, will it work well with Vista, then again I am not sure, I have heard from some people that Vista will work better on Dual Core cpus.

But if none of that bothers you then this is the upgrade solution for you....

 

[ZimboBEAR]

copied this from a previous post when i created a new topic in the graphics section when it was supposed to be in the CPU section ( Yes quite moronic i know, but **** happens )

 

[dunklegend]

Do you know the model of the Asrock mobo that let´s you use DDR 3200?

 

[aj6065]

Go with the X2 for now. You shouldn't lose any noticeable performance in any games, and all other tasks will be a lot quicker.

 

[ZimboBEAR]

Yeah the Asrock board model is Asrock 775 DUAL-VSTA VIA PT880, it also has an AGP slot, if you are still using one of those, however the PCI-Express is only 4 x I think

Specs are:

Manufacturer: Asrock

Form Factor: ATX

CPU Socket: 775

FSB Speed: 1066 MHz

Chipset: VIA PT880

Memory Type: DDR/DDR2

Memory Type (ECC):

Memory Type (R/U):

Memory Speed (Mhz): 266
333
400
533
667


Memory Capacity: 2Gb

On Board VGA: No

Graphics Interface: AGP / PCI-Express

SLI: Nope

Crossfire: Nope

Expansion Slots: 1 x AGP 8X
4 x PCI (32 bit)
1 x PCI-E


SATA: SATA I

RAID: SATA RAID

RAID Controller:

SCSI: Nope

Back Panel: 1 x 10/100 (LAN)
1 x 8 Channel Audio I/O
1 x Parallel (LPT)
1 x PS/2 Keyboard
1 x PS/2 Mouse
1 x Serial (COM)
4 x USB 2.0/1.1


Internal I/O: 1 x 20pin (V)
1 x 4pin (V)
1 x CD-In
2 x Fan Header (V)
1 x Floppy
1 x FP Audio Header
2 x IDE
1 x IrDA
4 x Memory Slots
1 x Midi/Game
2 x SATA I
2 x USB2.0/1.1


This board should really be used if you are limited in cash and just want to get the new Core 2 Duo, not sure how much it is in the US but over here in the UK it costs £36.99 Inc VAT which is very cheap for a Board, don't expect great overclocking, but at the price it is a good interim board.

This Link shows performance of this board with relation to other conroe boards.

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2797

As you can see for the price of the board, Anandtech quoted US $55 for this board, the performance is quite good.

 

[marneus]

i am in the UK... thanks to all, if the x2 comes back into stock where i usually buy stuff, i will get it, failing that the fastest single core for under £100 wil haveta do...

as for conroe, watch your VRM from some older 775 boards, several sites say that there are problems...