What should I do??

[lwilshire]

I am intending to upgrade my current pc asap but i am really confused over what i should do. I want to use my current pc as a HTPC so it won't all be going in the bin, but the question is what do i do about the upgrade my initial thoughts were this:

Athlon XP 2800+ (Barton Core)
Gigabyte GA-7NNXP Mobo
Leadtek 5900 Ultra 256Mb Graphics Card
2 sticks of Twinmos 512Mb PC3200 RAM

with my existing 80Gig and 60 Gig hard drives, CD/RW and DVD.

I also want to get the Netgear DG834G Wireless ADSL Router so i can have a WLAN and surf from the garden.

The thing that is making me stop and think is that I am an architecture Student and do CAD work and the amount I do is only going to increase - this combined with the times some of the renderings i've had to do i was wondering about an athlon 64. But when i started looking at that there is the socket change roadmapped for next year that will make that setup outdated too.

Is the athlon 64 gonna make a huge difference to my cad work and rendering?

If i buy one now (socket 940 Athlon 64FX i would hope) does it really justify spending all that money on something that will be outdated next year especially with PCI Express and BTX coming in too?

Should i just stick with the XP option for now and leave it for 2/3 years with the setup mentioned above?

Or is there any partial upgrade anyone can reccomend? (i can't see anything that will last if PCI express comes along coz it wipes out any cards being compatable)

Lets hear you suggestions guys....

 

[endyen]

An opteron workstation would not be such a bad thing for you. While the FX is transitioning in march to socket 939, the opteron work stations will continue on the socket 940 for a while. The first express video cards may not give all that much of a boost, so waiting for a revision or two should do you no harm.

 

[Nosferatu]

There are still problems with the Opteron/Athlon64 mobos.
There are especialy big problems with the memory's ie won't boot with some types of memory(even when using brands - corsair, ocz, kingston etc).

I'd say you wait for the tecnology to improve.

 

[lwilshire]

about the memory, i know at the moment the current FX's need ECC RAM but there is a revision of the board design to allow non ecc RAM to be used which is expected soon if i remember correctly march time maybe or is this part of the shift to 939?

A wait till march would be ok if it means i'll be getting a longer lasting solution

 

[Guest]

Ya wait for better motherboard support. That shoudl probly come with the nforce3-250. In the meantime price can only drop and if you can afford to wait youll only get more options at better prices.

 

[Mephistopheles]

If you're really that concerned about rendering, you could get a P4 with HT. It should make a huge difference. The 2.8C will drop in price within the next 12 days, so if you could wait, you probably could get it for an attractive price. It's just a thought, but that would be better suited for you than that 2800+ Barton.

If you do have the money to use more than one processor (and the need to, heh ) then maybe Xeon, or even Opteron, is for you. Xeon still renders faster than Opteron, mostly, so you could factor that in. Which software do you use?

In any case, I think you could upgrade to the 2.8C with lots of features (1GB memory, excellent video card) and that would be perfectly OK for you. It's quite faster than the 2800+ in rendering, that's for sure. Unless you truly, really, want to kick software around! (and spend money)

In that case, the single-processor FX system (possibly FX-53 if you wait until April) will get you a big hole in your wallet and a scary monster of a machine.

<font color=red><b>M</b></font color=red>ephistopheles<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Mephistopheles on 01/21/04 01:37 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Serpent]

I just went through a similiar situation, wasn't sure whether to get the athlonxp2500+ or the athlon64 3000+.

i went with the 2500+, since it was about $250 cheaper... and if you're contemplating a 64-FX, well then you'll save even MORE.

No matter which choice you go for you'd be better of upgrading again in about a year most likely, so might as well go for the 'just enough' option, save some $$$ (i saved $250 canadian), and just upgrade again using the saved cash to help out.

And like others said, apparently A64 mobos aren't very good... I got the abit AN7 mobo, I was quite impressed.

basically, i say you CAN'T justify spending cash on an athlon64 of 64-FX right now... so it comes down to how much you want it.