Motherboard / CPU upgrading

[Informator]

I am on the brink of purchasing a new system, and really do not want to be waiting the good few months until SledgeHammer comes out. I am thus likely to get a 1400+ or something to tide me over. However, since Hammer has a stupid number of pins, it will of course need a new motherboard. The question to you clever folks is - is it worth the trouble of replacing a motherboard or should I invest in a P4 2GHz or top-end AMD rather than wait? Or is it really really REALLY worth the wait until - March? I believe when Hammer is due out...

 

[tastim]

I am sure my opinion on this will not go over well on these boards... but oh well.

All this hype and gossip of this new chip and that new chip amounts to nothing more than technical masturbation. We are so far ahead hardware wise than software, that any of the upper end CPU's will last you PLENTY long in terms of performance. To have to have the absolute latest chip because it clocked your Quake 3 at .677776 more frames per second or whatever it might is just ridiculous. Get a good solid CPU and mob in the mid 1000 mhz range and spend the extra money on a top end video card and RAM instead.

 

[DaveP]

If your waiting for hammer, your only waiting to blow your money. Do like tastim said, save your money. You'll need a new computer again sometime. Hopefully by then the 3800+'s will be as cheap as the 1800+'s are now.

<font color=blue>GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.</font color=blue>

 

[LancerEvolution7]

My suggestion is to buy an athlon xp with 512 ddr2100 and a decent video card. That'll cost around $500 and should last you for at least a year. It really doesn't matter if you invest or Intel or AMD because they both will be comming out with 64bit processors sometime next year. So the motherboard and probably memory will be useless(remember the period when ddr slowly took over sdram). The graphics card can still probably be used but of course the new cards will offer faster framerates, but then again, its all for "Oh, my 3dmark score is 10,000 and yours is only 9,999"

 

[halkebul]

"My suggestion is to buy an athlon xp with 512 ddr2100 and a decent video card."
I agree with this suggestion if you cannot wait for clawhammer.

"... is it really really REALLY worth the wait until - March?"
If you believe texas_techie's post in COMPONENTS>>CPUs entitled "OMFG !!!", then the clawhammer is certainly worth the wait!

"Who drunk my apple juice?!"

 

[Victory]

Go middle of the road for the CPU speed, get more ram a bigger hard drive(or two to run raid), a good vid card and a nice new case. Save the extra money for the programs you need/want to buy. You won't miss the few frame rates in Mafia/neverwinter nights or the few seconds longer it takes to render an avi file. Than a year from now when 3 Ghz's are all over the place buy something in the mid 2's when they're cheaper. It'll allow a more often upgrade path and be much easier on your pocketbook.

Save heating costs on your home, overclock your PC!!!

 

[BigRat]

"...technical masturbation."
Great choice of words there.

:redface: :frown: :lol: :tongue:

 

[Informator]

Thanks for your help people, much appreciated. I think prolly the best thing is to grab a top end Athlon and good RAM, vid card, etc etc and be happy with it. As you say, probably will be waaaaaaaaay too expensive for me when Hammer does come out anyway

Cheers folks, all the best

 

[SidVicious]

My suggestion is to buy an athlon xp with 512 <font color=red> ddr2100 </font color=red> and a decent video card.

The guy want a hammer, so you should recommend him AT LEAST PC2700 ( DDR 333MHz ) since the K8 will have a PC2700 memory controler on die. Yeah, a mid ranged XP is a good idea, even my Duron Morgan 1GHz ( unlocked 7.5 x 133 ) is enough computing brainpower for today's needs. Just make sure you get a DDR333 capable chipset ( for both CPU and Memory ), unlock the CPU and take advantage of PC2700.

As for the graphic card, he should go ahead and get the best one available. A Hammer with 512Mb Pc2700 and a GeForce4 Ti / Radeon 9700 should not look too shabby.


Fok Speling Misstake

 

[chuck232]

I doubt that by the time Hammer's out, you'll want to pair it with DDR333. Just like when we had SDR SDRAM and we were anticipating the P4s. Now would you really want a SDR SDRAM P4 system?

The best choice would to be to buy for now. Get like a P4 2.26 or XP2200+/XP2400+ if you can find one and DDR RAM/RDRAM.

...And all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put my computer back together again...

 

[LancerEvolution7]

My point exactly regarding the memory part. There is new developements for memory everyday. I still suggest he get a xp1x00 instead of the xp2x00 or intel 2.xx because he wants to upgrade within the next year to a hammer or something. A xp1x00 based system would cost around $500 with all decent parts that will run anything out right now at the highest setting. A xp2x00 would cost around $700 and a p4 with rdram would cost nearly $1000.

"If you sign up for AOL now, we'll give you 1024 hours of slow service and disconnects free of charge"