IS the upgrade advantageous

[thetopcyborg]

Hey all u guys out there,
i just wanted to ask that wud it prove really advantageous fer me
to upgrade to an AMD Athlon64 3000+ (Socket 939) from a P4 1.7 Ghz??


Cause the AMD has a clock speed of 1.8 Ghz and im really in a fix...

pls son't suggest other processors as im really low on budget....

and can u tell me y is it that AMD outperforms Intel processors even though they have really lower(comparativ to Intel) clock speeds....

And also, I have read that Intel is good for multitasking and video-editning stuff
whereas AMD is better for single applications, particularly gaming......

I want to play heavy games with music and also do some editing in Flash and in the future, in 3Ds Max..........

so please tell me if i shud go for an intel or AMD...

fast pls

[QwertyManiac]

Tho the clock speed is lower, the performance of 3000+ is equal to that of intel 3.0 ghz, so its Damn definitely worth upgrading

But if you work lots on image manipulation/graphics, an intel is better, for gaming amd is best...

[drvarunmehta]

Yes it most certainly will be an advantageous upgrade. Think of it as an upgrade to a Intel 3 GHz processor.

[samrulez]

Of course it is advantageous.....See 'clock speed' is not everything .3000+ (Venice) can outperform the intel P4 3 GhZ...and + the Venice Core can be oc'ed to limits....3000+ can be easily o'c to 24-27 GhZ....with a good mobo and good memory.......

[MegaD3th3K]

Originally Posted by samrulez

....3000+ can be easily o'c to 24-27 GhZ....with a good mobo and good memory.......

d00d, u sure ???

[abhijit_reddevil]

Originally Posted by MegaD3th3K

d00d, u sure ???

Yeah, ask people like John_the_ultimate (2.7Ghz), kniwor (2.8Ghz) and they will tell you the procedure of o/c'ing the 3000+ to > 2.5Ghz. I have also o/c'ed my 3000+ to 2.25Ghz. All of us have one thing in common, a good motherboard, namely an Asus A8N-E.

[john_the_ultimate]

Definitely worth the upgrade but which mobo have u selected for ur rig. I would suggest ASUS A8N-E, since it is an excellent performer and worth each penny u spend on it.

@digitized
thanks.

[cyrux]

Apart from gaming what are the other areas amd rules over intel . Like for a general Home user ??

[abhijit_reddevil]

Originally Posted by cyrux

Apart from gaming what are the other areas amd rules over intel . Like for a general Home user ??

Just see this page, select the 3000+ venice and the 3.0Ghz Pentium-4, select the individual benchmarks and you will get your answer.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html

[deathvirus_me]

Did u ever notice the diff. in cache ??? the athlon has a much higher L1 cache ... around 128 KB .. compare it to the 24 KB cache of the pentiums ....

Also ... the athlon's have sorter pipelines which is more efficient at processing data when data needs to loaded / unloaded quickly ... pentium have longer pipelines which means it'll be better in strained processes like rendering and image editiing .. where the data need to be stored a bit longer ...

Also the new athlon architecture misses the northbridge ... so much of the mem. latency is covered up there .... and an on die mem. controller ensures even more efficient mem. bandwidth ....

Simply put .. the 3000+ is much better than ur current processor ... and in most cases it outperforms the 3.0 GHz counterpart .... this will definitely be a good upgrade ...

On the other hand ... i can ensure a 3.0 GHz processor to be oc'ed to 3.6 GHz without putting any load on the ram ... while oc'ing the athlon will definitely require some good ram .... and the 3.6 Ghz pentium should easily compete with the 3500+ ..

[thetopcyborg]

First of all, thnx digitized fer the link, it helped me a lot in making me satisfied that my processor is good fer my budget =) ...
i didn't know intel was such a cheat(don't mind it) in giving higher clock speed in such high prices and still being beaten by a cheap processor...

And I am thinking of buying a MSI K8N Diamond as the availability if MSI boards is high in my area.....
Is the Diamond good for overclocking? If yes, I will have 512*2 DDR 400 Transcend RAM , till which speed can i overclock it???

Also, shud i go for the Nvidia chipset or the ATI chipset?? im really in a fix for this...
My vendor is telling that ATI is better and is like the bigdaddy and Nvidia is like the upcoming teenager....
Will it really matter if i go for an ATI or NVidia card (and chipsets)?????

Also, will it matter if i add a Nvidia card on a MB with an ATI chipset or vice versa?????

And will my system config be able to play upcoming UT2k7?

I will be having a 450W supply, is it OK if i will have an Athlon 3000+, 1 gig of RAM and a gud 256MB graphics card...

and when i buy a graphics card, can't i make my onboard graphics and the card go hand-in-hand????


Now fer the suggestions....
pls suggest me a good graphics card(256MB) within 4-5k...

can u suggest me a good MSI MB around 5-6k (any chipset) here's the link from where u may choose:

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/produc...39%20(AMD%20K8)....

i will get a 450W power supply, will it be enough for a MB, processor, DVD-RW, CD-RW, graphics card, LAN card

ALSO, WILL THE NEW SYSTEM BE VISTA-COMPATIBLE?



thnx in advance and please reply fast

[samrulez]

Well a 450 watt SMPS is more than enough......but make sure it has a descent amperage rating across each output...i.e +3.3 V,+5V,+12 V .etc

Well i suggest go for ASUS A8N-E....its a dream to overclock with...

And its well priced at around 6.5 K

[thetopcyborg]

but i am not sure if it wud be available here
byt MSI boards are easily available (btw, is MSI an Indian brand?)

[drvarunmehta]

MSI is based in Taiwan (even Asus is)

[dOm1naTOr]

@ Samrulez
Wow A8N-E can be available at price as low as 5500 even in Kerela. Im sure he could get it even lower prices.

MSI nf4 utlra board is ok and has more expansion slots(PCI,PCIE4x,PCI1xetc) but I think it doesn't come with that much overcloking utilities like AO NOS etc which ASUS has finely tuned for max OCing. The onboard sound of MSI seems to be better and board layout is fine too. If it can be found at lower price than 5.5k go for it.

[thetopcyborg]

but a8n-E is not that upgradeable as it lacks SLI

and by what limits can MSI K8N Diamond be overclocked????

and what is AO NOS, etc?\


and is the audio of ASUS A8n-E better or of MSI K8N Diamond???? this is the official descreption of the MSI K8N Diamond:
http://www.msi.com.tw/program/produc...il.php?UID=638

[dOm1naTOr]

ASUS A8N e is highly overclockable. Here is the info from ASUS site:
Overclocking Features

AI NOS™(Non-delay Overclocking System)
AI Overclocking (intelligent CPU frequency tuner)
ASUS PEG Link

Precision Tweaker:
- vDIMM: 9-step DRAM voltage control
- vCore: Adjustable CPU voltage at 0.0125 increment
- SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection): allowing FSB tuning from 200MHz up to 400MHz at 1MHz increment
- PCIe Frequency: allowing PCIe frequency from 100MHz up to 200MHz at 1MHz increment

Fixed PCIe/PCI/SATA frequencies.
ASUS C.P.R.(CPU Parameter Recall)

------------------------------------------
Precision Tweaker
Precision Tweaker is designed for serious overclockers. It offers ways to raise system performance inch-by-inch and step-by-step to achieve maximum performance! This is about getting the most out of your machine, and taking pride in your customized computer. Precision Tweaker provides overclocking options for all major parts of the system: CPU, Memory, PCI-Express, and Front Side Bus.

vDIMM
Take control of how much power is going into the memory modules. ASUS gives you 9-step voltage control to the DIMM

vCore
Find out "exactly" how much power your CPU needs. Fine-tune it with 0.0125 volts at a time!

PCI-Express Frequency
Explore the frequency options of your PCI-Express graphics card

SFS
SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection) allow FSB tuning from 200MHz up to 400MHz at 1MHz increments.
AI NOS™
Boost performance when you need it the most!
Applications such as 3D games and video editing demand a huge chunk of system resource.
Inject "nitrous oxide" into your CPU! The patented AI NOS™ (Non-delay Overclocking System) technology intelligently detects system load and automatically boosts performance for the most demanding tasks. Unlike other dynamic overclocking techniques, AI NOS™ reacts much faster to satisfy your unending need for speeds.

PEG Link
PEG (PCI-Express Graphics) Link lets you to raise GPU and VGA memory throughput via the motherboard BIOS the same way system bus and memory bus are tweaked. ASUS engineers carefully fine-tuned the parameters for PCI-Express cards to provide system stability during high-speed graphics operation. Furthermore, with two PCI-Express slots, the A8N-E is able to activate PEG Link on both graphics.

AI NET2
ASUS AI NET2 remotely detects cable connection the second you turn on the system, and any faulty connections are reported back up to 100 meters at 1 meter accuracy.
--------------------------------------------------------------

These are the xtra oc features that ASUS has to offer.

[gary4gar]

Originally Posted by QwertyManiac

Tho the clock speed is lower, the performance of 3000+ is equal to that of intel 3.0 ghz, so its Damn definitely worth upgrading

But if you work lots on image manipulation/graphics, an intel is better, for gaming amd is best...

i know the performance is better but whats the reason behind it 64-bit achitechure

[dOm1naTOr]

By the by what is the exact price of dat MSI SLI board.
I think it has excellent audio features that any of the competitors even ASUS top SLI boards(A8N 32 SLI D). But there is nothin written about xtreme oc'ing on MSI site.

[thetopcyborg]

i still have to ask the price, hehe...

but converting the online USD price, it comes to about 6k

[dOm1naTOr]

Never think u can get it even at closer price if u have seen some US price. For eg u can see even 7800GTX for as less as 300$ which is roughly 13500/-. But u can even think of it below 30000/- in India!!!!!
If u want SLI mobo go for ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe for around 8k. Its hell of the best mobo for dat price!!!It has better ocing than A8N-E i think. But I suggest not to spend xtra 2.5 k for mobo but instead invest dat xtra amount for the G card. Go for a 6800GS(~13k) or 7600GT(~11k-13k) or higher. Or atleast go for a 7600GS for around 8k or less.(brands like Forsa)

[janitha]

MSI boards are also very good but generally cost more for a more or less equal one. But generally people prefer Asus. Earlier A8N-E boards had probem with the chipset fan. But even the one which I bought 6 months back is the revised Version.2 which has no problem other than slight noise. And even at that time it cost me only Rs.6000/-. (in Kerala) It should be only around 5000 now.
Anyway go for NVidia chipset boards only.

[thetopcyborg]

thnx fer the chipset....

k ill try to get an ASUS board......but still i think ill be able to lay my hands on a MSI board...ill just phone my vendor and ask for a good ASUS SLI board

[dOm1naTOr]

Hey man ASUS lowest SLI board is A8N SLI DELUXE and it costs 7.8k(no chance of getting it at lower price). But if u can get the MSI SLI for as lower as 6xxx then go for it as its sound is incredible(The same chip on a Creative sound blaster 24bit 7.1 card is sitting on the mobo) and there would be not much perfomance diff with a board. Invest that xtra amount on the proc or GPU. Make it a 3200+ and see the diff. As about ocing u can always use utilities like ntweak for ocing as they work on all nforce boards.

[thetopcyborg]

thnx for encouraging me to buy MSI....ya! im talking to my vendor for a 3200+ and then ill overclock it as i think overclocking won't be much of a problem with many experts sitting on this forum

[samrulez]

Originally Posted by thetopcyborg

thnx for encouraging me to buy MSI....ya! im talking to my vendor for a 3200+ and then ill overclock it as i think overclocking won't be much of a problem with many experts sitting on this forum

Overclocking a 3200+ is piece of cake!!!!

[thetopcyborg]

can u teach me ONCE I, hopefully, get that?

[janitha]

Originally Posted by thetopcyborg

can u teach me ONCE I, hopefully, get that?

MSI boards with NVidia chipsets will cost more than similar Asus boards.

But MSI boards with ATI chipsets will be much cheaper. (Asus boards do not have ATI chipsets AFAIK)

[dOm1naTOr]

@ Janitha...
ASUS has started production of ATI chipset mobo, the crossfore ones!!!! There is nothing impossible with ASUS(and may be MSI also).

Oh yes MSI RS482 M2 IL is much cheaper around 4k nd good perfomer also as they has a total of 20 PCI express lanes compared to 16 in Norman nf4 SLI nd ultra, it lacks tweakability and the board is miro atx form factor, so miss out several features. Read the mobo shootout in this month's C**P mag...really cool.
U can also opt for DFI SLI Xfinity mobo which is priced around 7k but getting it will be real problem nd has only 2 yr warranty...But good perfomer and good value for money and has the worst audio(Realtec ALC 655 5.1 and lacks HD). Even MSI RS482 has HD support.

[thetopcyborg]

@aravind, its ok, u can say the name of Chip mag. easily....

i actually was hoping for a SLI board keeping upgradibility in mind and RS482-IL has just one PCI-ex16 slot :'(