A little upgrade help please, I'm confused.

[Crackabot]

I haven't upgraded my computer in more than 2 years so I decided it was finally time. I looked around at some reviews and checked Newegg and it seems that the best bang for the buck is an Athlon 64 3700. I was just about to add it to my cart and start checking motherboards when I noticed that the the speed is 2.6 Gigs. WTF? I'm running a 2 year old 2.6 gig P4 Northwood @ 3.12 gigs right now.

I was planning on new MB, CPU, Ram, Vidcard, but would the CPU upgrade be worth it?

I don't want to just buy a new vid card (Radeon 9800 now) because my MB only has an AGP slot which leaves me tied to old tech.

So, what should I do?

Thanks.

 

[rs1089]

Clock frequency isnt a good deciding factor over the overall speed of the cpu nowadays. Today's athlon 64 cpu's are much better than intels of comparable price. Thing is, amd athlon 64 chips have an integrated memory controller, so latency between the memory is reduced significantly, making the processor snappier than intels. You should do some research to learn about why athlon 64s are faster. The athlon 64 3700 is a great chip, but the opterons for socket 939 are showign to be very good performers and overclockers. But if you're into multitasking, look into the dual-core athlon X2's or opterons. the intel single cores and dual cores run very hot, and they pale in comparison to today's athlon 64 chips in gaming.

 

[Markfw]

AMD x 1.75 = almost equiv Intel speed. What do you do with the computer ? and whats the budget ?

 

[Crackabot]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
What do you do with the computer ? and whats the budget ?

Gaming, Surfing, Dinking around. I have another computer I used just for office and school work.

I mainly just need to upgrade my gaming rig, I've recently started having to downgrade graphics quality in the newer games in order to play them and I don't want to need to do that.

So at this point I have the AMD 3700 64, 2 gigs of memory, a 7800GT all in my wish list at New egg, I'm looking for a MB right now.

 

[Markfw]

3700 X2 ? there is no such cpu. MSI NEO4 platinum or -F if you don;t need firewire. but then you need a socket 939 processor.

 

[aLeoN]

He might have just meant AMD A64 3700+. Unless he wants to believe there's a 3700+ dual core..

Well if you want to keep that 9800 you can get the ASROCK s939 mobo which has AGP and PCI-E slots for future upgrading.

 

[RobsTV]

For most of your needs a 600MHz CPU would be overkill.
For gaming, bump that up to around 2GHz, but as you know, "Video Card" will be what makes it gaming or not.

For example, you would see almost zero performance gain in games if you upgraded CPU and motherboard, yet stuck with same 9800 for now. In fact, you could stick with your old system, and simply upgrade video card to 850XT, and end up with perhaps a gaming rig 2 to 3 times faster than it is now. But as you also stated, you will be throwing money at old platform, with no more room for future expansion.

Get a decent 939 board, and don't worry about CPU (cheap is best). Look at gaming CPU charts. Going from a $100 CPU to a $400 CPU "might" give you 10% more gaming performance, but going from a $100 video card to a $200 video card, may give you 200% gaming performance increase. Spend the savings on video, then memory or hard drive.

 

[Regalk]

His system as is is more than enough for what he said he does primarily. ATI 9800 Radeon is still very good for lots of games today and a lot of people still use that card. Looks to me that he is going to be dissapointed with the upgrade (when he compares to his current system). Now heavy gamers that is another issue.

 

[Crackabot]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
3700 X2 ? there is no such cpu. MSI NEO4 platinum or -F if you don;t need firewire. but then you need a socket 939 processor.

I have no idea how that got in there, I wrote that late last night and I'm not sure if it was a bad edit or I'm a retard.


Thanks for all the help guys.

It looks my MB and CPU upgrade will be more to just make a modern home (PCI-E) for a new video card.

 

[Markfw]

Well, good luck That motheroard I recommended does NOT work with the 3700. I would recommend going with a 3200 Venice and OC the crap out of it (939 pin) with the MSI Neo4-f or platinum mobo.