Best AMD Hardware/Chipsets?

[MrChipMuthabored]

Hi guys -

I used to keep up a lot with the new tech, but for a couple years now, I fell out of the habit of reading and researching on these sites.

So I was hoping a kind poster could either point me in the direction of a 'current tech' primer, or could just flat out brief me on the current tech.

Its kinda rough being out of it for 2 years and then try to begin again with a good starting point.

For instance -

What is the fastest Socket A processor?
How popular is the AMD 64? and is it worth it?
What is the most popular/best chip set currently, and what FSB speed are we up to now?
What kind of RAM we are using? (speed)


For reference, I stopped keeping up with all of this stuff back when the KT266A was the top thing in the market. I'm still using a KR7A-Raid board from like 2 years back, w/ a 1600+ processor. So you can kinda see where I'm at.

Thanks to all helpful responses in advance.

 

[orangat]

Dude, reading is good - http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/


Sock a - XP3200+
Sock754 - A64 single channel memory
Sock939 - A64 dual channel (not worth the small perf increase, 754 much better b/buck)

Memory - PC3200

Chipsets NF3-250, NF3-250Gb, VIAK8T800, SIS755

 

[imported_Elessar]

As far as technology you're using - you're not a whole heck of a lot more behind me, I'm still using an Abit KT333 board, getting ready to make an upgrade soon I believe. I'm by no means an expert, it's hard as hell to keep up on all the tech even for one small area such as AMD's platform. But here's what I know:

The Socket 939 is today, AMD's premier platform. It has the fastest stock clocks and the most advanced architectures, and will put the deepest dent in your pockets (save for the FX-53/55/57). The fastest Socket A processor out today is the 3200+ Barton with a 400 mhz FSB. Personally, I think the nForce II Ultra 400 is the best chipset for the Socket A line, however VIA does have a competing chipset I believe the KT600/Pro. Either/or, they're competing for the best.

If you're considering going Socket 754, the 64bit line does actually have a lot of advantages when it comes to multimedia, video and cpu benchmarks. But personally I have not yet had the experience of using a 64bit processor to try out actual applications. I probably plan to dip into the Clawhammer processor bin and try one out, and I'm leaning towards the K8T800Pro chipset because I like the 1000mhz HT they offer for the Socket 754 line. The nForce 3 250 Gb is the competing nVidia chipset, however they only offer 800 mhz Hyper Transport speeds on the Socket 754, they only offer the 1000HT on the Socket-939 platform. Both chipsets at this point have almost completely integrated successful locks on the PCI/AGP bus, which is a huge advantage to overclocking possibilities. Also if you're the overclocking enthusiast, I know for a fact the K8T800 Pro also allows you to utilize the unlocked CPU multipliers that exist in the Socket 754 and Socket 939 processors as a biproduct of the new "AMD Cool n' Quiet" technology. That technology, if enabled, allows your CPU to drop the clock speed via multiplier drops when it's idle. This of course means the multiplier is unlocked, w00t.

The nForce 3 250Gb chipset may or MAY NOT have the appropriate BIOS setting to change the multiplier, it may vary motherboard to motherboard. However, it's most likely that any motherboard would be able to get a BIOS update to do it, if it doesn't already work in the first place.

Between the three sockets available, I favor Socket 754 for the following reasons:

1) you can overclock them with these new motherboard techs to almost match the performances of the socket-939's.

2) The clawhammer socket 754 has 1mb cache and the 939 has 512 - I'm a sucker for bigger numbers.

3) about HALF the price.

4) So far the only real big advantage to the 939 besides clock speeds is the on-chip dual channel memory controller - however, the reviews and benchmarks I've seen show that processor clock speeds have more sway over scores and performances than the actual difference between on-chip dual and single channel memory...But again that's a benchmark not a real work application.