DEAD: AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 San Diego 2.6Ghz Socket 939 - $139 @ Newegg!

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: intogamer

Originally posted by: MichaelD
Thanks, LukeMan.

It's only about a $120 diff b/t the two systems I spec'd out (FX55 vs E6400) but...

Unfortunately, I'll need to buy more memory no matter which route I take. The 1GB of PC3200 I have now are non-matched sticks and are a PITA to get running together in most boards. So, either way, DDR or DDR2, I'm paying about $300 for 2GB of memory. :roll:

also DDR1 is going up because of the supply and demand

Tell me about it.

 

[Skitzer]

Ordered mine last night. This will replace a 3500+ Venice that tops out at 2.5. Hope I can get at least 2.8 out of this.

 

[XNice]

I dunno whether to get the 3700+ someone listed or this chip? Then what if the X2 3800 drops in price again? Dammit I jus bought a 7900GTO.....

I do have a venice 3000+ at 2.4ghz so

 

[Fraggable]

I'm upgrading from a 3000+ Venice at stock speed, this is gonna be great. I'm not sure it would be worth it from a 3700+ but maybe.

 

[loafbred]

Originally posted by: XNice
I dunno whether to get the 3700+ someone listed or this chip? Then what if the X2 3800 drops in price again? Dammit I jus bought a 7800GTO.....

I do have a venice 3000+ at 2.4ghz so

I think that depends heavily on several things:

1. Is your RAM limiting you with the 3000+? You will be able to run PC3200 RAM at 1:1 with the FX-55.

2. Do you use software (games included) which would benefit noticeably from multiple cores?

3. Do you have the money to blow on either the 3700+ or the FX-55, for just a little more performance? I have a San Diego 4000+ @ 2.8 GHz now, and this FX-55 will simply serve as something for me to tinker with, though it should give a barely noticeable performance increase over the 4000+, mainly due to it allowing me to run low latency RAM at 1:1, at same or slightly higher clock. If I'm lucky enough to get 2.9 to 3.0 GHz, using the quiet fans I'm now using, I'll be elated.

4. Video card is much more important than cpu for gaming. I think you'd be better served by saving that money toward a faster video card or another 512-1024mb RAM.

 

[XNice]

Well, with purchasing the 7900gto, my cpu is now def the bottleneck. I plan on purchasing more ram as soon as they stop price fcking us, whenever that will be. I play BF2 and CS:S religiously and every other game moderately. I also plan on buying crysis when it drops. My main issue is that I had my heart set on dual core.

Since I could prolly only get about $60 for my 3000+ what would yous do?

After more research, I think I might go with tht 3700+ since getting to 2.6 from 2.2 doesnt seem that hard when people are getting 3.0+ and it also comes with retail heatsink which saves me another $25 or so.

edited, 7900 typo and I just ordered the 3700 from newegg. I hope I get it to fx55 speeds.

 

[Dudewithoutapet]

Originally posted by: XNice
Well, with purchasing the 7800gto my cpu is now def the bottleneck. I plan on purchasing more ram as soon as they stop price fcking us, whenever that will be. I play BF2 and CS:S religiously and every other game moderately. I also plan on buying crysis when it drops. My main issue is that I had my heart set on dual core.

Since I could prolly only get about $60 for my 3000+ what would yous do?

After more research, I think I might go with tht 3700+ since getting to 2.6 from 2.2 doesnt seem that hard when people are getting 3.0+ and it also comes with retail heatsink which saves me another $25 or so.

You typed 7800GTO twice, when I saw it the first time I thought it was a mistake (i.e 7900GTO) but since you've typed it twice.... I doubt 7800 series will bottleneck you.

 

[Mucker]

In for one............DAMN YOU HOT DEALS :|

 

[sintaxera]

I feel your pain. After missing the 4000+ deal at ewiz I had to jump on this. Luckily, I think Zap might buy my 3000+ so that should help. Wanted Dual Core, but with an AGP board and a 6800GT this should keep me trudging along for a little while longer before the BIG upgrade to PCI-E.

Student = no dinero

 

[ahartman]

I was at Microcenter earlier today. They had 4 or 5 of these on the shelf... for $599.99 each :laugh:

 

[LukeMan]

Originally posted by: XNice
I play BF2 and CS:S religiously and every other game moderately. My main issue is that I had my heart set on dual core.

After more research, I think I might go with tht 3700+ since getting to 2.6 from 2.2 doesnt seem that hard when people are getting 3.0+ and it also comes with retail heatsink which saves me another $25 or so.

CS:S only uses 1 core of the cpu, so the game would run the same on an FX-55 as it would on an FX-60. The 3700+ is a great cpu (1mb cache and will overclock to 2.6 pretty easy), but if you're going to overclock your cpu then you will need to apply the same logic to the FX-55 in weighing out your options: The FX-55 should overclock to 3.0 pretty easy since it uses the same core as the 3700+ and has an unlocked multiplier.

P.S. if you're overclocking the 3700+ to 2.6 then you will probably need a better than stock heatsink, since the stock AMD 64 heatsink isn't anything special (nothing near the Opteron dual core stock heatpipe heatsink).

 

[TinMan2]

Picked up this cpu to build a second game rig.
I can either put it into a Asus A8N-E with an ATI X800 or an EPOX 9NDA3 with a 6800GT.
Any opinions on either setup?
Thanks.

 

[LukeMan]

Originally posted by: TinMan2
Picked up this cpu to build a second game rig.
I can either put it into a Asus A8N-E with an ATI X800 or an EPOX 9NDA3 with a 6800GT.
Any opinions on either setup?
Thanks.

x800 or x800se/pro/xt/xl? If it's an x800 or x800se/gt then the 6800gt setup would be the best. If it was an x800xl/pro then it would be about equal to the 6800gt setup. And if it's an x800xt then that setup would trump the 6800gt setup

 

[lodmdma]

i have 3200 @ 2.55 now......if i bought the fx and oc to like 3.0....would i see a difference in bf2??

 

[sintaxera]

What's your video card?

 

[lodmdma]

x1900xt

 

[Mysteriouskk]

Originally posted by: lodmdma
i have 3200 @ 2.55 now......if i bought the fx and oc to like 3.0....would i see a difference in bf2??

I would like to know as well. Should I get this or get a core 2 duo?

 

[TinMan2]

Radeon x800xl.
Thanks for the info.

 

[Rockhound1]

Damn!!!

I was waiting to upgrade to a dual core (maybe taking advantage of one of Fry's processor/motherboard deals), but this is very tempting. I wish I had not seen this thread.

I know that there is not much software in the market that takes advantage of dual core processors right now, but there will be more and more in the next year or two... Plus, I will probably upgrade my system in about two years...

I don't do any overclocking right now, but if I were to get this chip, I would probably do a mild overclock to 3.0 GHz using the clock multiplier.

Damn!!! Decisions, decisions. What to do.

 

[gi0rgi0]

yup, was planning on c2d myself but if i can oc this to 3.0ghz for the $150 i paid i can hold off a while longer on the cpu,memory,mainboard upgrade
and get the g80 vidcard instead. I think this should last me atleast another year with my current parts.

 

[imported_Crusader]

Originally posted by: Fraggable

Originally posted by: Crusader

Originally posted by: Craig234
Any other tips on motherboards (and fans) for people who either won't overclock or who are new to it, where 'ease of installation and use' is a factor?

I see the Artic Cooler Freezer 64 Pro recommended, $25 shipped.

I saw the DFI N4 Ultra-D recommended, about $115 shipped, reviews say 'hard to set up, for people who can spend hours, don't expect to work work the first try or two'.

Any other suggestions? My old ECS K7S54 sure can't run it

What? DFIs are easy to setup stock. Hit "optimized default" button and go. Take a quick scan of the screens to make sure the basics are set correctly (HDDs ect) and you're fine?

I'd like to see that rig that took hours to get running. He is either overclocking or making it entirely to hard. Theres no tweaking to get a DFI running at stock like anything else. I've never had a problem with getting any brand up and running the first time @stock.

Just check if the RAM you have will work in the DFI (any specific incompatibilities).. but you should do that with any motherboard you upgrade to.
No other suggestions.. the DFI + Arctic Cooling combo is tough to beat for ease of use and getting the highest quality stuff on the cheap (all Jap capacitors in DFI, heatpipes and as good of a fan setup as you are going to get without piecing together your own, which isnt worth it).

I had endless issues getting the first and last DFI board I bought to work. For some reason when I bought it (10 months after buying my CPU) it was on such an old BIOS it wouldn't work with my CPU without a BIOS update, then my X-Fi wouldn't work with it, and whenever I tried to boot with more than 2 of my 4 512MB sticks of RAM it wouldn't boot at stock speeds. Then the RAID setup was extremely weird an difficult to work with and I never did get it set up right even after following the terribly translated manual step by step.

I had it for 4 days and will never buy their products again. Their support is awful - no phone support at all and to me that is unacceptable.

DFI Street forums blow away any phone support from any company.
I had a DFI board come bashed up in shipping, and they replaced it immediately.

But just as a note to the guy looking at the DFI.. I had my RAID array setup in 5 minutes. I'm not sure what would be confusing, or hard about it.... ?

I'm not a noob, been an enthusiast since the Commodore 64. Built my 286, 386, 486, Pentium 1, Athlon Thunderbird, AXP, A64.. but I still dont think you'd need a couple decades of experience to use a DFI board.
if you have a hard time getting raid to work on a DFI, I'm not sure what to say about that because its so easy.

I've had Asus, Abit, Epox, Intel, Chaintek, and DFI and they are all the same.. DFI just offers a lot more options and better overclocking, if you even want to touch that stuff... which you dont have to.
The basic bios options, such as onboard RAID.. are typically all standard stuff. If you cant get one figured out, you wont Brand X either.

 

[imported_Crusader]

Originally posted by: AznKwaiJai
Yea, I feel the same way. Even though I did order it yesterday, is there someone who can reassure me that I made a good purchase? I have a 3000+ Venice clocked at 2.6Ghz.

Um.. well this is an FX chip which means it has 1MB of L2, unlocked multiplyer,

A 3200+ for example, has 512KB of L2, locked.. wont clock nearly as high even if it was unlocked.

For those on S939, this is a great way to delay the move to dual core till ALL games and apps utilize multiple cores.
This is the fastest single core ever made, besides the AMD FX57. Cant get a 57 for $139 measly bucks.

Oh, and if you dont end up wanting your FX, it wont be to hard to get rid of it for the price of entry on this chip. I'm pretty sure if you needed a computer for grandma or a spare, a FX55 would be fast enough to get the job done

The only place this chip gets creamed is in dual core apps.. which in gaming are few and far between. I'm not convinced to go dualcore yet. For my casual desktop use, I'm not going to be "AAAARRGGHHHHH MEINE FX55 IS TO SLOWES!"

Oh, and this is the Sandiego 90nm core. This wouldnt be hot if it were the old clawhammer 130nm version (which I'm guessing barely hit its stock 2.6).

Its pretty tough to knock a $139 FX55 purchase any way you look at it. Keeps me from having to switch out for C2D, new board + ram.

And the other guy said the FX55 is "only" 20% faster than a stock 3200+.. first of all that largely depends on the benchmark and the bottleneck. Also, Conroe is "only" 20% faster than A64 and people dont try to minimalize the performance improvement C2D brought.. which is -not- small or pitiful in the CPU arena. So its equally hard to bash this chip.

You made the right decision and really cant go wrong here. Thats my opinion.

 

[PhoenixOrion]

I'm in for one.

Just bought a "barely used" Abit NF4 SLI and was wondering what CPU to plop in there, heh.

 

[Smartazz]

Really hot, I just bought an X2 3800+ though. I think part of the price a year ago was bragging rights.

 

[burney]

Damn..this is so tempting...but I am proud of myself...i made it through without pulling the trigger..