Last go around for my S939

[Sentrosi2121]

I know there are about 300 threads on this, but I'm tired and if I've offended you by posting this, then please be kind and go find another thread to flame on.

Now that the usual disclaimer is out of the way. I've got myself a KN8-SLI board with a FX-55 in it. Never overclocked it or anything. Currently have a Thermalright XP-120 cooling it. With the recent drops in both Intel and AMD, I've been thinking of upgrading to Dual Core, but have no idea if I should go with the Opty's or X2's. Considering I'm getting 2.6Ghz right now out of my FX, I'd like something that could at least go up to 2.8 or 3.0Ghz with my current cooling setup.

Suggestions?

 

[NXIL]

Hi Sentrosi,

Newegg's server seems to be overloaded right now, or having other issues, but, since the FX-55 is a single core 2.6GHz CPU with 1MB of cache, you would want the Opteron 185 (I think), which is 2 2.6GHz cores and 2 x 1MB cache--if you go to a slower dual core, you will actually lose some performance in single threaded apps, or when not multitasking.

Newegg seems to be running out of socket 939 CPUs, so if you are thinking of upgrading, best not to wait.

The Opterons generally have the 2 x 1MB of cache, the X2s have 512 x 2.

Looks like Newegg is fighting for life:

This is what is available:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...3053%2CN82E16819103582

Some of the user reviews report good overclocks with the 165 and 170...

HTH,

NXIL

 

[bryanW1995]

yhpm

 

[Tboy012]

i actually have the 185 but its a lousy OC'er

your better off getting a opty 175 or 180 and just oc'ing that to 2.8-3.0gGHz
trust me.... you'll save yourself alot of money

 

[MarcVenice]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819103733

NXIL seems to be mistaken in what newegg still has to offer, and even better, prices from s939 keep going down, doesn't sound like they are running out of cpu's anytime soon, or that demand is high, or prices wouldn't go down. The x2 3800+ is now at 65, which was at 69$ a few days ago. It will OC to 2.6ghz no problem, so that's the same as your fx55, but has 2 cores For 65$ it's a nice, cheap upgrade to get some extra life out of your s939 setup.

 

[Cybernut]

I have an AMD 939 4200+ x2 which is running at 3Ghz. its been running with no problems at all for 4 months now. I am waiting till the 4Q before i look at upgrading to a new system.

i have 2gigs of RAM and 2x7900gtx's running in SLI also oced, so the PC is very fast i love it.

 

[robmurphy]

Some of the X2 S939 CPUs have 512k cache, some have 1 meg cache. Usualy for the same clock speed there were 2 models, the difference between them being the cache size. The larger cache model was rated 200 higher. See:

http://www.amdcompare.com/us-e...A6CD&opn=ADA4200DAA5BV

 

[MTDEW]

I have an AMD 939 4200+ x2 which is running at 3Ghz. its been running with no problems at all for 4 months now

Now thats a nice cpu. :thumbsup:

I have an opteron 170 that i purchased when they were first releleased(and i PAID for it), and the best i ever got it to post was at 2.8ghz.
I still run it daily at 2.5ghz since i can run 1:1 with my ddr500 ram and i see no need to push it harder.
I use it for my "backup" pc nowadays since i built a core 2 duo.

Now. back to the original posters question.

If you wanna go cheap and stay socket 939, then get an opty.
Heck it shouldnt be too hard to find one right here in the fs/trade forum, with all the people moving to Intel since the recent price drops on the quad cores.

 

[NXIL]

Hi Marc,

hmm, unless I am mistaken, and I often am, that is a socket AM2 CPU:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819103733

All socket 939 CPUs at Newegg, without filtering for the out of stock items:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...CodeValue=3028%3A20275

The 170 is out of stock, and several of them (165, 180) were out of stock for a week or two....

HTH

NXIL

 

[MarcVenice]

Meh I indeed clicked the wrong one, I ment this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819103052

which for some reason wasn't in your first list. Which is why I mentioned it, and is at 69$, a very good option imo, it will OC w/o any trouble to 2.6ghz or so, for 69$ that's a lot of bang for your buck.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Put the $ in the bank. To achieve a decent boost in performance, you'll need to overclock an E4x00 ($100) to 3GHz. 2GB of RAM is around $40 (HP deal AR). Abit IP35-E ($107) will complete this deal. I have this combo but still use my 146 (2.97GHz) as my main PC. These is virtually no difference in speed between the two PCs when it comes to the stuffs that I use everyday. I don't play games.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I really wouldn't spend any more money on s939 and move up to 775 c2d. This is what I did and don't regret it one bit and I had an opty 175 which is no slouch but it doesn't compare to my e6400@2.7. I can decode files 100% faster than before and vista doesn't even make it blink twice. Either way it's your money so decide on what best suites your needs. I've only got 1 s939 system left and when it croaks it will be replaced by another 775 system.

 

[johnnq1]

i upgraded from a single core. i haven't even noticed any kind of a difference in any application...but i'm sure this will help the system last another year or two. most games will be multi-threaded in the future

 

[Munky]

I would not upgrade the s939 unless you plan on keeping it for at least another year, AND you're using apps where a single core is holding you back. Video games are still mostly single-threaded, and even those that claim to use multiple cores result in only a negligible improvement. Save the money until you rebuild the rig with a modern cpu that will give you a big boost in performance across the board, not only when using multiple cores.

 

[Sentrosi2121]

Thanks for the help everyone! Wife has been bugging me lately on her slow PC, so I may sink some money into getting her squared away. She's got a 650Mhz P3 system that's just screaming to be made into a file server. Or a boat anchor. Can't decide which.

 

[SickBeast]

I just bought a used Opteron 165 for $80 (I'm using an Opteron 144 right now at 2.7ghz). I'll let you know how it goes. I game a fair bit.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: Sentrosi2121
Thanks for the help everyone! Wife has been bugging me lately on her slow PC, so I may sink some money into getting her squared away. She's got a 650Mhz P3 system that's just screaming to be made into a file server. Or a boat anchor. Can't decide which.

Here is a thought. Why not save to build a new C2D or C2Q pc and give the wife the old one? Then both you and your wife will both win in this deal.

In fact you can build a very nice C2D pc with a decent graphics card (8800GTS 320) for less than a grand. That would include the new P35 Intel chipset. These systems are known to over clock on stock coolers to over 3.0 gigs easily.

If I did not already have a X2 4400 I would be probably already have done this exact same thing myself.

 

[Sentrosi2121]

Married + child + daycare = not a lot of spendable income. By March of next year I should have a nice promotion on my hands and one of the first things I'm going to do is do a complete rebuild. I've got the parts on my newegg wish list. And it's the usual suspects (C2D + P35 + 2Gb RAM). Storage I've got (2x 120Gb mirrored + 250Gb for additional storage), have an 8800GTS, case I'll probably upgrade, though I do love my CM Praetorian. I'll probably do a monitor switch though. The Syncmaster 955DF of mine is nice, but if I do this, I know I won't get another shot for a loooong time, so by then the 22" should be down to manageable levels as far as price points.

 

[NXIL]

Originally posted by: soonerproud

Originally posted by: Sentrosi2121
Thanks for the help everyone! Wife has been bugging me lately on her slow PC, so I may sink some money into getting her squared away. She's got a 650Mhz P3 system that's just screaming to be made into a file server. Or a boat anchor. Can't decide which.

Here is a thought. Why not save to build a new C2D or C2Q pc and give the wife the old one? Then both you and your wife will both win in this deal.

Um, because he is making her use a 650Mhz P!!!which is sort of bordering on spouse abuse....!!

Dude, she seriously needs an upgrade....and a pair of shoes and some chocolate.

Married + child + daycare==no doubt finances are tight....unless you are running software that would benefit from dual core, or, are multitasking a lot, may I recommend:

Keep the FX-55 s939 system as is
Save for the new system
Save enough for your new game system, and a tweak or two for wife's new system, which will be your old S939 system. If you have a chance to pick up a decent Opteron dual core for her, do that if you can.

And dude, if she is using a 13" green monochrome monitor with her P3 system, best not to tell anyone....

HTH

 

[Sentrosi2121]

Yeah. I know that her PC is in need of an upgrade. She only uses that PC for e-mail and such, but is now showing its age whenever she logs onto the net. It'll be the next upgrade I do I think.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Wipe the HDD and clean install windows. 600MHz is plenty fast for web browsing, e-mails, and light office work. Avoid Norton. NOD32 is light and fast. Avast also works well. Use WXP's firewall. Remove all non-essential items from STARTUP's tab. I have an HP 600MHz in the guest room. Just as fast with web browsing as my 3.46GHz C2D with 2GB RAM.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: Sentrosi2121
Married + child + daycare = not a lot of spendable income. By March of next year I should have a nice promotion on my hands and one of the first things I'm going to do is do a complete rebuild. I've got the parts on my newegg wish list. And it's the usual suspects (C2D + P35 + 2Gb RAM). Storage I've got (2x 120Gb mirrored + 250Gb for additional storage), have an 8800GTS, case I'll probably upgrade, though I do love my CM Praetorian. I'll probably do a monitor switch though. The Syncmaster 955DF of mine is nice, but if I do this, I know I won't get another shot for a loooong time, so by then the 22" should be down to manageable levels as far as price points.

22" ws monitors are hovering around $200 right now. Talk about an unbelievable deal! I read something a few months ago about lcd monitors. Apparently wal-mart got serious about getting into that market last year, and prices were literally cut in half in just a few months. They have gone down quite a bit since then. I got my 19" ws for $213 in dec, now it would be about $50 less and you can get a comparable 22" ws for the same price. I'm wondering when the 24" units will go down to $200.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: Sentrosi2121
Thanks for the help everyone! Wife has been bugging me lately on her slow PC, so I may sink some money into getting her squared away. She's got a 650Mhz P3 system that's just screaming to be made into a file server. Or a boat anchor. Can't decide which.

I thought I was being cruel and unusual to mom for sticking her with my old athlon 1.2. I feel much better about myself now.

 

[jelifah]

Originally posted by: Sentrosi2121
Married + child + daycare = not a lot of spendable income. By March of next year I should have a nice promotion on my hands and one of the first things I'm going to do is do a complete rebuild. I've got the parts on my newegg wish list. And it's the usual suspects.
<snip>

Which of course by March will be completely replaced by the current latest and greatest



Ain't technology grand?

 

[google01103]

Originally posted by: Sentrosi2121
Thanks for the help everyone! Wife has been bugging me lately on her slow PC, so I may sink some money into getting her squared away. She's got a 650Mhz P3 system that's just screaming to be made into a file server. Or a boat anchor. Can't decide which.

Why don't you just search the forsale forum and pick up a used socket 939 for wifey? They're definetly faster then what wifey is using and really cheap, heck 3800+ x2'2 can be had for $50-65 easily and 3000+ for $25 (shipped even).

ps - don't forget the chocolate