hmmmm well i guess ill still have to think about the vid card...........but anymore thoughts on the ram??? OCZ vs Corsair
Not exactly. I have dual Opterons, one runs folding@home, the other plays Far Cry at ultra everything with my x800pro, and I am LOVING it ! But, yes the only other use for the dual, is that you can get a 64-bit PCI-X slots and get a 64-bit 133mhz card for a fast SCSI controller, and load levels, games and everything super fast. I get 182k/sec transfer on ATTO, and thats only a 10k SCSI 160 setup ! If you had 5 15k SCSI 320's, it could be mind-boggling !Originally posted by: SickBeast
Originally posted by: PacFu
I dont think that getting a dell is that bad of a comment. The Gen 3 XPS...well, lets just say that they are pretty impressive.
Now to help dude out, if you are looking for an all around processor, I'd go P4 EE 3.4 and since these are based on the Xeon core, would that make these dual cpu capable?
Wow. Don't take this personally but that was a terrible suggestion. First of all, the P4EE is NOT dual capable. Second, the P4EE is largely unavailable and generally costs over $1000 if you can get your hands on one. Third, the Athlon FX performs better than the P4EE and costs less. On top of that it's multiplier unlocked, and can do 64-bit in the future.
OP: If you want a gaming rig, dual CPUs is a complete waste of money for you.
Originally posted by: Markfw900
Not exactly. I have dual Opterons, one runs folding@home, the other plays Far Cry at ultra everything with my x800pro, and I am LOVING it ! But, yes the only other use for the dual, is that you can get a 64-bit PCI-X slots and get a 64-bit 133mhz card for a fast SCSI controller, and load levels, games and everything super fast. I get 182k/sec transfer on ATTO, and thats only a 10k SCSI 160 setup ! If you had 5 15k SCSI 320's, it could be mind-boggling !
Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
Definately go SATA. But if you have a lot of data that you need to store get a PATA drive also. For the HDD i would definately go with 2 WD Raptors in a RAID 0 then your other drive for misc stuff. But if you really want this to be the fastest computer, then go for SCSI. Even the raptors cant compete with SCSI.
Also if you can suffer a bit, i would wait until the Nforce 4. That is supposed to be incredible. Return of soundstorm, PCI-E, the whole 9 yards.
For RAM, everything is extremely close. The differences are marginal so Corsair or OCZ are good.
For PSU, You're going to need a big sucker. I would highly recommend the new OCZ powerstream PSU. They are supposed to be the best out there, even beating the Antecs.
As for CPU the 53 is the fastest around, but again if you can wait hold up for the FX55.
M/B i would try to wait until Nforce 4 comes out as i said earliier, but if you need one now, ive heard that the K8N Neo Platinum is good.
For Video, the differences are so marginal there is no point in saying but hell ill say it. I PERSONALLY would go with Nvidia, because of the feature set, future proofness, etc. But if you go with ATI no worries, its just as fast as the Nvidia card and in some cases faster (although some slower). The cards are in dead heat right now so just get one and dont think anymore of it .
Stay away from the Intels right now. The only one that can keep up with the AMD chips is the LGA775 prescott at IIRC 3.6. Still AMD pulls out on top most of the time.
Good Luck on whatever you choose,
-Kevin
Originally posted by: zerodeefex
BS on the ATI having better drivers. I live with both and although ATI isnt nearly as bad as it once was, NVIDIA's drivers are leagues ahead. Stability, compatibility, hell even dual head support is lightyears ahead.
Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
SM's have very little to do with drivers. The fact that SM2.0 is much slower on the NV3x cards is due to the fact of poor architecture. Nvidia does not have the most efficient way of using shaders. Whereas ATI does. This is very similiar in the case of OpenGL except ATI isn't crippled in it they do very well just not well enough to beat Nvidia.
-Kevin
Originally posted by: Firebat246
Next thing on the list.....I must decide between Corsair ram and OZC Ram....whats better? Disregard price
One of the advantages of the new AMD Socket 939 is that it uses regular unbuffered dual-channel memory. This means almost any memory will fit in your new Socket 939 system. However, we have found that some memory performs much better in Athlon 64 systems than others, and the overall best Athlon 64 performance that we have found was with OCZ 3700EB (Extended Bandwidth) memory.
Originally posted by: marffeus
Originally posted by: Firebat246
Next thing on the list.....I must decide between Corsair ram and OZC Ram....whats better? Disregard price
Well, if you lookin my signature you will see I am building a similiar machine to yours,and I have done plenty of reading and researching, along with being flamed and what not
As far as memory goes, I chose the OCZ Enhanced Bandwidth memory. It comes in PC3500 and PC3700 flavors and is around $370 at NewEgg.com. I have read multiple times that for AMD FX processors, the OCZ EB memory really cannot be beat. Corsair is a great memory with impressive timings, but the OCZ timings can be changed to run at 2.5-2-2-6 at least, which is good. In fact, Anandtech always does weekly system guides, ranging from Low-end, Mid-range to High-end, and here is the link to thier most recent High-end buyer's guide system (this guide was written with a disregard to price, as you have stated)
Anandtech High End Guide
One of the advantages of the new AMD Socket 939 is that it uses regular unbuffered dual-channel memory. This means almost any memory will fit in your new Socket 939 system. However, we have found that some memory performs much better in Athlon 64 systems than others, and the overall best Athlon 64 performance that we have found was with OCZ 3700EB (Extended Bandwidth) memory.
I recommend for your own sake to read the entire guide, it may help you to decide.
As for motherboards, I would wait for MSI to release its K8N Neo2 Platinum Board with the nForce3 Ultra Chipset. With Socket 939 in its infancy, I have read some problems still occuring with other boards. I know VIA is having some issues (not sure exactly what) and they do not even know why the problem is occuring! Much less do they know if it will be fixable by a flash of the BIOS or if the people with the K8T chipsets will need to buy a new board. MSI took a longer appraoch to work out some of the bugs BEFORE release of thier board, and it is due out sometime in late July or early August. In fact, Anandtech also uses this board in their high-end system. The BIOS on the board is very good for some overclocking, and I hope that if you get an FX-53 you will at least raise its multiplier to x13.0 for a 2.6 GHz chip . Tom's Hardware when reviewing this chip did just that, and said there was still some room for over clocking! Although they did not have time to play around with the OC of the chip. Also that was just stock cooling but I recommend you invest into a heavy duty heat sink. They are only $30-$60 depending on which one you get.I have read the Cooler Master Hyper 6 is currently the champ, and is $45 or so at ZipZoomFly.
I hope some of this has helped. I hope once you have decided what to get you are happy with your choice.