OT ordering parts for Athlon 64 need suggestions

[muttley]

I have a Enermax EG651P-V(E)
double checking that the power supply connector and such will work.

What suggestions on a motherboard? Is the Gigabyte routed through the pci interface and wont get the full bandwidth?

any opinions on the Athlon 64 3000 with 512 cache or the 3200 with 1 meg cache. I'm going to install Win 2003 server on it and basicly turn on everything Server role; File, Print, DHCP, IIS 6.0, Mail, DNS, Active Directory etc. basicly serve from home. If I run the 64-bit trial version of Win 2003 server and say load games or Photoshop am I going to have problems and also will SETI run with no problems?

I need to skimp on the video card costs so what is going to run with Windows 64 bit 2003 server and not break the bank.

Any suggestions on memory? I'm guessing 2 512 sticks what brand? and wonder if that is going to be enough with everything turned on in the way of software.

I've got hard drives and cd/dvd drives.

 

[Confused]

You may have a few problems with running games on 2003 server

I'm sure there is an XP beta for AMD64, that should be better


Garry

 

[CyGoR]

Because I'm also going to make a new rig with the A64 I did some 'research' about the difference between the 3000+ and the
3200+, it's about 2% so the 3000+ is a much better choise.. There are few programs which utilizes the extra L2 cache,
512Kb is enough.. (It was Garry who said to me that the 3000+ was perfoming almost the same ) When you want to run
programs like Photoshop I recommend you use 512Mb or even 1Gb of ram. I don't know if there are any games yet which
run on a 64bit-Os like XP betá etc.. I've just ordered an Abit K8V-Max 3 motherboard which looked great to me.. Also a very
big Zalman cooler (This one) only problem is, it weighs 700+ gram

Good luck on deciding!!

 

[DoritoOfDeath]

Either the Gigabyte Nforce3 board or the Asus K8V Deluxe work fine. Just don't get Corsair TWINX memory if you go the Asus route, doesn't work in that board.

 

[muttley]

ok

Now need help on the Video card. I haven't kept up on video cards the last one I got was a GeForce 4 and its nice and fast but I don't think that they even list them any more so what is good without killing the budget?

Also what to use for memory???

Thanks,
Bruce

Guess I'm going with a 3000 speed and a K8X800 Pro II
http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2004q1/albatron-k8x800proii/index.x?pg=1
I sort of went with it because of this reason.
Since the Athlon 64's memory controller resides on the processor, the K8T800's north bridge chip houses only the chipset's AGP 8X interface and HyperTransport processor link. The K8T800's HyperTransport upstream and downstream links are 16 bits wide and run at 800MHz, providing 1.6GB/sec of bandwidth in each direction. By comparison, the nForce3's HyperTransport implementation uses an 8-bit upstream link and a 16-bit downstream link, both running at 600MHz. The upstream link provides 600MB/sec of bandwidth, and the downstream 1.2GB/sec.

 

[RaySun2Be]

SETI should run fine, but with all the services turned on, it may take a bit longer to complete a WU than one with minimal apps. loaded.

Games on Server 2003? Never tried it, can't help there.

Video card? Need an idea of your price range. For dirt cheap, any old PCI video card should work with 2003 Server, if you aren't going to be gaming on it.

 

[DoritoOfDeath]

How much do you want to spend on the video card? Can get anything from a GeforceFX 5900 or an ATI 9800 pro or XT. As for the memory you can just get some Kingston Hyperx RAM.

 

[muttley]

Ok

lets try in the $200 and under price range
and I'd like it to record automaticly from TV at 3am to record math class.

Edit:
I'll put the GeForce4 in this computer and the video TV card in another computer so I don't fight issues with trying the 64 bit operating.


Thanks,
Bruce

 

[JonB]

Since the AMD 64 (non-FX and Opteron) is single channel, you could go with one memory stick instead of two. I bought one stick of Mushkin PC3200 with no heat spreaders, then added my own copper spreader.

I used the MSI Neo board, mostly because of past success with MSI, and for its impressive array of built-ins. Gigabit LAN, two SATA RAID controllers (four headers), three IDE headers, Firewire, USB 2.0, AC97 sound with digital outputs (SPDIF and optical). I am using none of my old PCI cards. I have 6 USB 2.0 ports on the back side and could still attach 2 more to the front (if my case supported it)

I got the ThermalTake SilentBoost cooler and was impressed with its finish and quietness. If the Zalman is more quiet, it can't be by much (unless it cancels noise). I used Artic Silver 5 for the first time. Very thick stuff, but it does seem to actually get better with age and cycling. I was skeptical about it. (about 2C lower than first day) My temperatures are very acceptable. Case open, 43C, Case closed 45C (full SETI load)

My biggest surprise was that my old Enermax power supply didn't have the four-pin square power plug needed by AMD 64 boards. For now, I'm using a cheap cheap 350W supply, but it has been well behaved. Perhaps its because I have no PCI card loads.

I am still using my ATI 7500 All in Wonder. The system is smooth with it even though it is only AGP 4X. (The bundled software will let me record TV on any schedule I want)

The thing I notice about my "new" computer is that my old hard drive seems to be the "slow guy." While it is 7200rpm, ATA100, I will probably add a Western Digital Raptor soon as the boot drive. I can't help myself. Don't try to stop me. NOOOOOOooooooo!

 

[CyGoR]

JonB, before you buy a Raptor, make sure youve read a few benchmarks of it.. I did a few weeks ago (didn't know where anymore, could be Toms Hardware..) but it only seems to be a few %'s better than other SATA drives! You'll be much faster buying a few 80 (or bigger ofcourse ) SATA drives and run them in Raid.
You do indeed have a nice cooler! I just wanted the biggest thing to fit my board, call me nuts! Although it only makes 25dB when running full speed, I can set it to 20dB with the supplied controller. And combined with the Cool 'n quiet function of the Amd, when not crunching, it will be absolutely silent! Now I only need to order a heat-pipe cooler for my annoing 40mm GPU fan..


Muttley, you should NOT Overclock your cpu on that board!! The reviewer noticed he fried his board with just minor OC settings, and he's not the only whan that happened to!! Furthermore, I would never make a server with a motherboard which has no thermal security (e.a. fan control or temp control) to shut down the system. A simple sound warning is not enough...

 

[muttley]

JonB

where did you get a 1 gig memory stick? and at what cost?

Bruce

 

[JonB]

I don't have a 1gb stick. Just a single 512mb. I may buy another soon if I become convinced that two would be better than one.

 

[mechBgon]

Here is my photo spread of the Alpha PAL8150 heatsink if you want to see that one. It's $34-ish at Newegg without fan.

A few notes on the state of Athlon 64 right now:

• The Socket 754 models have one memory controller (duh, we all know this) and it can run PC3200 speeds with up to four banks of memory, which means two double-sided modules. Exceed that, and it kicks down to PC1600.
• The single-processor boards that are piled with fancy stuff like gigabit Ethernet, one or two RAID controllers, and a Firewire controller are cramming it all onto the PCI bus. The exception is VIA's native SATA RAID southbridge, but it gets some surprisingly-high CPU usage even in single-drive mode, from the user report I saw. This strikes me as sub-optimal, especially since I have two SCSI controllers that I want to plug into the PCI bus as well! I suggest holding out for nForce3 250Gb if you intend to do heavy work with gigabit Ethernet, because nF3 250Gb's gigE NIC will be out on the Hypertransport bus, and so will its SATA RAID, PATA RAID and Firewire. This leaves these devices plenty of freeway to drive on.
• The Socket 939 processors, having dual memory controllers, can hopefully handle four PC3200 modules
• OTOH, if you just cannot wait for nF3 250Gb, you know you can sell your Socket754 mobo/CPU combo without much difficulty when the time comes
• Any particular reason you're not going to use normal WinServer2003 32-bit? I've run the trial version on a classic nForce board with an AthlonXP and even an old Celeron with a VIA-based mobo. It was actually not too outrageously bad even on the Celeron. I wasn't running a mail server, but I was running some other stuff that might be just as bad, like McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator (central antivirus management, uses SQL). My Celeron 466 test system was equipped with 392MB of SDRAM at PC66 speed.

So there is my random brain dump, hope it contains something of use

 

[CyGoR]

Thanks mechBgon.
Do you know if the Via Pro chipset which will be available in a few months (I heard) has it's Sata and Gbit lan combined with the HyperTransport? At least it does has support to set the Pci/AGP clock different from the 'FSB'... Luckely I'm not planning on using more than 4 memory banks (2x 512Mb must be enough..)
Now we need to wait to see the 3700+ prices when they arrive

Nice cooler that is!!! But it looks a bit bit to me.. I chose the Zalman because it has a small base and will fit almost any Motherboard..

 

[DoritoOfDeath]

Originally posted by: CyGoR
JonB, before you buy a Raptor, make sure youve read a few benchmarks of it.. I did a few weeks ago (didn't know where anymore, could be Toms Hardware..) but it only seems to be a few %'s better than other SATA drives! You'll be much faster buying a few 80 (or bigger ofcourse ) SATA drives and run them in Raid.
You do indeed have a nice cooler! I just wanted the biggest thing to fit my board, call me nuts! Although it only makes 25dB when running full speed, I can set it to 20dB with the supplied controller. And combined with the Cool 'n quiet function of the Amd, when not crunching, it will be absolutely silent! Now I only need to order a heat-pipe cooler for my annoing 40mm GPU fan..


Muttley, you should NOT Overclock your cpu on that board!! The reviewer noticed he fried his board with just minor OC settings, and he's not the only whan that happened to!! Furthermore, I would never make a server with a motherboard which has no thermal security (e.a. fan control or temp control) to shut down the system. A simple sound warning is not enough...

Actually I've read a number of reviews and the performance increase is pretty significant. Right up there with many of the SCSI disks. Seek time is just over half a normal SATA drive.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

2003 server uses it's own video drivers and doesn't support current video cards very well, or in other words get the cheapest video card you can for it, like an ati rage128.