Processor suggestions

Get whatever your motherboard supports. Unless you're buying one of those too. I've heard athlons don't really get much of a performance increase from dual channel. I think 939 is going to be the new motherboard while phasing out 754 sooner or later. I think 939 are going to be the only ones with pci express. Here's what I'd do, if I'm building a computer that I won't need to upgrade for a few years, I'd just get whatever is cheaper since all my components will be pretty much obsolete next upgrade anyway. If not, I'd go 939.

Hopefully you got firefox and instant linkification.

but here are some revelant links i found with the search feature on GameDev.Net
(note: it's somewhat broken when i did a search on Athlon FX it couldn't read the string, but i tried Athlon it worked just fine)

http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=287998
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=288685
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=229345
http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=273518

I would definately get the 3500+ instead of the 3400+ any day. Get the winchester .90 core and it is clockable to insane speeds as well if you are into the whole OCing thing :)

I just got an FX-55 myself which is my first ever AMD processor.. and I must say I just love it.

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Original post by nicksterdomus Get whatever your motherboard supports. Unless you're buying one of those too. I've heard athlons don't really get much of a performance increase from dual channel. I think 939 is going to be the new motherboard while phasing out 754 sooner or later. I think 939 are going to be the only ones with pci express. Here's what I'd do, if I'm building a computer that I won't need to upgrade for a few years, I'd just get whatever is cheaper since all my components will be pretty much obsolete next upgrade anyway. If not, I'd go 939.

Yeah, I was leaning heavily towards the socket 939 until I realized I'll have to upgrade my motherboard anyway to PCI-Expess in a few years anyway, since I currently have a Radeon 9800.

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Original post by Saruman I would definately get the 3500+ instead of the 3400+ any day. Get the winchester .90 core and it is clockable to insane speeds as well if you are into the whole OCing thing :) I just got an FX-55 myself which is my first ever AMD processor.. and I must say I just love it.

Hmmm, I do want to have the option of overclocking in the the future. However, most of the benchmarks I've been reading have the 3400+ leading in games, so I'm beginning to lean towards that one. Is there anything else I should consider?

(BTW, thanks for the links Alpha)

Edit:
Wait, the 3500+ that I'm looking at on newegg has a Newcastle core, do you have a link to a Winchester core 3500+ Saruman, cause I didn't see one on newegg

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Hmmm, I do want to have the option of overclocking in the the future. However, most of the benchmarks I've been reading have the 3400+ leading in games, so I'm beginning to lean towards that one. Is there anything else I should consider?

InMyHonestOpinion if you are going to spend so much for something as nice as a 64bit amd, don't freaking OC it!

A lot of people are always like OC this and OC that but come on, if your buying a 64bit 3400+ or whatever, why in the world would you need to OC it and risk messing it up? Why take that risk? I dont want to start a flame war about wheter or not you should OC, but Im just saying if you want the power and performance of a Dodge Viper, you can either buy the viper or supe up another car. Why would you want to mess with the viper (unless you are rich) just to get a little better performance out of something that is already top of the line. That's just a raw anaolgy.

How this relates to your decision, if money is no object, by all means, go for whatever you want and OC the heck out of it, but I dont think this is the case, so make your decision based on more of will this performance last me for the next few years? rather than wanting to OC it.

I made the same decision with my P4 3.2 ghz. I'm sure I could OC it to be faster, but whats the point? I wanted to buy something that was top of the line (when I bought it in 2k3) so I would not have to touch it! As for your other questions - dual channel ram is nice, but remember your comp is only as fast as the slowest component. (Thats another reason I would advise against OC).

Having 1mb l2 chache is really performance enchancing, but with the 64 bit - you will already be at top notch. I wouldn't worry about upgrading your processor, in 2-3 years you will probabally get the latest and greatest (i know i will [wink]). Than you can still have your PC, which will not be outdated at all!

The main things to remeber, I know your asking about processors, is to get a great Power Supply Unit - I recommend the Ultra XConnect. I can personally vouche for its quality [wink]. I bought mine retail for $100. Next you should get round IDE cables as well as a round floppy drive cable. Not only do they look nice, they improve air flow in your case, as does the XConnect. Get a case that has support for front air intake as well as the standard back exaust. I have this case. As you can see, the 120mm fans in front and back will definitly move air! You can even upgrade those fans to more high power if necessary. Other than that, buy high end components so you get the most out of your PC and it will easily last you a few years.

I hope I didnt get too off topic. Good-luck with your PC. I would also recommend New Egg for all your computer needs. I <3 them!

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Original post by Drew_Benton Quote: Hmmm, I do want to have the option of overclocking in the the future. However, most of the benchmarks I've been reading have the 3400+ leading in games, so I'm beginning to lean towards that one. Is there anything else I should consider? InMyHonestOpinion if you are going to spend so much for something as nice as a 64bit amd, don't freaking OC it! A lot of people are always like OC this and OC that but come on, if your buying a 64bit 3400+ or whatever, why in the world would you need to OC it and risk messing it up? Why take that risk? I dont want to start a flame war about wheter or not you should OC, but Im just saying if you want the power and performance of a Dodge Viper, you can either buy the viper or supe up another car. Why would you want to mess with the viper (unless you are rich) just to get a little better performance out of something that is already top of the line. That's just a raw anaolgy. How this relates to your decision, if money is no object, by all means, go for whatever you want and OC the heck out of it, but I dont think this is the case, so make your decision based on more of will this performance last me for the next few years? rather than wanting to OC it. I made the same decision with my P4 3.2 ghz. I'm sure I could OC it to be faster, but whats the point? I wanted to buy something that was top of the line (when I bought it in 2k3) so I would not have to touch it! As for your other questions - dual channel ram is nice, but remember your comp is only as fast as the slowest component. (Thats another reason I would advise against OC). Having 1mb l2 chache is really performance enchancing, but with the 64 bit - you will already be at top notch. I wouldn't worry about upgrading your processor, in 2-3 years you will probabally get the latest and greatest (i know i will [wink]). Than you can still have your PC, which will not be outdated at all! The main things to remeber, I know your asking about processors, is to get a great Power Supply Unit - I recommend the Ultra XConnect. I can personally vouche for its quality [wink]. I bought mine retail for $100. Next you should get round IDE cables as well as a round floppy drive cable. Not only do they look nice, they improve air flow in your case, as does the XConnect. Get a case that has support for front air intake as well as the standard back exaust. I have this case. As you can see, the 120mm fans in front and back will definitly move air! You can even upgrade those fans to more high power if necessary. Other than that, buy high end components so you get the most out of your PC and it will easily last you a few years. I hope I didnt get too off topic. Good-luck with your PC. I would also recommend New Egg for all your computer needs. I <3 them!

Well, I don't plan on overclocking it immediately because I feel the same way as you. However, when it begins to go down in performance later on, I want to have the option. About the PSU, I just recently bought a 350 watt PSU when my other one died. However, I don't know if 350 watts will be enough for a AMD Athlon 64 processor, what do you think?

drew: keep in mind it's not "top of the line" it's a 200$ processor & the reason people do this is because 3400oc to 4000=200$ & shop 4000=750$

processors (like graphic cards) always have a pretty stable price/perf ratio till you get to the 3-4 last model (in wich case you pay like 300% of the price for 140% of the performance) on the other hand with ton of game being gpu capped nowadays it's not such a big deal...

about pci express if you have some spare cash amd mobo with pci express are here... even sli ones why not get one now? just pick up a (cheap) 6600gt wich won't be much worst than your radeon & you're set to not need to do big changes for a looong while (maybe upgrade vidcard in 1 year & you're set for 2 more year) while if you just pick up new mobo & processor now you'll have to change mobo AGAIN later (& with sli if you won't need to upgrade soon... 2X best of next line nvidia gpu > a single 6800ultra in 2 years)

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Original post by Bakingsoda36 Well, I don't plan on overclocking it immediately because I feel the same way as you. However, when it begins to go down in performance later on, I want to have the option. About the PSU, I just recently bought a 350 watt PSU when my other one died. However, I don't know if 350 watts will be enough for a AMD Athlon 64 processor, what do you think?

It will depend on what video card you also intend to run. With AMD Athlon 64/FX or Opteron processors, and an ATI Radeon X800 Pro AGP, 350W should be fine, so long as you're not also running like 4 harddrives and 3 optical drives or something. With a Radeon X800 PCI-E or X850 PCI-E, you'll want at least a 400W PSU.

With an nVidia Geforce 6800 Ultra, it's a different story, where you'll need at least a 480W PSU.

For my machine, I've got an AMD Athlon 64 3500+, ASUS K8V Deluxe motherboard, ATI Radeon X800 Pro, 1GB of high-performance Corsair PC3200 CAS2 RAM, 80GB SATA harddrive, DVD/CD-RW combo drive, sweet case w/ black-gloss finish & window kit & led fans & 500W PSU, two black BenQ FP783 17" LCD flat-panel monitors with 500:1 contrast and 12ms response, and black wireless MS keyboard and mouse combo.

The 500W PSU might be a little more than I need, but I like to play it on the safe side. If you go with an nVidia Geforce 6xxx card, I'd recommend getting at least a 500W PSU as well.

350W is plenty for an Athlon 64. (Unless you pair it with a 6800 Ultra SLI setup:))
Anyway, it depends a lot on the quality of the PSU as well. Some 500W PSU's are no better than a good 350W unit.

The 90nm A64's draw less than 70W. The old 130nm ones are just under 90. As a comparison, the 5+ year old Athlon Thunderbird used just under 70 as well. :)

As for the 480W comment above, nope, when they launched the 6800 Ultra, they recommended a 480W PSU, *if you were a hardcore user with a ton of other hardware, and were planning on heavy overclocking*. I don't know why they even recommended that in the first place, since it only served to confuse people. (Especially as plenty of tests afterwards showed it to work fine with "normal" PSU's.)

In fact, it only uses a few watts more than the equivalent ATI card.

[Edited by - Spoonster on December 20, 2004 9:41:21 AM]