Motherboards and CPUs

Right, decided I'm going to build myself a new PC as it's about time I upgraded from my 4yr old Dell 933Mhz PIII. So, I thought I knew a thing or two about PCs and paid a visit to Tom's Hardware to check out the latest info on motherboards and CPUs.... :yikes:

There are so many bloody variations it's impossible to make any kind of decisions at all. Tom's Hardware is a good site but it's a little lacking if you haven't followed a particular arena of hardware for, ohh, the last 2 weeks . Lots of reviews but not much general info.

So, what do people here reckon is a good MB and CPU combo to go for? Obviously I want something pretty fast that isn't going to go out of date next week. I don't really want onboard gfx (I've got a decent gfx card, or I'll get a new one). My existing 80Gb drive is quite new but it's IDE so if I want to use it in the new machine I'd need an IDE not a SATA controller allthough I'd consider going SATA and buying a new drive if it was worth it.

So, AMD or Intel I guess is the first question? All other things being equal, I'd like to go with AMD, just because they're not Intel

If someone could give me the lowdown on AMD vs Intel and the various chipsets and CPU sockets and types that would be a great help. Things certainly have got a LOT more complicated since the days of the PIII

Michael.

 

AMD is cheaper so you can spend money on other stuff such as memory or a nice SATA hard drive. Even with AMD it gets quite complex, do you go for a mobile althlon (easy to overclock), Althlon XP (Barton) or Athlon 64. The A64 will be the best future proof operating system but no operating system really supports it yet so you won't get full advantage. The Althlon XP Barton's are very fast for the money.

I know people who say Asus are good for AMD chips but they don't like cheap memory. Your graphics card should work fine on a new machine as longs as its AGP 8X (earlier AGP cards don't fit in modern motherboards).

 

Cheers AT, I had a feeling you'd reply . I might for for an A64 then and find an Asus motherboard for it. I really like Asus as I've bought quite a few bits and pieces of Asus gear (laptop for the wife, gfx card, wireless network hub) and they've all been excellent.

My gfx card is AGP 8X so it should be fine. I'll do some hunting on the net now.

Michael.

 

I think that would be a wise future proof decision, the A64's are quite new at the moment so not much software is being made of them, but in a couple of years time they will become entry level.

 

Right, had a quick surf around Scan and chosen a CPU and motherboard:

CPU: AMD Athlon64 FX-53 Socket 939 - might as well go for the top of the range
Motherboard: Asus A8V Deluxe with VIA K8T800 Pro chipset - there aren't many socket 939 chipsets out yet, and this one looks impressive (and Tom's Hardware liked it).

The CPU is expensive (£563 inc. vat) but it should last me a while. I won't be buying for a month or two anyway, by which time my choices above will no doubt be old hat .

Michael.

 

You might want to resist buying the absolute top end unless you really have the money as they will soon go down in price and loose its value very quickly. The price should come down a bit in a couple of months time too. Also make sure you get your self a decent power supply. Just like HIFI its also very important in PCs these days. Also with that CPU you might need 1GB RAM to make the most of it.

 

I use an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ on an Asus N-Force2 based motherboard. So far, it's been rock-solid. Asus have always made decent motherboards and although they can be slightly more expensive than others, it's a premium I feel is worth paying. Memory-wise, I've had great luck with Kingston - I use 2 x 512MB PC2700 DDR DIMMS in my PC and it seems to run fast and stable. With 1GB of RAM, XP Pro runs like a dream.

I bought an AXP due to budgetary constraints, but I'm very pleased with it. I'd recommend the A64 if you can afford it, as it will offer more future-proofing (relatively speaking, given the state of change with PC technologies). Also PCI-Express has hit the market for GFX cards, but TBH, the benchmarks I've seen aren't earth-shatteringly different from AGP 8X at the moment. My next GFX card will likely be a RADEON 9600XT or 9800PRO in about a week or so's time.

Also, at the moment, I'd not rush out and buy SATA unless you need a new hard drive, as again, performance benchmarks appear to be only a marginal improvement over ATA. However, Asus do motherboards with both SATA and ATAPI/ATA ports, so you shouldn't have any problems there building in some future-proofing.

Power-supply wise, I note you're using a Dell. You can buy adapters that are supposed to convert the Dell PSU pin-outs to ATX. Personally, I reckon the power supply is likely to be of low wattage (250 watts or so) and you'd be better off buying a new case/power supply and moving over the components you want in the new system. Then, you've almost got a 'spare' system for a media server or whatever other use you can think of.

 

Nsherin, PCI-Express's power for graphics comes in the form of SLI capabilities. If you can remember back in the days of Voodoo gfx cards, there was a rather nifty trick of being able to put two Voodoo cards in a machine and linking them together (SLI). The result was that one card rendered all the even scanlines and the other the odd scanlines. So in essence each card only rendered one half of a screen, you therefore doubled the rendering power available. Could be rather nice with the current crop of GPUs .

 

Just a note on PSUs if you use one that comes with a case make sure its a good quality one. Although I have not yet had any problems due to poor quality supplies they are noisy and made with cheap components. A little extra money buys you somthing much quieter with more ouptuts and more stable voltage. Also I think you would need at least a 400w PSU for an A64 if you have all your drives, fancy audio and graphics card connected.

With a £500 CPU its really not worth having a cheap £5 part powering your PC.

 

BL2DE3 - thanks. I'd forgotten the SLI capabilities that PCI Express had. Remember it well from Voodoo 2 days, although I didn't have an SLI config myself. NVidia are touting the SLI capabilities on their website at the moment and I'm sure ATI will follow suit.

AT - excellent point about the PSU, which I'd also forgotten about. I must be going a bit senile, I think!

 

nsherin said:

I have just bought and built a similarly spec'd machine myself over the last few months, it runs like a rocket ship ! Windows XP pro is rock solid , no crashes or major lock ups so far, (although i did re-install Norton AV 2004 last night as it broke itself for some reason, I'm sure the problem was down to either my stupidity or Norton software as everything else works brill).

When i built my machine i did a bit of snooping about and also got some great advice off a guy in a small local independant computer store ( the advice was so impartial he even steered me towards ebuyer.com to source some ofmy stuff as it was cheaper, now thats service !). The guy in the shop is a real computer junky/gamer.
I went for an MSI/nForce2 MCP2-T Mobo and am well impressed, it has no onboard graphics, but the onboard sound seems to be top notch when played through my Hi-Fi ( digital optical from Computer in one room to Rotel DAC in another). The sound is via nVIDIA 'soundstorm' APU.
A lot of the geeks on the computer forums all seem to be united in recommending a well spec'd PSU, getting particularly animated about the the 12v power rail current capability for some reason ? I went for an Antec True power 480 watt as it has good current capability and intelligent, temp controlled fan speed control. There are 7 fans inside my machine and it stays cool and hardly makes a whisper.
Like nsherin I also went for the AMD XP 2500+ Barton CPU, the O/Clockers seem to love it although I'm not into that stuff and just keep it simple at stock speeds and voltages.

£500+ quid seem s a lot of cash for the latest and greatest CPU, i sometimes wonder whether it is not better getting a slightly older but well proven unit and let other folk buy the new kid on the block and discover all of the problems associated with it. No photo's but here's my baby:

MoBo: MSI K7N2 Delta ILSR
BIOS: Phoenix-Award W6570MS V7.6
CPU: AMD 2500+ Barton, @ 166MHz (Retail pack)
RAM: Crucial 1.0 Gb (512Mb x 2, PC 2700, p/n: CT6464Z335 )
HDD 1: Seagate 'Barracuda' 80Gb
HDD 2: Seagate 'Barracuda' 80Gb
HDD Ext : IBM Travelstar 10Gb USB 1.1 (Back-up drive)
Graphics: XFX GEFORCE FX 5200 128 MB DDR
PSU: Antec TruePower 480watt ( 3.3v=30A, 5v=38A, 12v=22A)
DVD 1: MSI D16 ( MS-8216M)
DVD 2: LiteOn 8x DVD R/RW
Case: Antec: Plusview 1000 AMG
OS: Win XP Pro SP1
MS wireless keyboard & optical mouse
Broadband via Speedtouch 330 ADSL Modem

 

I might look at a cheaper CPU but AMD's socket 939 seems to be things are going. Maybe in a month or two the prices will come down a bit. As Scan don't ship outside of the UK it may also depend on what I can get here in Portugal for a reasonable price.

Michael.

 

You might find it worthwhile to visit www.sharkyextreme.com. They do PC builders guide in value, power and extreme tiers with corresponding price tags. They always compare and contrast an Intel and AMD machine. Did me proud when buidling a machine 2 years ago.

 

If you're interested in gaming performance then (as I'm sure you're aware) you can hold off a little bit on the CPU side of things and whack a monster graphics card in there instead. Operationally you probably won't notice much difference in a few hundred MHz difference on your CPU, but if you were to switch your Radeon 9600 for something like a Geforce 6800 you can expect literally a four-fold increase in performance in something like Doom (link).

 

Theres no way I'd pay £563 for a processor when you can get one not much slower for a quarter of the price. It makes absolutely no sense - it will only last a couple of months longer.

 

Jeez - I thought my only a couple of months old Radeon 9600XT was pretty cutting edge. OK, it wasn't the latest and greatest but I'm shocked to see it's already being handily beaten, and by an nVidia card no less .

I guess games performance is the only reason to go for a monster upgrade. Everything else runs pretty nicely on my existing machine. A good graphics card is needed for sure but you need the CPU horsepower too. I bet that sticking a GeForce 6800 in my existing PC wouldn't make a huge difference.

Instead of the Athlon64 FX-53 I might just go for the slightly cheaper Athlon64 3800+ in Socket 939.

Michael.

 

Michael, you are so very wrong about saying a Geforce 6800 wont make a huge difference. Unbelievably wrong - even with your current PC.

I dont supose your 9600XT is that much quicker than my Ti4200 and my mates 9800 pro makes mincemeat out of that. And a GF6800 (even the bog standard one) makes mince meat out of a 9800 Pro.

Obviously though, you'll get the full benefit with a faster CPU also, and a 3800+ is probably a good, but still rather expensive choice. The sweet spot at the minute is around the 3000+ mark.

 

Wow, that is impressive if a graphics card can make such a big difference, even on an old PC. The reason I'm thinking of the A64 3800 is that it's a fair but cheaper than the FX-53 (at £445) but looking at the benchmarks on various sites is not significantly slower. The only other sock 939 CPU available is the £241 A64 3500, which might still be worth going for.

I really want socket 939 though as it's got the dual-channel DDR controller and supports standard (rather than registered) DDR memory. It's also AMDs platform for the forseeable future (next 6 months or so). It would be a pity to buy into the older socket 940 or socket 754 when they're both near the end of the line.

At least, that's what I've been reading

Michael.

 

Michael, good points - can't argue with what you say really.

 

nsherin, was that in reply to my CPU comments or the comments about the other thing? Because I split that off into a separate thread to prevent this one from being hijacked

Michael.