New cpu / MoBo

[SawTooTH]

Im thinking of upgrading to an Athlon 64 as the price is coming down a bit on at OC

AMD Athlon 64 3700 (Socket 754) - Retail (CP-087-AM) 1
£316.00 £316.00
Gigabyte GA-K8VNXP VIA K8T800 (Socket 754) Motherboard (MB-010-GI) 1
£86.00 £86.00
Subtotal £402.00
Shipping (Amtrak Next Day (Mon-Fri) - UK Mainland) £8.50
VAT £71.84
Total £482.34


anyone got an opinion on this combination or should I hold off until the 939 socket cpus drop in price?

I currently have an athlon 3200+ with 1Gb of 2X 512 DDR (400) matched Geil memory.

I imagine the memory will be okay for this set up. Im just not sure what benefit I'd gain moving to this processor, bang for buck, over what I have already?

 

[jaba]

Would you be interested in selling the old stuff?
There is a nice roundup of 754 motherboards over at anandtech, I like the sound of the Chaintech Zenith Vnf3-250 as its cheap and has great overclocking potential.

 

[SawTooTH]

Cant sell it as i have 2 power hungry sons in line.

 

[SawTooTH]

Well Ive gone for this in the end.

AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3400+ £178.48

AOpen AK89 Max - Mainboard - ATX - nForce3 150 - Socket 754 £77.32

Came to £308. and will work with the PC3200 memory Ive got.

The AK89 max has a few good reviews when its BIOS is upgraded.

 

[old.user4556]

I imagine the memory will be okay for this set up. Im just not sure what benefit I'd gain moving to this processor, bang for buck, over what I have already?

Judging by Anandtech's latest benchmarks, by putting in an A64 3500+ over the XP 3200+ you'll typically gain about 12 fps at 1280*1024.

Bang per buck? Very little i'd say, but socket 939 will give you the scope for future upgrades etc.

Edit - Doom 3 is capped at 60 fps too, so for Doom 3, your money buys you zero in performance stakes, but under HL2 and other games you'll get that little extra bit of juice.

G

 

[jaba]

That 3400+ price, is that with VAT? cos thats well cheap, where you ordering that from?

 

[old.user4556]

ex vat, with VAT it's about £211 from oc.co.uk

 

[SawTooTH]

Im interested to know if that 12 fps though means fewer stutters at intense moments. 12 fps seems quite a lot with a game like D3.

Clearly the 3400 from that review copes nicely with doom 3 and once I get my 6800 ultra as well I should be future proof for another year, at least using that engine.
My interest next would be whether to go for an SLI set up....that would be something.

I considered the newer socket but hell Ill probably go that way once we start seeing PCI Express