Thinking of upgrading my PC

[SkarIronfist]

If you are upgrading on a budget. Then the asrock mother board for AMD 64 socket 939 has alot of potential.

It can be had for £40.

http://www.asrock.com/product/939Dual-SATA2.htm

Reasons to love the motherboard.

It has 1 AGP slot and 1 PCI Express Slot. So if you have an AGP graphic card then that can go in now. You can then insert a PCI Express Graphic card when you have the money at a latter date. (Only note is to thnk of the power required for 2 gfx cards)

They will both run at the same time. So you have 2 graphic cards (These are not SLI'd ).

But effectively you can have 1 card each powering a monitor. I believe you can power 4 monitors .. from the 2 cards if they each have 2 outputs (If you have a bloody huge desk).

Also it has a daughter board slot for the AMD AM2 socket (you have to buy - £30). Which has room for 4 DDR2 slots and an AM2 cpu. So you can upgrade to the new AMD socket standard.

It has support for all the 939 chips and happily runs my AMD 64 x2 4400.

So you could go AMD 64 3500+ (939) -> AMD 64 X2 (939) and then jump to AM2

 

[Ingafgrinn Macabre]

@confused:

Why do you post in such a manner that insinuates that anyone not agreeing with your opinion is in some way mentally challenged? You're talking far too agressive dude. There are more ways that lead to Rome, and since you're obviously an Intel / Ati fanboi remember that your opinions might be (and are) very biased. Other people sometimes do have some good points and other people's objectives (and wallets) might be different than yours.

 

[confused]

@confused:

Why do you post in such a manner that insinuates that anyone not agreeing with your opinion is in some way mentally challenged? You're talking far too agressive dude. There are more ways that lead to Rome, and since you're obviously an Intel / Ati fanboi remember that your opinions might be (and are) very biased. Other people sometimes do have some good points and other people's objectives (and wallets) might be different than yours.

Notice how many times i've posted the same thing, and look how many times i've been ignored, kinda gets your back up eventually

Edit: my rigs amd fx57 using 7800gt
amd fx60 using x1900 in crossfire

so yes an intel/ati fan boy

Fact is that the conroe's are faster than the present amd's and that the x1900 cards are faster than the 7900 cores, admitidly 7950's. I've merely stated multiple times that from many threads on the overclockers forum that hundreds of people have had problems with the 7900 line and have been forced the RMA them, yet the ATi line haven't had the same responce.

Yes I probably have been quite agressive, more so than I intended, however it seems that people don't listen unless I am.

 

[Ingafgrinn Macabre]

Notice how many times i've posted the same thing, and look how many times i've been ignored, kinda gets your back up eventually

Edit: my rigs amd fx57 using 7800gt
amd fx60 using x1900 in crossfire

so yes an intel/ati fan boy

Fact is that the conroe's are faster than the present amd's and that the x1900 cards are faster than the 7900 cores, admitidly 7950's. I've merely stated multiple times that from many threads on the overclockers forum that hundreds of people have had problems with the 7900 line and have been forced the RMA them, yet the ATi line haven't had the same responce.

Yes I probably have been quite agressive, more so than I intended, however it seems that people don't listen unless I am.

I can assure you that the more agressive you get, the less people will listen. Okay, you're not an ati/intel fanboy but that was the way you came across because you never really gave any links to backup your statements. You just hammer on in the "Ati rules cos I say so. Period" style and that won't get the people over to your side.
Winning an arguement is not about who repeats his statement the most times. It's about who can back it up best with proof / research / experience.
Also, if people won't listen... let them. It's not like the world is coming to an end now, is it?

 

[Svartmetall]

Fact is that the conroe's are faster than the present amd's and that the x1900 cards are faster than the 7900 cores, admitidly 7950's. I've merely stated multiple times that from many threads on the overclockers forum that hundreds of people have had problems with the 7900 line and have been forced the RMA them, yet the ATi line haven't had the same responce.

And yet...I work as a consultant in IT support, and I see many, many people with graphics problems with ATI cards and virtually none with Nvidia cards. I'm not saying you're wrong, per se, just that my experience - both personally and professionally - of ATI cards differs from yours.

 

[Ingafgrinn Macabre]

Hug a Warlock today​

roflol

 

[Neffneff]

i have been listening i even appreciate your advice, advice in this thread including yours has made me check, think, check again, assess my budget and what i want, check and think some more, then eventually go with what i have.

the thing is i DIDN'T want to spend over £100 on a CPU, just a fact, if i had the money, yes i'd have waited and gone with a conroe.

thing i want to know is this, you see a conroe 2.66 GHz apparently compares very closely to an FX62 (from benchmarks run by tomshardware on a rig setup for them by intel). this particular conroe will retail for £411 includin V.A.T from OCuk.

now im skeptical myself that the entry level conroe (the one you stated for 150ish) @1.86GHz will reliably clock to the same sort of speeds, i could be wrong, and if you have some articles to show this i would appreciate it (i just like to know these things)

and even if it could reliably clock to that speed, its still nearly double the price of what i have purchased.

What i do know is what my CPU is capable off, i KNOW that it can perform very closely to an FX60, okay so its not an FX62, but again i point out it only cost 85 quid, and it is now running @ 4GHz reliably, on air. my PC still doesnt sound like a jet engine, and i am very happy.

there is an article on tomshardware about my CPU, if you havnt read it ill post the link below, it has various benchmarks showing its performance, its not THE BEST CPU but imo it IS the BEST for value for money when looking at overclocking.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2006/05/10/dual_41_ghz_cores_uk/

again if you have any links to some benchmarks with some conroes, overclocked or not, i would love to have a read through them.

 

[Cylian]

did the Conroe hit the stores yet at all ? As far as I know it's still pre-production.

And for ATI vs Nvidia, never had any troubles with my Nvidia cards, the ATI ones are a different story though.

 

[confused]

Also, if people won't listen... let them. It's not like the world is coming to an end now, is it?

Very very true, but I wouldn't want another person with little experience spending their hard earned money on something, where they would otherwise buy something which is better value for money.

7900 error links
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17590862&highlight=7900+rma
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17576445&highlight=7900+rma
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17579648&highlight=7900+rma
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17598093&highlight=7900+rma
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17599109&highlight=7900

The main difference between the 2 is the 7800gtx works properly

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17597085&highlight=7800gtx+7900
there are many many many more

You may say this isn't conclusive as all links are from one source, but I now cannot post from the xfx webbie as they closed their forum due to thousands of threads about 7900 issues

Conroe:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17591308&highlight=conroe+performance

Yes with ati, driver changing is different from Nvidia, as in you need to use driver cleaner, which seems cure 99% of the problems people have come to me with.

Conroe release date is 24th July


Hope that's helpfull

 

[confused]

again if you have any links to some benchmarks with some conroes, overclocked or not, i would love to have a read through them.

when the retail chips are out then there will be many floating about, before then google conroe vs fx62

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=5692&page=3
2nd best conroe vs top amd


I apolgise for getting agressive etc

 

[Darzil]

Very very true, but I wouldn't want another person with little experience spending their hard earned money on something, where they would otherwise buy something which is better value for money.

7900 error links
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17590862&highlight=7900+rma
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17576445&highlight=7900+rma
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17579648&highlight=7900+rma
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17598093&highlight=7900+rma
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17599109&highlight=7900

Ye gods, so many problems from saving a few quid buying stuff from cheaper sources, rather than going with the likes of Gainward with a good reputation. Didn't look good, though it was implied in all of them that it was one batch, and affected mainly XFX/BFG and OcUK own brand, so quite possibly ok now.

My father-in-laws dual 7900 GTX system is still smooth as anything.

Darzil

 

[Saggy]

Ye gods, so many problems from saving a few quid buying stuff from cheaper sources, rather than going with the likes of Gainward with a good reputation. Didn't look good, though it was implied in all of them that it was one batch, and affected mainly XFX/BFG and OcUK own brand, so quite possibly ok now.

Erm, most of the stores I buy my computer stuff from dont have any of the Gainward products in their stock because of their nature of going "kaboom" Oo This is honestly the first time ever I hear anything good about Gainward oO On a side note Gainward is the cheapest here in Finland - maybe they ship all the shit here? :S

As for the 7900GT issues - one set of Samsung memories were shit and it should be ok now.

 

[confused]

Erm, most of the stores I buy my computer stuff from dont have any of the Gainward products in their stock because of their nature of going "kaboom" Oo This is honestly the first time ever I hear anything good about Gainward oO On a side note Gainward is the cheapest here in Finland - maybe they ship all the shit here? :S

As for the 7900GT issues - one set of Samsung memories were shit and it should be ok now.

most recent post with problems was posted new today. Gainwards 7900's have been affected aswell, as it wasn't necessarily the manufacturers but nvidia itself.
From the Gainwards i've had in the past I always remember the fans keeping them quite cool, but them being loud as hell, if buying nvidia go for a BFG lifetime warentee is always good.

Yes it might be fixed now, but why worry, just get a ATI and be done with it. Nvidia should have done a full recall, they deserve any loss in profit they get because they didn't

 

[Saggy]

most recent post with problems was posted new today. Gainwards 7900's have been affected aswell, as it wasn't necessarily the manufacturers but nvidia itself

All the common problems are related to one set of Samsung's memories if I'm not mistaken and yes, there is still some of those out. The ones with "fixed" (Infineon's most likely) memory are perfectly fine.

 

[confused]

All the common problems are related to one set of Samsung's memories if I'm not mistaken and yes, there is still some of those out. The ones with "fixed" (Infineon's most likely) memory are perfectly fine.

yep you're correct about the memory and Infieon is going to be making it in the future

I would ask for a refund and buy an X1800XT 256MB and a Zalman VF900-CU with the price difference, then again I already bought those and am uber impressed. If you want another 7900 then wait until they start fitting them with the Infineon memory instead, supposedly will fix a lot of these problems.

and yes it was a BFG