another what to upgrade :P

[luk1n]

Current setup:
-AMD Athlon 64 3200+
-ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe
-ATI Radeon x800
-2gb memory (4x 512 Corsair PC3200)
-74g WD Raptor, 250g Seagate 7200, WD 320g

I just found this forum and am gonna do some research reading here whether I can just upgrade this comp or if I should get a whole new one. I am gonna get 2 lcd's soon (am using a 17" CRT atm haha) and am thinking of SAMSUNG 226BW Black 22" 2 ms ( Newegg.com - SAMSUNG 226BW Black 22" 2 ms (GTG) Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 700:1(DC 3000:1) - Retail )

I'm thinking mostly for gaming but also think I should get more/better memory so I can have multiple apps open without anything slowing down between the 2 lcd's. Thanks.

 

[Peter.Cort]

welcome to tf first off!

now about your question, you might want to invest in a better processor, because a single core might slow you down more then the ram. 2 gb of ram should be fine for whatever you do unless its ram intensive tasks which it doesn't really seem like thats the case. depending on what kind of gaming you want to do a new gfx card might be in the cards for you, and definitely a better processor. you should be able to upgrade to a dual core whether or not its a skt939 or am2.

 

[luk1n]

What about the: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Windsor 3.2GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM2 125W Dual-Core Processor

Newegg.com - AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Windsor 3.2GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM2 125W Dual-Core Processor - Retail

Should I get it w/the stock fan for 169 or w/o and get a different fan for 162?

I might start reading about overclocking, is there a good fan to get incase I do that?

I think I'll try a new CPU and see if it makes a big enough difference

*edit* or should I go for a quad-core - Newegg.com - AMD Phenom 9500 Agena 2.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 2MB L3 Cache Socket AM2+ 95W Quad-Core Processor - Retail (it's only about $30 more)

 

[Peter.Cort]

First off your board is a socket 939 board, so it can't support either of the chips you linked. You can still get dual core chips, but they won't be as powerful. which brings up the point of you might want to consider getting a different motherboard and cpu combo all together. That in and of itself could improve your computer quite a lot. Problem with that though is you would most likely have to buy new ram and you would probably want to buy a new graphics card but that board I believe is Pci-e so that wouldn't be necessary. The good news is ddr ram is sort of expensive now and ddr2 ram is quite cheap, so you could probably sell your ddr ram here and make enough money to cover the cost of 2gb of ddr2 thats really nice ram.

If you are going to overclock seriously then you can either get an artic freezer pro 64 which is the best bang for your buck cooler, or you can get a TRUE-120 or a Tuniq Tower and a 120mm fan which are the 2 best coolers on the market now. Granted they will run you around 50-60 bucks, but if you want great performance you sometimes have to pay for it.

hope this helps, I'll keep my eye on the thread to see if you have any other questions.

 

[luk1n]

The only BE Brisbane I see on Newegg is Newegg.com - AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Black Edition Processor - Retail - but I figure I should get a faster one.

I have always shopped through Newegg, I guess I'll try to find some other online stores that seem reliable and see if they have any others. Any trustworthy sites I should check offhand?

I'll probably go with the BE and a decent fan, but not quite spend too much on o/c yet. I'll get the arctic freezer fan for now, only $20.

Thanks for the help!

*edit, looks like that is the fastest brisbane

*edit2 - I should probably ask in the o/c forum, but how much would I need to o/c the brisbane to get it on par with the athlon 6400? would the arctic fan handle that? Also would I need to buy some of the thermal compound or does it come with that already?

edi3 - ok obviously i need to slow down, just reread your post about needing a 939 socket lol

 

[Luke]

i think tc comes with the artic, not sure though. i think you would be better off going for a tuniq tower though.

 

[Peter.Cort]

yeh, it kinda sucks that you're in the position that you're in. lucky for you you have a couple choices. one, you can move over to intel which is relatively cheap if you're gfx card is a pcie. if it is then you can get a new mobo and a good cpu for 163 w/o shipping, and you can overclock the cpu to 3.0+ ghz. Also you might want to consider upgrading your gfx, which you can do for extremely cheap now. You can get a 9600GT for around 170-180 i believe and they are a solid card that can play most games maxed out on higher res. Also with this option though, you'd have to pick up some ddr2 ram, but lucky for you its dirt cheap, as in 40 bucks for 2 gig i believe after mir.

another option for you is to pick up a skt939 dual core (usually a manchester core) but they would run a bit more expensive, but would allow you to retain your current setup.

 

[Trotter]

luk1n, your motherboard will not, I repeat, will not run a AM2 chip. It is a completely different socket that what you have, and it requires DDR2 RAM whereas you have DDR.

All is not lost, however. I run a s939 rig myself, and it works just fine. It's not as fast as the newest stuff, but it's no slouch, either.

The main problem with upgrading what you have is availability. s939 have been gone for a while now, so they are not readily available just anywhere. You haven't been here long enough to have access to the Buy/Sell/Trade forum... that's where I found my current CPU. There had been one or two s939's up for sale, but I haven't looked lately.

With what you are running now, going with a faster dual core CPU and a better GFX card will extend the life of your rig. I will probably upgrade my GFX card again before I build a new system. Even then this one will be put to use, probably as my wife's compute to replace the aging socket A 2000+ she is using now.