Re: Time for a new PC, which motherboard?


Charlie Wilkes wrote:
On Wed, 21 Jun 2006 17:21:24 +0200, coolsti <cool@xxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 21 Jun 2006 09:02:22 -0400, Mike T. wrote:


Steve - I'll make it real simple for you. There is no difference
between Intel and AMD, at the moment. AMD has been kicking Intel's ASS,
performance wise, for years. However, AMD are in such great demand now
(because they are kicking Intel's ASS) that their prices are actually
higher than Intel chips, last I checked. So you can't go wrong,
regardless of what processor you choose. They are about the same price
bang/buck wise, neither one is harder to build with.

But you need to back up a bit and not worry so much about the AMD/Intel
issue. What you should be thinking about is this: Any system you build
today should be DUAL-core. So that narrows down your choices quite a
bit. In your price range, you are looking at an AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+,
which is a great processor. Or for less money, you could go with a
Intel Pentium D 940 (Presler, dual-core). Both are 64-bit processors,
so you'll need Windows XP 64-bit edition, or you could download the Beta
2 of Windows Vista, 64 bit. It's buggy, but free, until the retail
version is released.

Once you pick the processor, then you look at mainboards. I'd suggest
the following:

http://us.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_product_spec_details_r_us.jsp?
PRODUCT_ID=3612&CATEGORY_TYPE=LP&SITE=NA
( AMD Proc., DFI INFINITY NF4 ULTRA )

or

http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/d945psn/index.htm (Intel
proc., Intel D945PSN )

Then get a gig or two of high-quality name-brand memory to match your
chosen motherboard, and do NOT skimp on the power supply. Get yourself
an Enermax or fortron/sparkle or Seasonic power supply in the 500W
range, after verifying that it has all the connectors needed for your
chosen ainboard. -Dave

Hi and thanks for the input!

well things are more confusing I guess. Before I was sure I wanted just a
Pentium 4 sort of like the Northbridge 2.4GHz that I am using now, and my
original question for motherboard consideration was which chipset to use
(478, 775 or another one? - I am not sure what difference the chipset
makes here) as well as other specs like fsb speed. Now the issue of Dual
or single w. hyperthreading comes up.

We are using Windows 2000 still, and have been holding off on a move to
XP, partly because of economics (we have windows 2000 licenses, we would
have to pay Microsoft more money to get XP) and I have been extremely
negative towards XP because of the original situation (if it doesn't still
exist) where Microsoft was contacted every time you changed your hardware
configuration. Dave, it sounds from your reply that a move to Dual is wise
because it is the way of the future, but does that really necessitate a
move to XP and a move to 64bit? Excuse my ignorance. I imagine a move to
XP will be necessary for us someday, but I still would like to put it off
as long as possible. And a move to 64bit just makes me cringe with all the
problems I expect to have finding drivers and getting things to work!

I just did a look at a local website that lists CPU's and their local
prices, and I see that several Pentium D series CPU's are in my price
range, but I see no information about what else is needed to get these
guys to work. Would they not be somehow backwards compatible with my
Windows 2000? The idea here would be to go for the newer hardware
technology now, and worry about the upgrade to XP and perhaps 64 bit at a
later date. Or should I better avoid the Duals for now?

Steve, Denmark

I think win2k will work fine on anything as long as you don't go over
2gb (nominally 4gb) of RAM. But I don't agree with the idea that you
should inevitably plan your mid-2006 build around a 64-bit OS. I just
don't see any software that justifies it. It's really useful for data
warehouse apps and engineering apps that mimic wind-tunnels, or what
have you, but for consumers, even the newest games don't come close to
needing that kind of power yet. (Unless there is something totally
new that I haven't even heard of.)

This is off your topic, but interesting. Moore's Law chugs along...
but at the software end, there is no Moore's Law to make development
faster as the code base expands. In fact, the dynamics of multiple
teams tend to slow everything down. Right now it seems like Vista is
a monstrosity that doesn't run much of anything right even in its
second beta. Look how long it took MS to get Windows 95 cleaned up
after the first commercial release. I would not be at all surprised
if Vista is not really worth using until about 3 years from now...
and, the rule of thumb seems to be that 3 years is about the life of a
machine for people who want to stay somewhere near the top of the
curve.

Also, the word on Vista seems to be that the fastest machines now
available will run it, alright... just as a 90mhz pentium w/8mb RAM
ran Windows 95, for those with patience. It is a monster OS,
occupying 15 gigs of space!

So, my conclusion is that for building a system now, it makes sense to
plan on the basis of another 3 years of win2k, at which time Vista
will probably be a pretty good OS with some applications to support
it, and you may be ready for another build.

My bias is conservative. I used win98 until I wanted a machine with
more RAM earlier this year. At that point, I chose win2k after
carefully considering XP. I think win2k is overall a little more
stable, and definitely lighter on resources. XP is good, but it seems
to load services that conflict with certain software, like video
editing apps. I have not run into anything important to me that win2k
won't run fast and well. The only downside seems to be that hardware
support is not as comprehensive, so you could run into a situation
where some peripheral wouldn't have driver support. I would simply
choose a different model, no big deal, but it might be more important
to someone else.

Charlie

My bias is toward minimising system bottlenecks. The best prices I've
found are on pricewatch.com. P5WD-2 will deliver an 800 MHz FSB for
around $170-$200.
Now you have the option of 3 memory speed (and price) bands. For the
processor, I'd pick at least a D930 3 GHz., also well under $200 on PW.
In terms of chipset, anything 945 or above will probably fit your
needs. The 975 didn't speed up the FSB, so that set is probably
overpriced unless you need some really high performance I/O.
While my K6 ran just fine, I say AMD shot themselves in both feet
with the old (really confusing) website and fixed memory interface. The
hardware that's looking like gross overkill now is almost guaranteed to
be "obsolete" within 3 years.
But who's to say? I'm writing this on my P2/450/Me, heh, heh, heh.

.

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