LITTLEBLACKDOG.COM

Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 2:00 pm Post subject:

Doug wrote:
I'm resisting being mean and venomous, I've learned that it really gets me no where.

I have done my research, I've bought plenty from both Newegg and Tigerdirect. I prefer Newegg, but tigerdirect is fine if you're after generic parts.

They seem borderline shifty. But the problem stems from damned morons not reading product descriptions and fine print.

AHHH so that explains why they charged me for a product, and every tyme I called them, they told me it was on order.. until I finally called and they told me it was cancelled.. and only then (after 6 months) did they refund my money...

apparently, I'm just a moron...

EEps · Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2005 12:57 am Post subject:

Outpost has an AMD Athlon 64 Processor 3000+ & ECS NFORCE3-A Motherboard combo fer $140 + $9 shipping... Big Smile

Stray Dog Joined: 18 Aug 2005 Posts: 43 Location: Texas

That's a nice deal!

I just noticed, between socket 754 and socket 939 the respective 3000 / 3200 model Athlons have a 200ghz higher clock in favor of the older socket. I assume this has always been that way and I am just now noticing, with the Venice cores?

I still say buy a socket 939 over the socket 754, unless the only factor by far is total price. Otherwise when something breaks, you'll be in this same spot again for sure with a socket 754 system, prices are lower 'cause they're already being phased out with AMD's new socket M2 platform on the way...

Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 4:38 pm Post subject:

Socket-754 processors have a single 64-bit DDR memory channel.
Socket-939 processors have dual 64-bit memory channels.

More memory bandwidth = higher performance for a given CPU core speed. That is why a 1.8 GHz Athlon64 with 512KB of L2 cache is a 3000+ in socket-939 and only gets a 2800+ rating in socket-754.

Stray Dog Joined: 18 Aug 2005 Posts: 43 Location: Texas

Ahh, I didn't realize that was why then. Between the the dual channel capability, the 130nm ot 90nm conversion only the 939 processors have, the improved memory controller on the newer cores, and the SSE3 support, I wasn't sure if that mhz jump won out or not.

So in that case, it'd be better to stick with 939 unless price is the only factor in the equation, right?

AMD Athlon64 3000+ new "Venice" core socket 939 is $146 (1.8ghz) FSB 1ghz
AMD Athlon64 3000+ old "Newcastle" core socket 754 is $169 (2.0ghz)FSB 800mhz

An AMD Athlon64 3200+ new "Venice" core socket 939 is $190 (2ghz) FSB 1ghz
An AMD Athlon64 3200+ old "Newcastle" core socket 754 is $192 (2.2ghz) FSB 800mhz

Especially since with 754 socket stuff, once something breaks you'd be back at this same problem again, when 939 stuff will be around for a long while to come still. Prices are lower on 754 motherboards because they're starting to be phased out for AMD's upcoming M2 socket launch...

Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 5:27 pm Post subject:

I doubt that Socket-754 will disappear any time soon. It is, however, being positioned as strictly the low-end budget choice.

The newer AMD Sempron64 processors in socket-754 use the Palermo core. Except for having half as much memory bandwidth and half as much level 2 cache, they have similar features to the Venice core Athlon64 chips in Socket-939 (including SSE3).

Motherboards are cheaper than processors or video cards these days. I'd put the effort into optimizing the video card first, then worry about the motherboard as a lower priority.