• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Building my first AMD system

S

Sabrina

n00b
Joined
Oct 14, 2005
Messages
13
So, I haven't built a new system since my last one which has lasted me for four years, and have always had Intel systems. This is my first shot at building an AMD system and I would like some opinions. I'm working on a $550 budget for the motherboard, processor, case and memory. What I'm trying to do is build a system that will be decent for gaming as well as high end image editting.

COOLMAX CS-480-Black Black ATX Mid Tower Case - $40
MSI K8N Neo4/SLI Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard - $117
AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego - $267
1 GB (2x 512mb) dual channel RAM - $84.50

All together with shipping this will cost me around $570, which as you can see, is a tiny bit over my budget. I can save a lot by downgrading to an Athlon 64 3500+ Venice which would cost $219 instead of $267

The main reason I went with the 3700+ San Diego is that it has 1mb L2 cache rather than 512kb. Is $50 worth the upgrade?

Any other feedback is appreciated. As I said, I haven't built a system in a while, and have never built an AMD system at all.
 
3 questions:
what video card?
what ram? (2x256mb != 1gb btw ;))
overclocking?
 
Oops, I meant 2x512... Don't know why I wrote 256 :p It's 3200 DDR RAM. Corsair.

The video card I haven't decided on yet. I'm not getting it until next month.

I don't plan on overclocking most likely.
 
considering the price, i'm guessing corsair value select ;)

if you plan on keeping this rig for a long time.. do you think you can justify the added price of a 3800+ X2?
 
If you plan to overclock (SUPER safe and easy with the A64 line, even with stock heatsink and fan), you could drop down to a 3200+ and OC far past a 3700+'s power.
 
Qonfused said:
If you plan to overclock (SUPER safe and easy with the A64 line, even with stock heatsink and fan), you could drop down to a 3200+ and OC far past a 3700+'s power.
Click to expand...

Even better would be to just drop down to a 3000+. With a good board your are unlikely to become limited by the HTT, so the 10x multiplier for the 3200+ won't help any.
 
Qonfused said:
If you plan to overclock (SUPER safe and easy with the A64 line, even with stock heatsink and fan), you could drop down to a 3200+ and OC far past a 3700+'s power.
Click to expand...
Yeah but then you could never get that extra cache. The best 939 cores by far IMO are the Venus and San Diego ones.
 
(cf)Eclipse said:
considering the price, i'm guessing corsair value select ;)

if you plan on keeping this rig for a long time.. do you think you can justify the added price of a 3800+ X2?
Click to expand...
yup, corsair value select is correct :)

an X2 is definitely way over my budget.
 
GFreeman9 said:
Yeah but then you could never get that extra cache. The best 939 cores by far IMO are the Venus and San Diego ones.
Click to expand...
Agreed. The reason I'd be upgrading to San Diego is just for the extra cache. If I were to OC wouldnt i just do that just as easily with a Venice?
 
KoolDrew said:
so the 10x multiplier for the 3200+ won't help any.
Click to expand...
why? the lower mutipliers are unlocked so he could drop down to 9
 
but if you drop down to 9 anyways, then theres no point in paying for the 3200+, cuz the 3000+ has x9 multi. what he's saying is that you'll be limited by your processor's max stable speed far earlier than you'll be limited by your htt and the processor multi if you have a good mobo.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top