Hi guys,

 

My current PC is on it's last legs and I've been scouring the internet (and magazines) for the latest, greatest components. I think I've settled on the following spec but would like to ask your opinion on what you would choose and why. Bear in mind that I'm not made of money and I want something that I don't need to upgrade for another two years or so.

 

This is what I'm currently looking to build:

AMD 64 3400+ CPU (socket 754)

ASUS K8V SE Deluxe motherboard with WiFi and S-ATA

1Gb Geil RAM (2x 512Mb DDR3200 400MHz)

ATi X800XT 256Mb Grafix card (or the Pro version and "modding" it to 16 pipes)

2x 160Mb S-ATA HDD's

Nebula Digi TV (PCI) - freeview tv card with PVR software

DVD-RW/CD-RW/FDD

550W PSU

Logitec cordless keyboard & mouse

17" TFT (16ms) screen

 

I've been reading a lot about the future path which AMD is taking and it looks like socket 939 is it. Therefore, from a future upgrade perspective, would you suggest I go down the AMD 64 3500+ and MSI K8Neo PRO route for the sake of £100 difference or stick to the 3400+ socket 754 jobbie? The PC will be used for daily DTA-Motorsport admin, flight simulation (to keep my PPL training up), CCTV monitoring/recording and some games for when my god children are around (I'm not a games person personally ...)

 

Also, can anyone confirm that the AMD 64 3500+ has 512Kb L2 cache and not 1Mb as advertised by several large computer firms? Also, am I correct in saying that a socket 754 motherboard passes the S-ATA data through the PCI bus, thereby causing a bottleneck whereas a socket 939 motherboard has native S-ATA connections which means there is a direct link to the Northbridge and consequently the data transfer rates are much higher? Don't know if I understood that last part right but I think you get my drift.

 

Any feedback on places where I can get the components for a reasonable price is also much appreciated - perhaps someone on here has access to any of the above at trade prices (?) I've looked at the popular sites such as SCAN, Mesh, RL Supplies, etc.

 

Many thanks!

 

Danny

Personally, I'd wait for the 1200MHZ FSB/Intel 64 setup.

Danny that all looks good, but I'd consider the 6800 Nvidia option for the gfx.

 

the Asus A8V deluxe & 3500 which can be safely overclocked to 3800 on the A8V if you fancy going down that route. is probably a better option. (939 socket)

 

I wouldn't bother with a FDD, and I'd go for two DVR-108s & a multiformat card reader bay

 

places to buy from.

 

DVD stuff - http://www.svp.co.uk

bits @ good prices - http://www.dabs.com

- http://www.microdirect.co.uk

- http://www.ebuyer.co.uk can be handy sometimes.

 

 

Ace HDD's - http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/components/harddiskdrives/internalide/productView.htm?quicklinx=2N7D

 

 

:)

Also there are two editions of the AMD64, some with 640 L2 cache some with 1152 L2 cache

 

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_9485_9487%5E9493,00.html

Sounds good, should last you well over two years.

Stick with the ATI cards;)

If you want to know about anything your buying go to

 

http://www.tomshardware.com

 

Looks like a nice choice of stuff you have gone for, Cant see you needing to upgrade in two years with it.

If you want to know about anything your buying go to

 

http://www.tomshardware.com

 

Looks like a nice choice of stuff you have gone for, Cant see you needing to upgrade in two years with it.

 

OMG :eek: http://www.tomshardware.com is fabulous! Thanks very much for suggesting it. It has justified a lot of my decisions but has left me one big choice to make tonight - shall I go for a socket 754 system (end of the line, no future proofing) or spend the extra dosh on a socket 939 system ... Current preference is leaning to the latter.

 

Thanks very much everyone for your feedback and suggestions - it's been much appreciated.

 

Is there anyone on here who can explain (in simple English) what the deal is with S-ATA drives, the speed bottlenecks with socket 754 mobo's and socket 939 mobo's native S-ATA connectors and Southbridge memory manager? Have been reading up on this only to be further confused.

 

Many thanks again!

 

Regards,

 

Danny

i would go with the 939 socket purely as u wont have to change motherboard in the future, as far as hard drive bottle necks go, hards drives are incredibly slow compared to ram, and unless your doing huge file editing such as Digital Video, or running a server i cant see the bottle neck making that much diference in home usage, but then again if you like to have the best of everything go 4 the best for peace of mind

is anything futureproof? 2 years down the line...socket 939...what was that again? nine-three-nine? errr, nah mate you must have been drinking or something, theres nothing like that round here. ;)

well considering 6 months ago its was 940 pin which where all the thing to have.

is anything futureproof? 2 years down the line...socket 939...what was that again? nine-three-nine? errr, nah mate you must have been drinking or something, theres nothing like that round here. ;)

 

 

No nothing is and never will be,you buy the latest spec and a few months down the line its dated FACT:(

No nothing is and never will be,you buy the latest spec and a few months down the line its dated FACT:(

 

years ago you could but top of the range and then a year or so later upgrade it by just changing the chip. Nowadays you cant. they change the format of the chips so quickly now that if the format you have is sill around a year later, you are very lucky.

 

For example the 940 pin and 939 pin chips, both made by AMD but the 940 pin layout was dropped in under a year for the new 939 layout, which may remain for a year or may go in 6 months.

 

You can get the lastest spec, but it will only be for a few months, and you will pay a lot more for that little extra speed. I bought my chip for £145 about 18 months ago with in a year the cost was down to £50.

But there was a time when my chip was the best you could buy, and the chip alone would have cost you £250-£300.

 

Stuart

That all sounds way too complex for me...

or do what i do buy a new one every year anyway only reason ive not got my new one this year yet is because im wating on a few more pci-bus benchmarks or ready built systems to show up on the market. fors guys like danny im sure you can write off the purchase as a business expense anyway

Danny - put very simply, the SATA over PCI is limited by the specifications of the bus (32bit, 33MHz, approx 130Mb/s). North / South bridge interface is approx 266Mb/s.

 

From what I've read, more than 2 SATA drives on PCI will flood the bandwidth. I'm running a single 250Gb SATA drive in my current PC (very similar spec to what you're looking to buy) along with 3 IDE drives. The SATA drive does perform better than the IDE drives generally, but not by as much as you might expect - the high quoted transfer speeds are for burst data transfers.

 

One word of advice is to get yourself a drive cooler - my SATA drive kept overheating until I fitted it in a caddy.

 

Hope that helps :)

Cheers for that Mujina - I've just placed an order for an ASUS A8V Deluxe/WiFi board and AMD 64 3500+ (socket 939). It is my understanding that with socket 939 boards the PCI bus is not utilised for SATA data flow as there is a separate (and much more efficient) memory manager onboard. I've also ordered several Akasa cooling products and a fan speed manager (front case mounted) to hopefully keep the lot cool-ish.

 

Thanks again to everyone who have supplied their feedback. It's made my purchasing decision somewhat easier.

 

Cheers!

 

Danny

 

Danny - put very simply, the SATA over PCI is limited by the specifications of the bus (32bit, 33MHz, approx 130Mb/s). North / South bridge interface is approx 266Mb/s.

 

From what I've read, more than 2 SATA drives on PCI will flood the bandwidth. I'm running a single 250Gb SATA drive in my current PC (very similar spec to what you're looking to buy) along with 3 IDE drives. The SATA drive does perform better than the IDE drives generally, but not by as much as you might expect - the high quoted transfer speeds are for burst data transfers.

 

One word of advice is to get yourself a drive cooler - my SATA drive kept overheating until I fitted it in a caddy.

 

Hope that helps :)

No problem mate :)

 

I'd be interested in seeing some benchmarks from that system when it's all together (Sandra / 3dmark).

 

Yeah, I know I'm sad like that.