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[Black Deatha]

I guess today is another new PC/upgrade topic day.

As some may remember (I made a couple topics about thsi on the old board) I have been planning to build a new PC for a while now. I had 2 things holding me back though, 1 was I didnt have all the money and 2 was that there were a couple things I wanted to wait out the release of such as Socket 939 64's. But now that they have been released I have questions.

Also I was waiting untill I needed to upgrade for some of the new games, like Doom 3 next month, and hopefully HL2 in a couple months.

I wanted to get a s754 Athlon 64, but then I heard about the s939's and decided to wait a bit. But now I am having trouble deciding what to buy, I know this much for sure I am deffinatly going to buy an A64, but I need help deciding.

BTW, I am Canadian, so the site I will be linking to is all in Canadian prices.

CPU:
I am considering:
AMD Athlon 3500+ s939 or AMD Athlon 3400+ s754

Now as you can see both are rated at 2.2Ghz, And there is a only really a $100 difference between the 2 chips, my question is, is it worth the extra hundred bucks for the s939? And also, aside from the fact that s939 is more future friendly than the s754's is there any performance advantage/difference between the two?

Motherboard:
Secondly, Does anyone have any idea when ASUS will be releasing nForce 3 based boards to fit s939? This isnt a must, but I would kinda perfer to get a nForce board, I have never had one but I have always heard good things about the nF2's. For whatever processor I get I am going to get an ASUS board.

Asus A8V Delux s939 or AUSU K8V SE Delux s754

Now one thing that confuses me is that on this same site they have the non SE version of the s754 board (found here) and yet for some reason it is more expensive, I could be missiong something, but the 2 boards seem very similar, and I would have thought the SE being the newer board would be more expensive, am I missing something here, someone wanna shed some light on this for me?

RAM:
Here is where I have a problem, I dont know a lot about RAM, I dont fully understand the timings, I was told a while back what some good/ideal timings were, but I have forgotten now. I am planning on buying 2 sticks of 512 MB, But I want to have good timings, I am also wanting to get dual channel, so I was planning on buying twin 512 sticks.

I have a couple other questions though, like around a year or so ago when i was first thinking about getting a new PC, I knew I wanted PC3200 400MHz. And at the time I remember hearing something that that was the maximum speed AMD processors would work with. Is this true? And if so is it still true, would an A64 be able to work with faster RAM like PC 3700 or PC4000?

The RAM I was looking at a while back was Corsair, which I have heard is good, but if anyone wants to suggest another name, please do.

Since I dont know much about RAM I will just give the link to the sites main RAM page and I hope some here who are more knowledgable about this will be good enough to help me find somethng to fit my needs.

One last thing, I dont want to be spending like $700 on the RAM (which some on that site can go as high as) I will consider going as high as maybe $450, but not much higher.

Here's the link.

Now I already own and have picked out most of the rest of the components, but one thing I ma unsure of is the DVD burner. I have seen a Sony burner I kinda like at Future Shop. This is it here. I have been told that Sony doesnt make the best of burners but being the Sony fan I am I would kinda like to get a Sony drive. I dont currently own a CD or DVD burner so I am a little uneducated when it comes to them. So is this a good burner, and if not, what name should I be looking at?

Any help and information you guys can give me is appreciated...

~Black Deatha

 

[golem]

no idea on the 939 nforce3's.. seem to be mia

lower timings = better.. go for CAS2 if you want low timings (2-2-2-5.. maybe 2-3-3-6)
here's a benchmark linked earlier today:
http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20040119/index-07.html

i dont have an athlon64 (yet...) but it seems you can play with your fsb:ram ratio on your motherboard to change your ram speeds... although the reviewer had to knock down his speed because he was not stable at much more than 400mhz.. not sure about what kind of ram he was using or why this was so.

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjI5

if you really want to stick with sony burners (which is fine..) try to get a dru700a.. since it can burn dual layer dvds (shouldnt be that much more than the normal 8x burner). otherwise the dru530a is fine
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.html?i=2045

 

[Black Deatha]

Hmm, alright, I'll take another look through the RAM listing on that site.

EDIT: This Corsair twin 512 sticks look to be rated 2 3 3 6. So I am going to assume that's good RAM?

Also I have a new question, I noticed there is also a PC3200C2Pro and also a PC3200LL, what does this mean exaclty? If I were to venture a guess of the top of my head I would ass ume LL stands for Low Latency...? But either way, is this vastly better, of would I be fine with the RAM i just linked to?

It looks like from what your saying there it might be a good idea to just stick with PC3200 400MHz than, unless I am missunderstanding what you were saying, because I am not one who dores overclocking of CPU or RAM anyway.

And as far as the DVD burners go, I had forgotten about Sony's dual layer burners, thanks for reminding me, but after looking at it on SonyStyle.com it's like $199 USD, so that's gonna be a good $350+ CAD. I would like to get a dual layer, but can anyone suggest a good Canadian site/store to find them, both the site I have been using here (NCIX) and FutureShop.ca dont have it.

Oh and thanks man...

~Black Deatha

 

[DaCocoBrova]

As I learned in the last couple of weeks, CAS timings aren't really worth the extra $$$.

 

[Sander]

Now as you can see both are rated at 2.2Ghz, And there is a only really a $100 difference between the 2 chips, my question is, is it worth the extra hundred bucks for the s939? And also, aside from the fact that s939 is more future friendly than the s754's is there any performance advantage/difference between the two?

3500+/3400+ comparisons:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-3800_7.html
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2065&p=9

I picked the game benchmarks, but you can browse the reviews for the rest. For me, the slight performance increase is not worth the extra $$. And by the time I'll be upgrading I'll get a new mobo anyway.

Motherboard:
Secondly, Does anyone have any idea when ASUS will be releasing nForce 3 based boards to fit s939? This isnt a must, but I would kinda perfer to get a nForce board, I have never had one but I have always heard good things about the nF2's. For whatever processor I get I am going to get an ASUS board.

I don't think Asus has announced an Nforce3 939 board yet. Their Nforce3 754 board has just been released btw, much later than other manufacturers.

Now one thing that confuses me is that on this same site they have the non SE version of the s754 board (found here) and yet for some reason it is more expensive, I could be missiong something, but the 2 boards seem very similar, and I would have thought the SE being the newer board would be more expensive, am I missing something here, someone wanna shed some light on this for me?

Weird

RAM:
Here is where I have a problem, I dont know a lot about RAM, I dont fully understand the timings, I was told a while back what some good/ideal timings were, but I have forgotten now. I am planning on buying 2 sticks of 512 MB, But I want to have good timings, I am also wanting to get dual channel, so I was planning on buying twin 512 sticks.

The Toms Hardware article linked above confirms what I've been saying for quite some time: unless you are into heavy overclocking, paying extra for better timings is a waste. Unless you want to spend $100 extra on 0.5-3% more performance of course

Btw socket 754 does not support dual channel, only 939 does. You can still use 2 or more RAM sticks of course, but there won't be a performance gain.

I have a couple other questions though, like around a year or so ago when i was first thinking about getting a new PC, I knew I wanted PC3200 400MHz. And at the time I remember hearing something that that was the maximum speed AMD processors would work with. Is this true? And if so is it still true, would an A64 be able to work with faster RAM like PC 3700 or PC4000?

RAM can always run on lower speeds. But why buy PC3700 or PC400 when you are going to run at 400MHz? (PC3200)

Here's the link.

Corsair is good, but I'll bet you'll be just as happy with the Samsung or Infineon (they are the same) listed there.

Also I have a new question, I noticed there is also a PC3200C2Pro and also a PC3200LL, what does this mean exaclty? If I were to venture a guess of the top of my head I would ass ume LL stands for Low Latency...? But either way, is this vastly better, of would I be fine with the RAM i just linked to?

Pro and LL is just some naming scheme by Corsair, it's not an official standard or anything. See above for comments on timings.

 

[teh_pwn]

RAM timings are insignificant.

I do recommend quality RAM though. Just don't spend more for timings.

If you want to OC (which will bring much more than timings will), you want more bandwidth. Like PC 3700. It'll still run at PC3200, but it's rated to work as high as PC3700.

The best thing you can do to find the right RAM, is to hunt down your motherboards' forums, and see what other people have with your hardware. There's some great RAM out there that won't work for some hardware.

 

[Black Deatha]

Ok, that's some good info there, thanks guy, but does anyone else here have any info on the dual layer DVD burner? And also more infofromation from people here who have uses both the s939's and s754 would be cool

I am gonna read those articles posted by Sander on the subject now..

~Black Deatha

 

[Black Deatha]

Come on guys, I am sure someone here has a s939?

~Black Deatha

 

[Black Deatha]

Wow, I really thought someone would have had something to say

However I hope someone looks at this thread again, because I just saw this the other day while in Future SHop, I was asking they guy if they could even get in the dru700a, but he said they couldent, but he kept on reccomending this]this[/URL] LG one. It is also a dual layer, and the price isnt bad. And also unfourtinatly the only place I have been able to even find the dru700a is on Sony's site, and the price is a little higher than I was hoping it would be.

But either way, can someone reccomend some good names for these thing, and also hopefully tell me if this LG one is any good. Also how does LG compare to Sony's drives?

~Black Deatha

 

[teh_pwn]

Socket 939 is better. It's much faster with RAM.

 

[Jill Sandwich]

I just ordered my Dualie 2.5 G5 with 30" Cinema Display

 

[Black Deatha]

Aww thanks a lot ya morons.

Nah Im kidding, though I could have used someones input on the LG, because I wnet in Future Shop today, and was looking at this one, while there, I though to check NCIX's price, and went to there site one one of the computers there, I found NCIX had it for $125.10, Future SHop's price is $199.99. But I showed the price to one of the guys there and thye told me they could match the price plus the cost of the sites immediate 1 day shipping. So than realizing they would have to create an account ON NCIX.com to find out the shipping price, they just said they could call it like $20 and still give me a deal. So I decided to go for it, I was able to get it for $150.01.

I figured if I don't like it, I can just return it, and they said I would be able to. But I ask again, what do you guys think about LG drives? I got a good deal on it, so I'm happy right now.

I just ordered my Dualie 2.5 G5 with 30" Cinema Display

http://www.federalobserver.com/content_images/burning_money_11.jpg

What exactly IS a Cinima Display?

~Black Deatha

 

[Shogmaster]

I just ordered my Dualie 2.5 G5 with 30" Cinema Display

IAWTP x googleplex

 

[Vandiger]

I guess today is another new PC/upgrade topic day.

I wanted to get a s754 Athlon 64, but then I heard about the s939's and decided to wait a bit. But now I am having trouble deciding what to buy, I know this much for sure I am deffinatly going to buy an A64, but I need help deciding.

BTW, I am Canadian, so the site I will be linking to is all in Canadian prices.

CPU:
I am considering:
AMD Athlon 3500+ s939 or AMD Athlon 3400+ s754

Now as you can see both are rated at 2.2Ghz, And there is a only really a $100 difference between the 2 chips, my question is, is it worth the extra hundred bucks for the s939? And also, aside from the fact that s939 is more future friendly than the s754's is there any performance advantage/difference between the two?

I suggest picking a s754 cpu and motherboard...why? you get about the same performance compared to s939. Reason why s939 is higher is because its new and very early, there is a limited selection of motherboards out and the better ones are Via chipsets which I want to avoid, I like nForce better due to having effective pci/agp locks for good overclocking. I suggest getting 939 when boards with pci-e are available you don't want to be stuck with an agp card on a high-end board.

RAM:
Here is where I have a problem, I dont know a lot about RAM, I dont fully understand the timings, I was told a while back what some good/ideal timings were, but I have forgotten now. I am planning on buying 2 sticks of 512 MB, But I want to have good timings, I am also wanting to get dual channel, so I was planning on buying twin 512 sticks.

I have a couple other questions though, like around a year or so ago when i was first thinking about getting a new PC, I knew I wanted PC3200 400MHz. And at the time I remember hearing something that that was the maximum speed AMD processors would work with. Is this true? And if so is it still true, would an A64 be able to work with faster RAM like PC 3700 or PC4000?

The RAM I was looking at a while back was Corsair, which I have heard is good, but if anyone wants to suggest another name, please do.

Since I dont know much about RAM I will just give the link to the sites main RAM page and I hope some here who are more knowledgable about this will be good enough to help me find somethng to fit my needs.

One last thing, I dont want to be spending like $700 on the RAM (which some on that site can go as high as) I will consider going as high as maybe $450, but not much higher.

Yeah go as high as $450, you can then choose either between corsair, ocz, mushkin, not sure about the other brands. The better the RAM, you can probably use it when you upgrade to a more mature s939 board.

 

[Jill Sandwich]

What exactly IS a Cinima Display?
~Black Deatha

Really large, really expensive LCD monitors from Apple (see Fig 1), though the new Sony ones are better. They really should be pushing for OLED now.

Fig 1

http://www.apple.com/displays/

 

[Black Deatha]

Really large, really expensive LCD monitors from Apple (see Fig 1), though the new Sony ones are better. They really should be pushing for OLED now.

http://www.ulala.karoo.net/dinosize.gif Fig 1

http://www.apple.com/displays/

I hate to sound so uneducated here about this, but what is OLED, and where can I see Sony's version of cinima displays?

It's funny because I have been thnking for a while now that i would like to some time get a new monitor, and I was thinking on going for a Sony widescreen LCD..

~Black Deatha

 

[Jill Sandwich]

Thier new LCDs have their XBrite tech, which have much better contrast than the apple displays.

From whatis.com:

OLED (organic light-emitting display) is a display technology, pioneered and patented by Kodak, based on the use of organic polymer material as the semiconductor material in light-emitting diodes (LEDs). A polymer can be a natural or synthetic substance and macro or micro in size. Examples of organic polymers include proteins and DNA. OLED displays are used in cellular phones, digital video cameras, digital versatile disc (DVD) players, personal digital assistants (PDAs), notebooks, car stereos, and televisions. OLED displays are thinner and weigh less because they do not require backlighting. OLED displays also have a wide viewing angle up to 160 degrees even in bright light, and they use only two to ten volts to operate. New technologies that build on the OLED include FOLED (flexible organic light-emitting display), which promises to make highly portable, roll-up displays possible within the next few years.