Time to Upgrade ... sort of.

[Peter.Steele]

Ok, my socket 939 system is getting a little long in the tooth, and I need to make some upgrades. HOWEVER, I don't really have the coin to go all out.


This is what I have:

S939 AMD X2 3800+ (2ghz clock speed)
Abit Fatal1ty motherboard
eVGA 7600GT
SB Audigy 2ZS
2GB RAM
~1.5 TB storage (spread across ~5 or 6 HD's)

It's all stuck in a big effing Cooler Master CMStacker case.



I figure that, right now, I can either buy a new video card (NewEgg has a 9800 GTX right now for $196.99), which would ... ehh, it'd be a stepping stone, but not a huge one. Alternatively, I can buy the following items:


Foxconn G31AX-K motherboard. (It's cheap, but it has 5 PCI slots, which would come in extremely handy for me)

C2D E7200 Wolfdale processor

PNY 2x1GB DDR2 memory

This would, all together, run me about $222, plus shipping and handling.

Would this be a substantial upgrade from what I've got right now, if I did this instead of the video card?




Ideally, I'd rather -keep- the 939 system for another year or so, and just upgrade the processor, but it seems that nobody has any decent prices on S939 chips anymore. What few still remain on store shelves are expensive as all hell.


Thoughts? Suggestions?

 

[Peter.Steele]

Another alternative: Tiger Direct has a bundle with an Asus M2N-SLI board and an AMD X2 5000+ OEM chip for $159. 2x1024 adds another ~$35 to that, and a cooling fan and thermal paste bring the total up to $199.xx, including shipping.



And that's -still- cheaper than the upgrades I've seen out there as far as S939 chips that are better than mine.

 

[User Name]

The reviews I've seen have put the Radeon 4850 on par with a 9800GTX if not above it in most situations, and it doesn't even have proper drivers yet! I'd go with one of those. It's about the same price and I believe they have free shipping going on most of them right now.

Also the AMD 5800+ 65nm just came out for $96, and it has free shipping going right now at Newegg too. If your not going for crossfire (or SLI) you can pickup a decent board, ram and still be under the $200 mark.

I recently built a machine with an AMD 5400+ 65nm and an 8800GT and,stock for stock, it is on par with my Xeon 3060 (E6600) with an 8800GT. I haven't tried over clocking the AMD machine yet, but I bought the processor, board and 2GB of ram for less than an E8400.

I've always been an Intel/Nvidia fan, but you can't beat the Price vs performance ratio AMD is pushing out now with these new CPU's and graphics cards.

 

[Peter.Steele]

The reviews I've seen have put the Radeon 4850 on par with a 9800GTX if not above it in most situations, and it doesn't even have proper drivers yet! I'd go with one of those. It's about the same price and I believe they have free shipping going on most of them right now.

Also the AMD 5800+ 65nm just came out for $96, and it has free shipping going right now at Newegg too. If your not going for crossfire (or SLI) you can pickup a decent board, ram and still be under the $200 mark.

I recently built a machine with an AMD 5400+ 65nm and an 8800GT and,stock for stock, it is on par with my Xeon 3060 (E6600) with an 8800GT. I haven't tried over clocking the AMD machine yet, but I bought the processor, board and 2GB of ram for less than an E8400.

I've always been an Intel/Nvidia fan, but you can't beat the Price vs performance ratio AMD is pushing out now with these new CPU's and graphics cards.

Hm. They've even got open box M2N-SLI's for $60 ... that's not a bad deal. Only thing that sucks is that they're in California, so I have to pay sales tax.

Hm. Including shipping and tax, though, it's only $215 vice $199 for the same board, and PNY RAM instead of no-brand RAM ...



Only thing I don't like about the ATI video cards is that there's been a few OpenGL issues with them and some of the 3D modeling packages that I work with a lot...

 

[Peter.Steele]

Welp, this is what I wound up with:


BIOSTAR TA770 A2+ AM2+/AM2 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5800+ 3.0GHz Socket AM2 89W Dual-Core Processor Model ADA5800IAA5DO

PNY 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model MD2048KD2-667

Plus some thermal compound and an adapter for the 8-pin power plug that the Biostar board seems to have.

Turns out I didn't need to get a CPU cooling fan, because I remembered that I actually -have- a really big-*** Thermaltake unit sitting in a box in my garage.



Total damage, including sales tax, rush processing and next-day shipping: $238, as it turns out that the chip was actually on sale!

 

[User Name]

Looks good to me. I ordered the 5400+ just three days before that 5800+ was released. Had I known they were coming out with the 5800+, for only $7 more at that, I would of waited. Oh well...

Edit: I looked at Newegg today and they have a deal going right now that gives you Rainbow Six Vegas 2 with purchase of the 5800+. That's almost half the price right there.

 

[Peter.Steele]

Looks good to me. I ordered the 5400+ just three days before that 5800+ was released. Had I known they were coming out with the 5800+, for only $7 more at that, I would of waited. Oh well...

Edit: I looked at Newegg today and they have a deal going right now that gives you Rainbow Six Vegas 2 with purchase of the 5800+. That's almost half the price right there.

son of a *****! I'm going ot have to check on that again ...


Anyway, in a few weeks I'll probably go back to the well and pick up a new video card, a second power supply, and another 2 GB of RAM.