Need advice purchasing CPU/Motherboard setup!

[Marktait 0]

Ok guyz at first i was looking to buy a P4 2.4Ghz 533 with an Asus P4B533-E motherboard but i came across a dual Asus Socket A board and i am now thinking of getting a dual Athlon MP 2200+ with an Asus A7M266-D, this means though that i wont have a computer at christmas and will have to wait until january to get this and it will cost an extra £100. I dont know what to do at the moment so im wondering what you guys reckon on this?

 

The comp will be used for Gaming mainly and i am ordering a MSI GF4 Ti4600 and a sony 21" monitor next week so i am a heavy gamer really!

 

Any suggestions on what i should do would be good, thanx guyz

[clutch 1]

If it was me, I would get an ASUS P4PE with the 3.06GHz P4, this way I would have hyper-threading to behave like a dual cpu box. That way you get high performance, stability, and compatibility.

[Marktait 0]

The price of a 3.0ghz is a bit OTT so iv got the choice between these 2 or at max a 2.53ghz P4 at the moment

[Jerry Atrik 0]

ive just setup 2 p4b533 systems for people

they are very nice machines

[adamvjackson 0]

I second that, with regards to the P4B533-E.

[Immortal 0]

wait, u guys tommorow (18th nov) granite bay is released, and Asus have a great board. and so do gigabyte...i say go for one of them.

[adamvjackson 0]

Good call, Immortal, that chipset sure does look good.

[DosFreak 2]

Let me tell you what I am doing:

 

You see I'm currently dividing up my computer into the functions that fit best, instead of fitting file/server, video, work, gaming into one computer.

 

I am finally getting around to building my file server and then have a dedicated gaming computer.

 

The gaming computer will have an Athlon XP 2800+, Asus N78X Nforce mobo, Radeon 9700, 1GB of Ram, DVD, 1gb NIC, and probably 1-2 HD's.

 

The server will be my Abit VP6 Dual P3-1ghz@1105mhz (until I decided on what I want to replace it with), GF4 TI4600, 1GB RAM, 2x 48x CDRs, 1gb NIC and all of my HD's in a RAID-5 Array. (Hopelly SATA 120GB disks)

 

 

I will also be using my server as an actual server. Loading applications and such straight off the server such as work files so that I will not lose any work by saving it on my gaming computer...so basically my gaming computer will be pretty much straight gaming.

 

You say that you are thinking about getting an Athlon MP...but for what? Are you EXACTLY aware of what SMP can and can not do for you? For the P4: Are you aware of what Hyperthreading can and can not do for you? I would say that if you are not going to use these functions then you should not buy them because there is really no point in buying them if you not going to use them.

 

Here's a good article from Ace's on hyperthreading: http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=50000319

 

If your looking at a P4 then I suggest you study the price/performance ration between a P4/AMD and decide if it's worth it to you. Looking at the amount of computers you have I would think that it would not be worth it but I am not aware of how often you upgrade.

 

Basically if you upgrade alot then it's Athlon

If you don't then it's P4.

[sapiens74 0]

ASUS P4PE with a nice 2.53 GHZ.

 

Won't break the bank either.

 

If not, wait for Granite Bay, which should be out soon

[Marktait 0]

Well usually it would be straight to AMD but i am sick of AMD now, this 1800XP is my 6th AMD Computer and i have had 1 cyrix but as yet never had a Pentium 4, i am definetly thinking of P4 2.53Ghz and a P4B533-E w/ 1GB DDR RAM. As i think Athlon MP's may not really be for gaming, I am wanting to adventure into something new like P4 or Dual Athlon though. Does anyone know anybody that owns a dual Athlon MP system and does gaming? Does the Athlon MP have 3DNow+ ? I would think it would be an Athlon XP that can handle being with a second processor.

[Marktait 0]

Apparently you can run Dual Athlon XP, so maybe this is an idea rather than Dual Athlon MP. A pair of Athlon XP 2100+ and the Asus A7M266-D board will be cheaper than a P4 2.53 and the Asus P4B533-E board, but looking at the Asus site on info of the A7M266-D it will only take a single Athlon XP??http://www.asus.com.tw/mb/socketa/a7m266-d/overview.htm .If this is the case i could at least purchase a single Athlon MP2200+ and then get another when i get my next pay.

[clutch 1]

Quote:

Apparently you can run Dual Athlon XP, so maybe this is an idea rather than Dual Athlon MP. A pair of Athlon XP 2100+ and the Asus A7M266-D board will be cheaper than a P4 2.53 and the Asus P4B533-E board

How is the chipset performance between both systems? How is hardware compatibility? What about memory controller performance? Also, does it support any future hardware upgrades you might be looking for (SATA, USB 2.0, etc) out of the box without giving up PCI slots? Has there been any further development for dual AMD cpus? You might find yourself trying to get the most out of 2 fast procs when the mobo can barely keep up with one.

[Marktait 0]

When i compare the 2 boards, i get USB 2 on both but the P4 board has Raid which to be honest i will not use coz i cant fill 140GB's of HDD as it is but they will be upgraded next year anyway. P4 has been known to have excellent compatibility and not known to crash but yet i have never had any probs with my AMD systems. Also i know nothing about P4 systems as i havent had 1 or built 1 even. So even at that i might be better to stick to AMD. The boards both also take DDR RAM 266mhz. Iv heard some great things about Dual processor machines and toms hardwares benchmarks prove what they can do compared to single processor system

[Immortal 0]

To run 2 dual athlon XP's you have to join the L5 bridges, that means messin around with it....

Granite Bya has been officialy released today

Asus P4G8X Deluxe

Gigabyte GE-8INXP

 

There are 2 links for the mobo's, have a look at the gigabyte it is fantastic!

[Marktait 0]

Iv decided to go Dual Athlon MP, i dont think i want to go away from AMD a iv had no problems with them at all. Thanx guyz for all your input, etc

[DosFreak 2]

Also as far as I know the Athlon MP mobo's do not have dual channel DDR. The Asus A7N8X I bought 2 days ago does....and I just heard that GB doesn't have dual channel DDR 333 but dual channel DDR 266! hahahahahah! (Just heard it yesterday so don't bash me if I'm wrong .)

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

Quote:

The comp will be used for Gaming mainly and i am ordering a MSI GF4 Ti4600 and a sony 21" monitor next week so i am a heavy gamer really!

not many games support dual CPU's to my knowledge, you would be better getting a higher P4 chip, then dual AMD's.

unless u do also plan to do some 3d design and CAD - dual cpu's won't give u that much gain in games.

Quote:

Iv heard some great things about Dual processor machines and toms hardwares benchmarks prove what they can do compared to single processor system

Dont' beleive everything you read - especially from toms hardware!


fromALL the reading i did about dual systems (as i was going to get one myself)- over all i think it was u get maybe a 20-33% increase in performance for apps that can actually USE dual cpu's set ups.

If you gaming - i do not know of alot of games that will actually use dual CPU power ???? and DDR 266?

AMD can now use DDR 400 can they not?

[DosFreak 2]

Guvernment is right about dual CPU's in gaming and in the desktop.

 

At the desktop/gaming level the mobo technologies and peripheral hardware has a greater impact on desktop/gaming performance than dual processors does.

 

The new Nforce board's support Dual-Channel DDR-400 and the new P4 Granite Bay mobo's only support Dual-Channel DDR-266. Of course the P4's are up to 3ghz now and the Athlons are only up to 2.25? 2800+ghz. Still the 2800+ is the better buy as far as I'm concerned, better processing power, more efficient, less costly.

The P4 GB should still beat the Dual-Channel DDR-400 on the Athlon due to the P4's memory efficiency. Gonna have to check some benchies.

 

As far as which is better for gaming performance? Faster memory definetly has a greater impact than dual processor when gaming...but it really depends on what game your running or what your running in the background.

 

Of course when gaming only the game is running and with the newergame's sucking up more and more power forcing us to drop to lower and lower resolutions then I would have to say that faster memory would be a better buy than dual processors as far as gaming is concerned.

[DosFreak 2]

http://www.haveland.com/index.htm?povbench/graph.php

 

[sapiens74 0]

THe Intel PE Chipset or you can wait for Granite Bay would be the best buy right now.

 

The Athlon boards aren't very memory effecient, and they High end Athlons are as costly as thier P4 brethren, not to mention you have to buy a nice $40 cooler for the AMD.

[Marktait 0]

One of my reasons is that i found when i try to burn a cd, i cannot use my pc to run a game. Apparently having 2 cpu's this can be advantage that 1 will run a game and the other can burn a cd, I do a lot of cd burning and like to be able to do something over than browsing the internet. If i can get 2 Athlon XP CPU's running dually then this will save about £130 and i could use the extra to have 2400+ XP's that have thoroughbred core using 0.13 micron, Thus this should be the case if the A7M266-D can handle a 2400+ it should be able to think its running dual Athlon XP 2400+

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

Get a new 48x burner and burn a cd in 2-3 mins, - i mean by the time the game even starts - the cd is done burning.

 

Unless you got a 4x burner - it is almost pointless to play a game as every 5 mins u got to multi task out and do another burn.

 

When i had alot to burn (some times 20g + a day) i would just chill and watch t.v while burning or chat on Im's and surf da web.

 

But to each their own.

 

 

maybe just build a cheap small pII 500 system for burning cd's?

[sapiens74 0]

My new Sony burns a Whole 700 MB in 2:29 so I can do 10 IN a row in about 30 or so minutes

[DosFreak 2]

Dual processors will not help your burning....at all.

[Immortal 0]

Its true they wont help, this is becuase the burning app will try and sue as much CPU as it can to make sure no buffer underuns happen...