Upgrade

[UBT - Mikee]

Getting to the time of year when I think of upgrading.

I'm currently running an Athlon 64 3000+ in an MSI K8T Neo2-F V2.0 mobo with 1Gig RAM.

I didn't realise that the Mobo I have will take a dual core Athlon.

Thing is I've been reading that the new Intel Dual cores are hot stuff which leaves me in a dilema!

Do I get the Athlon X2 4600 (£156) or AMD Opteron 148 Socket 939 2.2GHz (£158) which will fit straight in or... go over to Intel (mobo and processor)?

Decisions decisions!

[UBT - Halifax-lad]

I would just carry on with your AMD chips - You have a motherboard already so that means you can afford to spend more money on a chip to fit on the board

[jaysback]

try and get hold of an opty 165.
there have been some flying 3800 X2's kicking around aswell.
should be able to do min of 2600 mhz all being well.

[UBT - Mikee]

A bit behind with the technical stuff here but

Opteron 148 2.2 Ghz with 1 Meg cache = £158
Opteron 165 1.8 Ghz with 2 X 1 meg cache  = £166

Now is the 1 extra Meg cache really better than the faster speed processor? Or is it a matter of what you do with it that counts? (Cue the wise cracks....)

[jaysback]

i swapped out my opty 148 (single core) to go over to the 165 ( 2 core ).
The same time as i did this i built a rig for a friend based on a 3800 X2.
I am on water and get 2650mhz with out any trouble @ around 43c.
He has a rather large/expensive air cooler (zalman aero flower) and runs his @ 2600mhz with 55c.
And to be honest i don't think the extra 1mb of cache makes a great deal of difference other than in benchmarks.

No chips chips will clock the same though, so nothing is gospel here.
P.S. the 3800 X2 has a 10x multi on it which means you will not need to run as high on HTT.

I hope that helps a little.

[Gary]

I currently run an Amd x2 4600+ on AM2 which is no quicker than a single 3700+ 939 I was using except it`ll do twice as much work.

The x2 3800+ is the overclockers choice, if you can get an Opteron thats the best one to have, which in hindsight, I should have bought  :oops:

[UBT - JohnR]

Also why do you want to upgrade.  Games need the best chip matched to the best video card.  £100 chip with £100 video or £300 chip with £300 video. Only the newest games will use a dual core so single core was best. For crunching spend the money on a dual core processor and memory. A 1mg cache is worth paying a little bit extra for the same clock speed.
If you have 1Gig memory you shoud try to upgrade to 2 x 1Gig.  Look at the requirements for Microsoft Vista as your computer should be good for the next 3 years, and I think 2Gig is required. The new Intel may be the best, look to people upgrading on ebay, and look at the price of the 4400 and 4600 chips. By now the AMD price cut should have filtered through, a few weeks ago people were trying to sell old for more than new. The Athlon X2 4600 is far better than an Opty 148.

[UBT - Mikee]

if you can get an Opteron thats the best one to have

The Athlon X2 4600 is far better than an Opty 148.

Bit of a disagreement here then! Perhaps I should have a poll running!

[UBT - JohnR]

The Athlon X2 4600 is 2x 2.4Ghz 1Mb cache   £156
Opteron 148 is 1x 2.2Ghz 1Mb cache    £170
Opteron 165 is 2x 1.8Ghz 2Mb cache overclockers choice £166 if you can find one
Opty 165 best to overclock, Athlon 4600 easier to get same speed without the need to overclock as much. I can only get my Opty 165 to 2.25Ghz, which is my lack of knowledge, not the chips fault.

Athlon X2 4800 is 2 x 2.4Ghz 2Mb cache   £200 not worth the cost over x2 4600 just for the cache.

[Gary]

if you can get an Opteron thats the best one to have

The Athlon X2 4600 is far better than an Opty 148.

Bit of a disagreement here then! Perhaps I should have a poll running!

I did mean a dual core opteron

[UBT - PiezPiedPy]

If you want max speed from any CPU then it needs fast memory (lowest CAS latency) to allow the CPU access to memory when it needs it.

with a high latency (crap/cheap memory) then your CPU will crunch the data then sit there doing nothing waiting for more work from memory.
whereas with a low latency (good/expensive memory) then your CPU will crunch the data and then not need to wait for more work from memory.

PCxxxx speed is nothing to do with latency speed i.e PC2700 (3,7,7,7) is a lot slower than PC2700 (2,5,5,7)

I've found Corsair's range of XMS memory to be the one

P.S. use loads of memory so your OS dosn't need a swapfile on your Hard drive. A low amount of memory which needs a swapfile coupled with a slow drive dramaticaly slows down your PC's speed. go for something like Western Digitals 'Raptor' range (4ms seek time).

[jaysback]

Memory latency (2,2,2,5) is important, but the bandwidth that running with pc4000 (ddr500) gives will beat pc3200 (ddr400) at lower timings all day long.
I have a pair of mushkin BH-5 PC3500 and a pair of crucial ballistix pc4000.
mushkin will run @ 240,2,2,2,5.
ballistix @ 290,3,4,4,8

To be honest there would be no point in you spending your money on DDR ram now.
All the new stuff is DDR2, so if you were going to be spending money on a cpu and ram you may aswell move over to the very nice and very fast intel core 2 duo.

If i had the money thats where i would put it.

But if you are just looking at a cheap way of increasing your boinc stats look no further than a AMD 3800 X2.

And hope its a good clocker.
p.s. where you going to put your petrol in piez.

[UBT - PiezPiedPy]

p.s. where you going to put your petrol in piez.

It's got a little flappy thing at the front  :?

[UBT - Mikee]

In the end I didn't get round to changing anything but now I'm getting twitchy again.

Going to upgrade the memory with 2 X 1G Corsairs like these.

Then one of theseprobably. Cheapest I've found so far - any comments?

[Rockinfroggi]

I like the price of the Corsairs, I paid double that a little while back for boring old Crucial sticks.

Oopsa, that's if it doesn't go too high, just noticed you dropped off the winning bidders.

I've never had an AMD but will probably go that route when I can afford to build another system as they run far cooler and from what I understand are better for overclocking.


Gary.

[UBT - Timbo]

....Going to upgrade the memory with 2 X 1G Corsairs like these.
.....

Bloomin' 'eck - how did you get 2975 feedbacks (from 4113 returned)  :shock:

It wasn't you selling pieces of gravel, used snowflakes or grains of sand was it???

regards

Tim

[UBT - Mikee]

Bloomin' 'eck - how did you get 2975 feedbacks (from 4113 returned)  :shock:

It wasn't you selling pieces of gravel, used snowflakes or grains of sand was it???

regards

Tim

Nah - when I was having a career break I got a bit bored so started buying and selling CD singles and LP's. I was listing upwards of 200 a week at one time. Did little more than break even and it was more of a hobby than a money making thing.

[UBT - Timbo]

Mike,

Do you wanna edit that bit quickly.....seems HMRC are now "after" people who buy and sell on eBay as they regard them as "self-employed".....

see here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/09 ... _guidance/

regards

Tim

[UBT - Mikee]

It's all tickity-boo - we're talking 2-3 years ago since I stoppped anyway.

All 2nd hand stuff - at the time you didn't pay VAT on 2nd hand goods. I made so little they'd probably owe me!

[UBT - Timbo]

It's all tickity-boo - we're talking 2-3 years ago since I stoppped anyway.

All 2nd hand stuff - at the time you didn't pay VAT on 2nd hand goods. I made so little they'd probably owe me!

It's not so much a question of VAT - especially if your turnover was below the VAT threshold.

More a question of "Capital Gains"...and anyone who buys goods for re-sale is indeed the type of ebayer they are after....

And they can "get you" at any time upto 7 years after the event if they have cause to (which is why you have to keep your "books" for 7 years, in case of query...).

regards

Tim

[UBT - PiezPiedPy]

In the end I didn't get round to changing anything but now I'm getting twitchy again.

Going to upgrade the memory with 2 X 1G Corsairs like these.

Then one of theseprobably. Cheapest I've found so far - any comments?

A bit more cash but from a shop and matched pairs - http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=302138

[UBT - Mikee]

A bit more cash but from a shop and matched pairs - http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=302138

What are they? Solid gold, hand made by dusky maidens? Bit to costly for me I'm afraid.

Anyway, I've just ordered:-

AMD Opteron 165, 1.8GHz, Socket 939, 2MB, BOXED w/fan
Crucial PC3200 DDR-DIMM 2048MB CL3 KIT w/two matched PC3200 CL3 DDRs

Wanted to go for CL2's but they are just that little bit too expensive.

Looks like I'm going to have to wangle a bit of overtime this month!

[Rockinfroggi]

A bit more cash but from a shop and matched pairs - http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=302138

What are they? Solid gold, hand made by dusky maidens? Bit to costly for me I'm afraid.

Anyway, I've just ordered:-

AMD Opteron 165, 1.8GHz, Socket 939, 2MB, BOXED w/fan
Crucial PC3200 DDR-DIMM 2048MB CL3 KIT w/two matched PC3200 CL3 DDRs

Wanted to go for CL2's but they are just that little bit too expensive.

Looks like I'm going to have to wangle a bit of overtime this month!

The price on PiezPiedPy link looks pretty good to me for corsair, that's about what I paid for my crucial, if you don't mind me asking, how much are you getting yours for?



Gary.

[UBT - Mikee]

£99 for the processor and £109 for the memory.

Actually got them from komplett in the end.

[Rockinfroggi]

Just checked my receipt it was longer ago than I thought, about 5 months so as usual prices have dropped and as I had a nice surprise by way of a Tax rebate from 2 years ago a week ago I may do a little upgrading of Ram on one of my systems.



Gary.

[UBT - PiezPiedPy]

£99 for the processor and £109 for the memory.

Actually got them from komplett in the end.

I've used Komplett for the past 4yrs, there delivery to Liverpool takes only two days  :D  wheeeeeeeee