AMD 64 fx

j0e9o

I was wondering if any1 has been brave enuff or had enuff yo-yo's to buy one of the new 64bit cpu's and whether it has made much of a difference. Personally i think its to early to be investing in one of these bad boys and for the time being I am happy with my 3000xp but will i be saying that this time next year?

Creamy Goodness

atm they are too expensive

but over at www.overclockers.co.uk forum some ppl have posted their own opinons and benchmarks i suggest u check it out!

Matt Simis

I didnt go for the FX (€700 a pop is a bit much for someone that replaces CPUs as much as I do) but I received delivery of my Abit K8V-MAX3 and Athlon64 3200 yesterday from www.overclock.co.uk (NOT overclockers.co.uk!). Fast service, stock and good prices.



Matt

El_MUERkO

nice site, was looking to get a new case and psu and these lads have the works

RE*AC*TOR

I don;t think i'll invest in a new motherboard yet (have asus n78x deluxe, or whatever it called - nforce2). If I buy a board for a amd64 now it'll have an agp8x slot. But with these PCI express gfx cards coming out next year - and ddr2.

Matt Simis

Yeah, I figured within 6 months PCI Express cards and mobos will be out, just in time for my upgrading.



Matt

Lex_Diamonds

Is there ever really a good time to be upgrading? Always something better in the pipeline.

By the way, what is this PCI Express?

unkel

Originally posted by Lex_Diamonds
Is there ever really a good time to be upgrading? Always something better in the pipeline.

Good point m8:)

I upgrade my mobo at least once a year now, other bits when required

Matt Simis

Originally posted by Lex_Diamonds
Is there ever really a good time to be upgrading? Always something better in the pipeline.

By the way, what is this PCI Express?

A good time to upgrade is when something new is available to upgrade to.

See all about PCI Express here:
http://www.anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.html?i=1830



Matt

CivilServant

Matt ur on a six month hardware cycle just like tier one graphics manufacturers.

Must of cost an arm and a leg. What's the performance like? What did u upgrade from?

Matt Simis

Well, so far, all I can say is that it installs Windows 2K and XP very quickly! I have to set this up while at the same time reinstall my old PC as its being sold.

I changed from a P4 2.8C which was running at 3800MHz.



Matt

Praetorian

I just built the same spec machine as Matt. Extremely powerful and reliable machine. Run's cooler than my 2533mhz p4, with stock amd cooler.

You would have to be crazy / loaded to buy the fx.

Matt Simis

I see from reviews and Hardforum that for Games the A64 3200 is coming up faster than the FX-51, despite the fact the A64-3200 is running 200MHz slower than the FX on a single channel DDR controller!

So I would definately recommend the A64 over the FX unless you have apps requiring the memory bandwidth.


Matt

Matt Simis

Originally posted by CivilServant
Matt ur on a six month hardware cycle just like tier one graphics manufacturers.

Must of cost an arm and a leg.

Not compared to, say, DVD collecting, Stamp Collecting, Art, Wine.. etc. All hobbies cost money, but at least with technology you dont really form an emotional attachment and tend to sell and upgrade as opposed to hoard.


Matt

Praetorian

The FX is definitely faster, but it needs a socket (939) mobo. Socket 939 is going to be replaced in Q1/Q2 2004 by socket 940. The 'San diego' 90nm Athlon 64's will be out by then, running with two memory controllers, and faster speeds (mhz), not to mention other architectural advances.

The Athlon 64 processors and Fx processors scale perfectly (mhz wise) according to Toms hardware.

If you can wait, like me, San Diego is the way to go

vibe666

San Diego?

But I left my heart in San Francisco :rolleyes: (Taxi!)

What it all basically means is that I'm going to have to get rid of my g/f so I can justify spending the cash on bleeding edge tech, because 1. she'd never let me spend that much on a PC. 2. (Apparently) we don't have room for more PC 'Junk', and 3. She'd cut off my **** and **** me with it if I did.

Oh well, best try and think of a reason for breaking up.;)

netman

A friend of mine was testing Athlon64 FX for a computer magazine (that will remain unnamed ), and they went through a whole host of motherboards.

He says the CPU itself seems very powerful, but all of the motherboards are a heap of sh*te. He's tested motherboards from MSI, Chaintech, Epox, Gigabyte and Asus.

I just couldn't believe the stories he's told me, I'd really shoot someone if I spent that much money on a system that can be best described as "half finished".

Of all the motherboards, only ASUS supports changing the memory timings or voltages, and does that only with a beta BIOS. The rest of them are stuck at 2.5-4-8-8 memory settings. Which is pretty damn slow for any DDR400 memory.

MSI motherboard stops working altogether if you plug in any PCI card.

All the motherboards except for Asus one share a problem with integrated devices. Disabling integrated devices doesn't always work. After a few reboots, the devices will still be disabled in the BIOS, but Windows will pick them up, and they do work. Bizarre. Chaintech "fixed" this problem with a new release of the BIOS where the options for disabling the integrated devices have been taken off!

Gigabyte motherboard refused to boot up with an nVidia geforce 5900 ultra graphics card halfway through the testing. Discharging CMOS, removing the battery etc didn't bring it back to life. Then they left it to test the other motherboards, and the next day it booted up fine.

I think you're safer playing with guns than playing with these babies.

Matt Simis

Ive heard the FX's were a bit of a rush job too, but nothing that bad. Luckily the cheaper Athlon64 seems to be a (more) mature platform at the moment.


Matt