Komplett Bundle Deal Thoughts...

patch

I'm planning on buying this:

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=314944&cks=PRL

The 3200 deal is cheaper, I'm thinking getting the 3500 is future proofing a bit.
The board seems decent, it will take an X2 processor when I decide to upgrade again.
I realise slightly better ram may allow better overclocking later on... but it seems an ok deal.

Any thoughts guys?

Cheers,
Pat.

WizZard

The 3500 is not much futureproofed when held against the 3200, so it's a false economy.
Instead I'd go with this motherboard, this CPU and some good (Patriot, geil, Mushkin, OCZ) PC3200 memory (~E145) from www.shop4memory.co.uk (Free Delivery).
I will personally guarantee that you will be able to overclock that chip to at least 2.7Ghz on air, and much more than the Venice chips.
Then, buy an X2 next year and have a decent board to run it on, with decent memory too - thereby saving you two more upgrades!

patch

SLI seems a good idea, so I'll go for the board, it will still work with one pci card yeah?
That cpu is out of stock, maybe for a while... any similar buy?

Cheers for the help Shane, much appreciated!

WizZard wrote:

The 3500 is not much futureproofed when held against the 3200, so it's a false economy.
Instead I'd go with this motherboard, this CPU and some good (Patriot, geil, Mushkin, OCZ) PC3200 memory (~E145) from www.shop4memory.co.uk (Free Delivery).
I will personally guarantee that you will be able to overclock that chip to at least 2.7Ghz on air, and much more than the Venice chips.
Then, buy an X2 next year and have a decent board to run it on, with decent memory too - thereby saving you two more upgrades!

WizZard

No probs, I'd get the 144 Opteron, or the 148. They will all clock fairly high, but because the RAM I have told you to get is DDR400 you're better off getting one with a higher multiplier.
However, since the 148 is so expensive I would recommend getting a 144 and spending the difference on RAM - ideally some PC4000 RAM (instead of the PC3200 that I first recommended)

tba

yes it will work with just one gfx card.

patch

Thanks Guys.
It seems that board is out of stock now too! :rolleyes:
I don't fancy shelling out 156 for the deluxe version unless I need to but the options for SLI boards seem to be limited. I'm not too informed on specs these days, any more ideas?

I found crucial ballistic ram ( http://www.shop4memory.com/memory/ballistix-tracer.asp ), not dual channel for 60 per 512 on special offer.
Would 1gig of this be a decent purchase? Works out as 120 as opposed to 180 for dual channel geil...

Sorry for the noobish post guys, I'm moving up from my trusty pentium 3.06 used mainly for gaming and movie encoding so a wee bit out of my depth...:)

Cheers,
Pat.

lomb

the opteron is a server processor. it is socket 940 not 939 and it will not support that board. furthermore i believe but am not sure, it requires registered memory which is much slower and much more expensive that regular ddr

BabyEater

the opteron is a server processor. it is socket 940 not 939 and it will not support that board. furthermore i believe but am not sure, it requires registered memory which is much slower and much more expensive that regular ddr

The opteron is also on socket 939 and takes normal RAM

conzy

dont buy the ram sticks seperate, they have to be bought in matched pairs for duall channel if you want:
512mb get 2*256mb pack
1024mb get 2*512mb pack..............

And that board WILL support that cpu and it uses standard non ECC ddr ram, it is the new opteron range for s939 they have san diego cores and you can reach fx55 speeds on air and more than fx 57 speeds on water cooling

Get this if you dont want SLI http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=307700&cks=PRL

get this if ya do http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=305190&cks=PRL

and get a decent 450watt+ psu 24pin, and more if you are going to use sli

patch

Cheers, I don't want to use SLI just yet but was hoping to keep it as an option for a future upgrade.
Still, an extra 50 quid for the possible choice may not be the cleverest.

conzy

well 2*6600gt gets around 15000 in 3dmark 03, but a 6800 ultra gets around 13000, so in a year or so you can add a second 6600gt (they will be dirt cheap then) and you beat a 6800 ultra for a lot less money, so i would recommend a sli board as they are very futureproof and allow for significantly cheaper upgrades

tba

conzymaher wrote:

dont buy the ram sticks seperate, they have to be bought in matched pairs for duall channel if you want:
512mb get 2*256mb pack
1024mb get 2*512mb pack..............

wow hold on.....

explain this a bit more

are you saying you cant grab a gig stick then top it up with a 512 later on?

Slaanesh

tba wrote:

wow hold on.....

explain this a bit more

are you saying you cant grab a gig stick then top it up with a 512 later on?

You can but then you won't be taking advantage of dual channel.

tba

so two gig stick in matching slots then two 256mb in the other two would take advantage of the increased bandwidth.

But my brain cant get around why your memory capacity isn't halved because of it (I'm thinking along the lines of a hard drive raid setup here as a basis of thinking)

youcancallmeal

tba wrote:

wow hold on.....

explain this a bit more

are you saying you cant grab a gig stick then top it up with a 512 later on?

If you only have one 512mb stick of a certain type of ram then at any time you can add another as long as its the exact same model/make and also you board will have to support dual channel. Otherwise you will just have two sticks separate sticks of 512mb ram

conzy

But for true Dual channel the 2 modules have to be bought as a matched pair such as these:

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=307051&cks=PRL

They are matched and the lowest latency you can buy 2-2-2-5

Also the OCZ platinium rev 2 is brilliant and comes with chromed copper heatsinks and it overclocks more than 50% and has a lifr time warranty as far as 2.8volts:eek:

patch

I'm guessing stock cooling won't do for overclocking the 144 opteron when paired with decent pc4000 ram... hows this guy here?

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=306456&cks=ACC

Memory wise I'm thinking 2*512 of this for 196 eurons..

http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/memory/ocz_el_ddr_pc_4000_gold_revision_2


Thats not overkill is it? What about just getting 2 gigs of better that average pc3200 instead?

Thanks...

conzy

Very nice cooler its silent when turned down low ( you get a fanmate 2 controller with it), but the stock cooler is good up to 2.5/2.6 ghz on stock voltage which is great for everday use.#

These cpus reach 2.9/3ghz on big cooling and 1.8volts which is a lot over the stock 1.4volts, this will kill your cpu within a year or 2 and sometimes they randomly just die at voltage that high so go as high as you can without going to far away from stock voltages and keep temperatures at full load lower than 60 degrees celcius.

Now for ram i dont mean to be bossy but the gold is good but it needs massive voltage to overclock, the platinium rev 2 is much better suited to that system and is only €210 i think from www.shop4memory.ie it overclocks much better and will run at pc4000 speeds

you see with generic ram that holds your overclock back because it wont go much over stock so you can only raise the fsb to around 215mhz max but with the ocz platinium you can go right up to 300mhz and keep a 1:1 memory divider for better performance

and last time i checked precious metals ranked like this:

silver
gold
platinium:D

patch

Thanks again!

I don't see a pltinum 1gig set there apart from the out of stock geil...

How would pc4200 work for me? Same price as 4000, probably a silly question.

Link to page: http://www.shop4memory.com/products/ddr-ram.asp

conzy

its in the pc3200 section, but its all the same you see they all use the same samsung ram chips.
OCZ Platinum PC3200 - rated at 2-2-2-5 (this is the timing. the smaller the better)
OCZ Platinum PC4200 - rated at 2.5-3-3-8
OCZ Platnium PC4800 - rated at 2.5-4-4-10

So they just up the price by a lot and sell them as faster ram but you can get the same performance for €209 on http://www.shop4memory.com/products/ddr-ram.asp#pc3200

here is the memory bandwith you will get and maybe even more as you can see your system will beat a very highend P4 and a xeon server and you nearly have fx 55 speed

patch

Wow... good to know!
You've been a great help, thanks for taking the time guys.

Keep an eye out for my thread when I need help getting the best out of the new system!

Cheers,
Pat.

conzy

No problems, send me a PM when you get it up and running even if you dont need help i wanna see what this beast can do:p