General thoughts please.

EOA_Mushy

Wondering what the general opinion of this machaine is? I intend to buy it and want to know if any changes should be made...

-AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz Socket 939 1MB-
-Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe-
-Gainward GeForce 6600GT 256MB GDDR3-
-Cooler Master Real Power 550W-
-(2x) TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM 1024MB-
-Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB SATA 16MB-

And what opperating system to get for it. Not wanting to go near linux for a while.

Primary pourpose is for games, but I am also finishing a software degree (may become a server)

Laguna

EOA_Mushy wrote:

Wondering what the general opinion of this machaine is? I intend to buy it and want to know if any changes should be made...

-AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz Socket 939 1MB-
-Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe-
-Gainward GeForce 6600GT 256MB GDDR3-
-Cooler Master Real Power 550W-
-(2x) TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM 1024MB-
-Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB SATA 16MB-

And what opperating system to get for it. Not wanting to go near linux for a while.

Primary pourpose is for games, but I am also finishing a software degree (may become a server)

Nice one, I'd personally not bother with a dual core processor yet (this is just my opinion) and I'd rather get a more powerful single core processor, as you can always upgrade to dual core when it's going dirt cheap for socket 939 when 940 replaces it, I'd go for an overclocked opteron or the 2.4gHz 3800. Other than that I think the PC looks fine. Just out of interest, where are you doing your software degree? (being a fellow computer guy myself!).

As for an OS, I'm sure you have a copy of XP floating around *somewhere* that will tide you over until Vista comes out (I hate Windows personally but it's the only format for gaming on the PC )

EOA_Mushy

That was pritty much my consern - Xp pro will not recognise dual core for what it is...
A mate has a x2 with windows 64, man was that a bad choice of os. Nothing is 64bit supported.

Was wondering if any thing else would do the trick. Nope tho.

College is N.C.I. , your self?

Laguna

EOA_Mushy wrote:

That was pritty much my consern - Xp pro will not recognise dual core for what it is...
A mate has a x2 with windows 64, man was that a bad choice of os. Nothing is 64bit supported.

Was wondering if any thing else would do the trick. Nope tho.

College is N.C.I. , your self?

Ah, I finished college last June in Carlow lol, yeah; I know.

TBH, Vista looks like the only thing that'll really do it for you dual core and considering the release of Vista is 8-11 months away, the price of buying a single core processor now and an X2 processor upon Vista's release will be near enough to what you'll be paying if you buy an X2 now, if you know what I'm trying to say! .

X2 really isn't worth it at the moment, not many applications are really taking advantage of it as the developers are probably waiting for it to become more mainstream. I personally just bought the 1mb 2.2gHz AMD chip from Komplett for 245 (still waiting for that and my new MOBO and GFX card to arrive :mad:) . I'll probably overclock that to the best I can and that'll do me until Vista makes its debut.

As you rightly said, XP is messy when it comes to dual core, the 64 bit edition more so, it's just not worth the extra quid at the moment for something you can't utilise.

EOA_Mushy

Just changed the shoping list think i'll be geting the same processor in the end. (1mb 2.2 @ €245)

Probably going to be a good idea to pick up a dual core a month or two before they release vista, dont want to be caught out on a price hike if they deciede that x2 is going to be the new thing. :rolleyes:

irishshogun

Curious how much you're paying for that setup!

EOA_Mushy

irishshogun wrote:

Curious how much you're paying for that setup!

It has been changed since to:
(changes noted w/ *)

-AMD Opteron 148, 2.2GHz, Socket 939, 1MB*
-Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
-Club3D Radeon X800RX 256MB GDDR3 PCI-Express*
-Cooler Master Real Power 550W
-Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB SATA 16MB
-TwinMOS PC3200 DDR-DIMM 1024MB Dual Pack

But cost is €950. All parts from komplett.

commited

Planning on overclocking?
Have you checked out all the memory on www.shop4memory.com?

Also, overclockers.co.uk have a fairly cheap X850XT now I believe.

youcancallmeal

Maybe go for a DFI Lanparty board aswell

Spear

EOA_Mushy wrote:

That was pritty much my consern - Xp pro will not recognise dual core for what it is...
A mate has a x2 with windows 64, man was that a bad choice of os. Nothing is 64bit supported.

He must have some strange hardware then, the only thing of mine not supported is my Haupauge TV card, and drivers are on the way for that.

EOA_Mushy

Spear wrote:

He must have some strange hardware then, the only thing of mine not supported is my Haupauge TV card, and drivers are on the way for that.

Some if the 16bit installers for the software(mcafee suite) told him that the "setup.exe" was not ment for a computer, no mind the o.s. Others included software for razor mouse and keyboard(cant rem the make).

ShiverinEskimo

Don't listen to the "dual core isn't worth it yet" comments.

The "XP doesn't support dual core" statement isn't entirley true. What it wont do is let one process utilise both cores - in other words one core will be flat out from time to time crying out for more CPU while the other core does nothing. But trust me when I say that if you multitask at all dual core is well worth it and I'm speaking from experience. No slow down whatsoever when using two CPU-hungry apps. Ripping DVDs while listening to MP3s and surfing/chatting for example.

I went dual core and am running XP Pro and consider it the best purchase I made when on my build.

Also you don't need to go last generation gfx (x800)- you can get 7800 GTs for cheap here - like I did.

Laguna

ShiverinEskimo wrote:

Don't listen to the "dual core isn't worth it yet" comments.

The "XP doesn't support dual core" statement isn't entirley true. What it wont do is let one process utilise both cores - in other words one core will be flat out from time to time crying out for more CPU while the other core does nothing. But trust me when I say that if you multitask at all dual core is well worth it and I'm speaking from experience. No slow down whatsoever when using two CPU-hungry apps. Ripping DVDs while listening to MP3s and surfing/chatting for example.

I went dual core and am running XP Pro and consider it the best purchase I made when on my build.

Also you don't need to go last generation gfx (x800)- you can get 7800 GTs for cheap here - like I did.

He won't be multitasking, he said the primary function of this computer will be for games and for that simple reason alone dual core is not worth it.

Khannie

ShiverinEskimo wrote:

What it wont do is let one process utilise both cores - in other words one core will be flat out from time to time crying out for more CPU while the other core does nothing.

Just wanted to add to this.....I (of course) agree with what our chilly eskimo friend says, but it should also be pointed out that a single threaded app cannot be speeded up by using multiple cores ever, because the outcome of one calculation is generally the input to another. I can't see a clean way around that.

Multi-threaded apps will start to become the norm fairly soon hopefully. Those with experience coding threaded apps will be in high demand.

ShiverinEskimo

Laguna wrote:

He won't be multitasking, he said the primary function of this computer will be for games and for that simple reason alone dual core is not worth it.

EOA_Mushy wrote:

Primary pourpose is for games, but I am also finishing a software degree (may become a server)

Primary function means exactly that - primary. My primary function is gaming because otherwise I wouldn't have spent 1700 building a machine for internet. But the dual core is always there for secondary functions. I'm happy knowing my games have one dedicated core at 2.366 while all the other windows ****e runs in the background on my other core.

And if he is developing software on it and possibly using it as a server then dual core is definately worth it. Servers were the first machines to run dual cpu's for a good reason.

EOA_Mushy

ShiverinEskimo wrote:

Don't listen to the "dual core isn't worth it yet" comments.

Also you don't need to go last generation gfx (x800)- you can get 7800 GTs for cheap here - like I did.

Cheers for the link dude, some very nice cards on the site, good prices too.:D

I will not be building until mid january so time to contemplate . Thanks for the thoughts.

ShiverinEskimo

No probs man. Good luck with the build and if you need any help/advice if you go dual core PM me or see this thread. My conversation with another guy joining the dual core revolution.