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tluxon
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 Posted:
Fri Oct 28, 2005 4:28 am Post subject:
Re: A64 3000+ K8T800 or P4 630 i925X based system? |
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Well, I hope I didn't make a mistake I'm going to regret
I had a one time opportunity to buy an Abit IS7 and P4 3.0GHz 800MH
FSB Northwood combination for $230, but I had to decide before I sa
any replies to my previous post. If I had to do it over again I'
sure I would go the A64 3200+ route. In fact, I'm thinking abou
eBay-ing this one to cut my "losses" and going forward with the A6
3200+ Venice plan. To make my decision even more questionable,
found out that in my haste I missed pressing for the exac
identification of the "IS7" and learned that it was a
IS7E - but not until I had already paid
I'm slapping myself because I'm normally a stickler for detail and
just flat-out dropped the ball on this one. I'm hopeful that i
could still work out okay - what do you think
I have a question about the RAM. The IS7-E only has 2 DDR slots so
don't want to make a mistake on this. I'd like to start the kids ou
on 512MB of RAM to see how it does and then up them to 1GB if/when i
becomes needed. I believe I should b
able to put a single stick of 512MB PC3200 DDR400 dual channel memor
in there add another one later, but I've seen some insist that DD
memory must be installed in pairs. What's the real scoop on this
Thanks
Ti |
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John@Smith.com
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| Posted:
Fri Oct 28, 2005 6:37 am Post subject:
Re: A64 3000+ K8T800 or P4 630 i925X based system? |
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On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 23:28:54 GMT, no@spam.invalid (tluxon) wrote:
| Quote: | Well, I hope I didn't make a mistake I'm going to regret.
I had a one time opportunity to buy an Abit IS7 and P4 3.0GHz 800MHz
FSB Northwood combination for $230, but I had to decide before I saw
any replies to my previous post. If I had to do it over again I'm
sure I would go the A64 3200+ route. In fact, I'm thinking about
eBay-ing this one to cut my "losses" and going forward with the A64
3200+ Venice plan.
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I dont think it would be worth it. Frankly your needs are really
modest from what you posted so you would probably be happy with
whatever you got. If you ebay it - theres the possibility you could
lose some money and its a hassle so its really not worth it since what
you got isnt bad at all.
The two issues you mention , multitaksing and upgradeability are
reasonably important depending on the price of the choice you make but
since you already got something , its worth selling just because of
the two issues. Your concerns about multitasking --- when I mention
it I mean in the context of what heavy users encounter not the avg
guy. Frankly once again for avg multitasking I didnt have huge
problems even with my old barton athlon XP or even when I was using a
1 gig ancient athlon for a while when I was waiting for all my 939
system parts which I had to do for over a month.
Im talking about having int explorer open, word processor, several
instances of agent a newsreader and even other stuff. Thats NO problem
as long as you have adequate memory. I have 1 gig thinking about more.
BUT --- if you do video encoding, video capturing (Ive got a TV tuner
card) and other things that puts a heavy load on your system. My
athlon XP barton was actually quite fast but it would get really
bogged down with video. The Athlon 64 is noticeably better in this
aspect. On top of that Im using RR cable which has 5 meg speeds now
and that seems to have an effect sometimes. Also newsgroups are
constantly expanding and news services are constantly increasing
retention. The new AGENT now is a system hog. just downloading all the
headers in a big group takes forever and searching newsgroup for text
and compressing and purging all seem to really bog my system down.
Lots of areas seem to hog my system more and more nowadays - BUT the
avg person doesnt do these things so its not a critcal thing for them.
If you do these thing then you should get the most powerful system for
your $$ and in fact even think of a dual core . In that case an
upgradeable board is a factor. But for just having a spreadsheet open,
word processing, tax program, simple newsreader etc - it should be no
big deal for any of the processors unless the spreadsheet is huge.
| Quote: | I have a question about the RAM. The IS7-E only has 2 DDR slots so I
don't want to make a mistake on this. I'd like to start the kids out
on 512MB of RAM to see how it does and then up them to 1GB if/when it
becomes needed. I believe I should be
able to put a single stick of 512MB PC3200 DDR400 dual channel memory
in there add another one later, but I've seen some insist that DDR
memory must be installed in pairs. What's the real scoop on this?
|
For the intel? Check your manual itll say what slots to use but Ive
read the same stuff as the AMD if you run dual channel you get two but
you can run one. You get a slight speed boost when you run dual
channel.
Some sticks out now are not very compatible. I was looking at another
article on some Pent systems where a guy claimed there were lots of
problems with incompatibilities.
Read these reviews at Tiger Direct on some PNY they are offering for
10 bucks 512 stick 3200 aftrer rebate
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=628069&Tab=11&NoMapp=0
I dont want to exaggerate for one thing maybe thats why its 10 bucks
AR. They point out the ULRA version seems to work OK with many
systems.
I had lots of problems with thew new generation of Kingston PNY and
CENTON 3200 DDR CL 3 vs my older 3200 CL 2.5 from the same companies.
However many dont have problems at least running it alone not with
other memory. On my system the sticks tended to do OK alone but went
wacko with my older sticks. |
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tluxon
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Oct 28, 2005 7:25 am Post subject:
Re: A64 3000+ K8T800 or P4 630 i925X based system? |
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Thanks for the great and thoughtful input
In a way, I was kinda hoping this computer would be a fair step u
from my own, which is basically a P4 2.8c 800fsb Northwood on a Asu
P4P800-E Deluxe motherboard with 1GB of RAM. I do a ton of vide
editing, including encoding while running Outlook and commonly 5 or
windows of IE. I have a AIW Radeon 9600 Pro so the TV is almos
always on in a corner of my 20" screen. It's not uncommon for me t
load up SolidWorks 2006 and bringing up a 100-200 part assembly (
play a design engineer at work) while all this is happening (excep
at this point video capture and encoding have to stop). My curren
PC actually handles this fairly well
Now this computer I'm putting together for the kids isn't going t
have the same demands placed on it, but that's my point of referenc
and thus my concern. Having put more thought into it, I'd bet th
kids will be much lighter multi-taskers, and in fact will probabl
use whatever power they have primarily for games
In reality, I could replace my 2.8c with the 3.0c I'm getting an
auction the 2.8c and the IS7-E off for probably less than a $30 o
$40 hit - I think? That being the case, wouldn't I be further ahea
in the long run going ahead with a s939 board and the A64 3200+ fo
now? At least then it seems I'd be leaving the door open for
future dual core possibility. The question is, I guess, will I eve
really do the CPU only upgrade or will this PC be enough to carry m
till I'd want to go with the next generation motherboard and CP
anyway |
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John@Smith.com
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Oct 28, 2005 3:53 pm Post subject:
Re: A64 3000+ K8T800 or P4 630 i925X based system? |
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On Fri, 28 Oct 2005 04:29:32 GMT, no@spam.invalid (tluxon) wrote:
| Quote: | Thanks for the great and thoughtful input.
|
Make that "its NOT worth selling"
| Quote: | In a way, I was kinda hoping this computer would be a fair step up
from my own, which is basically a P4 2.8c 800fsb Northwood on a Asus
P4P800-E Deluxe motherboard with 1GB of RAM. I do a ton of video
editing, including encoding while running Outlook and commonly 5 or 6
windows of IE. I have a AIW Radeon 9600 Pro so the TV is almost
always on in a corner of my 20" screen. It's not uncommon for me to
load up SolidWorks 2006 and bringing up a 100-200 part assembly (I
play a design engineer at work) while all this is happening (except
at this point video capture and encoding have to stop). My current
PC actually handles this fairly well.
|
Then thats a different story but there is slight edge on various video
encoding tasks vs the Athlons and the Intels have hyperthreading on
most of their CPUs so thats a factor.
| Quote: | Now this computer I'm putting together for the kids isn't going to
have the same demands placed on it, but that's my point of reference
and thus my concern. Having put more thought into it, I'd bet the
kids will be much lighter multi-taskers, and in fact will probably
use whatever power they have primarily for games.
In reality, I could replace my 2.8c with the 3.0c I'm getting and
auction the 2.8c and the IS7-E off for probably less than a $30 or
$40 hit - I think? That being the case, wouldn't I be further ahead
in the long run going ahead with a s939 board and the A64 3200+ for
now? At least then it seems I'd be leaving the door open for a
future dual core possibility. The question is, I guess, will I ever
really do the CPU only upgrade or will this PC be enough to carry me
till I'd want to go with the next generation motherboard and CPU
anyway?
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I dont think any of the options are that bad that itll make a critical
difference. However its kind of nice to get a dual core later.
The thing is a lot of people wont upgrade that often . If you dont
then by the time you do you may want to go for a M2 or the new gen of
INTEL cpus coming out by then. I think if you are going to upgrade in
a year then its more critical as the M2 and the next gen INTELs will
probably be expensive. But if you are going to wait to upgrade - 2
years or so the M2s and next gen INTELs will have fallen in price by
then possibly fairly low so you might skip the current dual cores.
In fact when I use something like TMPGenc to encode video which can
take hours - on one level once again its surprising how old a system
can do a lot of things even now. I used as I mentioned a 1 gig athlon
which I had laying around - I have 3 systems now - older 1 gig athlon
with 333 VIA chipset abit board ; my 939 3000 amd 64 system with 1
gig my main system with 800XL ATI; and a 754 socket 3200 64 with 256
mem and 9600 ati.
I just got another 9600 pro for $34 plus shipping. Im selling it to a
neighbor whos kid is game crazy and they arent wealthy . Around here
decent video cards are really expensive so this is a killer deal for
them.
You can actually encode video etc with old surprisingly old systems.
However on anything older than my AMD 64s the system is totally taken
over by TMGEnc cranking away. And that takes hours to encode video.
The system is almost unsable then. With my AMD 64 its usable but
theres a noticeable drag on it. Thats why I was thinking dual core.
Also the Agent thing bugs me - the super slow searching nowadays etc
but thats part the new Agents fault as there were lots of bugs when it
came out initially , they fixed a lot of them but its still a system
hog. And its part just the huge size of newsgroups nowadays.
Im trying to get more memory right now . I want two gigs. And Im
raiding my system again as I mentioned. I read Anandtechs article
where he says RAID has no real world effect on the vast majority of
users - no real gain I mean. With artificial benchmarks they say it
makes a big difference but no real world gains in game loading or
other tasks. After that I unraided my system but since Im running into
areas where my system seems to bog down which arent about pure CPU
speed etc Im thinking maybe the dual core, and more mem and RAID or a
raptor or the new gen SATA+NCQ HDs may make a difference. Anandtechs
been hot on some new SATA NCQ disks claiming there was a substantial
gain in real world use in SOME multitasking chores. In general SATA I
think makes very little difference as they say so all my disks are
actually still PATA cause the prices are dirt cheap on them.
I paid $29 each for 2 160 gigs and $39 for 2 - 200 gigs. I just got
another seagate 160 gig $39 to try to RAID my system which Ill do
hopefully this month.
Hopefully 1 gig more of mem and RAID will make a big difference though
I have some doubts on the RAID part.
That 9600 Pro deal was a killer. They are gone now though. Theres some
good deals on Patriot memory now at ZZF and Newegg - two matched pairs
for $76-80 2x512. Im thinking about it cause though theres nothing
special about matched pairs ----- they are CL 2.5 and Ive been having
big problems with the current crop of discount brands like Kingston,
PNY, Centon sold at COMPUSA and CC so I need some decent mem around
the same cheap price 30-40 a stick. Missed out on the $65 AR deal they
had to day at newegg.
The best solution for really annoying tasks that bog your system down
and take hours is to get another system to do it on of course thats
why I have the AMD 7200 which I use to just encode things but Id like
to make my AMD 939 even more robust with other chores like video
editing and using agent. |
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tluxon
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Oct 30, 2005 2:28 am Post subject:
Re: A64 3000+ K8T800 or P4 630 i925X based system? |
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| Quote: | tluxonwrote
...I could replace my 2.8c with the 3.0c I'm getting and auction th |
2.8c and the IS7-E off for probably less than a $30 or $40 hit...
took another look and it turns out my current CPU is already a 3.0
Northwood, so I'm going to be pretty happy having two of them.
just hope the IS7-E motherboard doesn't provide too much of
liability in having only 2 memory slots and not having firewire or
RAID controller. If that becomes an issue, I'll probably just sel
it and look for another P4P800-E Deluxe
I'm figuring that by the time the kids need a lot of power for games
there'll be a new generation of processors and platforms anyway, I
the meantime, this'll be a pretty capable machine for a while
I appreciate the help - Thanks
Ti |
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John@Smith.com
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Oct 30, 2005 4:50 am Post subject:
Re: A64 3000+ K8T800 or P4 630 i925X based system? |
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On Sat, 29 Oct 2005 21:28:46 GMT, no@spam.invalid (tluxon) wrote:
| Quote: | tluxonwrote:
..I could replace my 2.8c with the 3.0c I'm getting and auction the
2.8c and the IS7-E off for probably less than a $30 or $40 hit...I
took another look and it turns out my current CPU is already a 3.0C
Northwood, so I'm going to be pretty happy having two of them. I
just hope the IS7-E motherboard doesn't provide too much of a
liability in having only 2 memory slots and not having firewire or a
RAID controller. If that becomes an issue, I'll probably just sell
it and look for another P4P800-E Deluxe.
I'm figuring that by the time the kids need a lot of power for games,
there'll be a new generation of processors and platforms anyway, In
the meantime, this'll be a pretty capable machine for a while.
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I cant remember how many slots it has probably 5 id think for cards.
You can always get a firewire card. Thats what I did. Xmas sales are
coming like I keep brining up and tomorrow possibly Halloween sales
week or maybe not, Anyway - I got one from old compusa for 10 bucks on
sale ages ago, Im actually not using it yet. Usually they are around
20 bucks there but you can find them for 10-15 on ebay usually. Of
course they charge kind of high shipping nowadays.
They also sell RAID cards cheap too. I used to see the Silicon Image
RAID controller cards for 10-15 on ebay and on the net they were cheap
too. Frankly RAID I doubt youll need it as Anandtech says. Im only
doing it cause of the reasons I mentioned.
And remember I only have 3 PCI slots because the new PCI express
boards for AMD tend to have 3 old PCI slots and use two of the usual 5
slots for PCI express 1x or faster for future PCI express cards that
may someday be out . And of course theres the ONE video 16x PCI ex
slot.
So Im using a music recording card Audiophile 2496, TV tuner -
hauppauge 150 and a modem for faxing. I use cable but I like to use
the old modem for faxing. I bought an external modem on sale so I
could free that slot and use it for a Audigy in the future for better
game sounds. Im using my onboard sound now.
Id like actually and this was my plan buy a PCI express TV tuner or
Creative sound card but no one seems to be coming out with them even
almost a year after the motherboards are out. Creative says there are
technical difficulties they have to solve.
You having an older boards should have lots of slots to add anything
you want but of course that adds cost so up to a point it may not make
sense.
Memory is pretty cheap and probably will be on deep discount over the
holiday so you may be able to pick up a great deal. Frankly if you are
that worried about it buy ONE 1 gig stick so that you can add another
1 gig stick later. Just ask around to make sure there are no
incompatibliities .
Im sure it will be fast enough for any game you want to play and you
even said you arent a fanatical gamer. Im going to be testing out
FEAR, COD2, Quake4 pretty soon on my 800XL. Im even having insane
thoughts of going for a 7800GT and selling my 800XL but I have a long
list of stuff to get - dual core, more mem, Canon Rebel etc. |
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