64 Bit AMD

[Smartiepants]

So what's the latest word on these, I'm looking at building a new rig, but I'm not sure, so right now I have cash in hand, and it will stay there because I have heard mixed things about the 64 series. Can anyone give any firsthand opinions? I heard negative things saying they will die out, mediocre caying software doesn't support them yet and positive saying they are the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Can anyone help me out?

[c627627]

They won't die out, far from it. Whether they're worth it now is another question, people are waiting for socket 939 Athlon 64s.

Socket 754 Athlon 64s are available now but they're the ones that may not last long.

What do you have now, how much are you looking to spend, those are the q's.

http://www.c627627.com/AMD/AthlonXP/

64 bit WIndows will not be out until the second half of next year, yes.
They do also work in 32 bit and are better than Socket A CPUs, but again, is the price difference worth it for you?

It's kind of a variation on the question when Intel 2.4c first came out, yes carefully chosen Intel 2.4c system was better than AMD but was it worth the money, considering how much cheaper AMD was...

[KnownKiller]

Buying a new Mobo isint that big of a deal to me.. Reason is no matter what you buy, everyone will be buying a new mobo when they come out with the newer PCI-X graphics cards. I'm sure if the demand is high enough which it probably will be with the 3000+ 64 Chip being so cheap in all, they will be making 754 socket board well into 2004-2005. That goes for the Opteron/FX as well since the opterons wont be changing sockets like the regular 754 Athlons and FX.

Its a common thing to buy a new board for a new chip.

Yes the 64 is fast! I have bult a 3000+ 64 and an Opteron 1.44 1.8GHz system and they either as fast if not faster then a Barton system overclocked to 2500Mhz.

Cheap as well since you can have this speed at 220 for the 3000+ 64 and 100-180 for the MOBO and continue to use your current DDR ram.. Though if your looking for max speed and overclocking, i hope you have some ram that will do 220-240 FSB.. Which is about the maximum FSB you want cause of the PCI lock cause at 240FSB the PCI will be runing around 38Mhz. Though i'm sure that will change soon when they release that NF3 250 chipset mobo.

Also the 3000+ with the 512KB cache isint noticeably slower then the 3200+ with the 1024KB cache. Plus its 200 cheaper.. hehe

Only down fall is that these chips run much hotter then the XP and Bartons.. I'd advise going either with a good name brand HS.. I just noticed that Alpha just came out with a massive copper base HS! That would do the trick easy i bet.. Ofcourse it was sold out where i seen it. Also i'd advise to run with water cooling if your gona be overclocking to 2400+ 1.7v.

[pelikan]

I've been reading just the opposite about heat. Many people run their A64's at 2400 MHz+ on air. Of course I don't have one so I am only stating what I've read in forums.
The 3000+ looks great to me. It is quite a bit faster in games than bartons and p4c's. People are having great O/C results with the Shuttle AN50R. For about $350. you can get a killer cpu/mb combo.
Anand's A64 3000+ review. (http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1937)