New system

I currently have a 1.4gzh Athlon, 1gig PC-133, Radeon 9700 Pro, 2 8 gig 5400rpm drives in RAID 0, a 120gb 7200rpm and a 75gb 7200rpm for storage. I am looking to build a new machine. I was thinking about either an OC'd P4 2.4c or a 2500+. After reading some of the posts I was also thinking about waiting. My box is pretty underpowered currently and I was wondering if it would be worth waiting a few more months for some of the new processors, DDR-2, PCI-express etc., or just get a new one now. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

heh wow your 9700p must be starving!!!!

I would go with a DLT3C XP1800/1700 really. The new stuff isn't gonna be here for a while. I just recently bought a 2.4C to see what it was like...and honestly there is no difference from the [email protected] than the rig in my sig.

The reason i say go for a DLT3C is because there cheaper and when OC they both hit the same ceiling in terms of performance (so the DLT3C will clock higher, but the bartons cache makes up for the lost cycles). And get some decent PC3200/3500 and a NF7/NF7-S motherboard.

What is DLT3C? Sorry, but I have been out of the loop since I purchased my 1.4ghz. I used to be that guy that could answer any question about pc hardware, but now that I mainly play on unix systems at work, I just don't have time to keep up with everything.

thx

I just want to know why you bought 9700pro for your current rig.
It's more expensive than all other parts put together.

DLT3C is a really hot stepping of the AXP1700s and 1800s.


Maybe he upgraded at soem point.

yes anax is correct. It's able to overclock to incredibly high speeds (1.47/1.53....XP1700/1800 stock) to around 2.3-2.4 on good air cooling.
www.excaliberpc.com is selling these

I bought the 9700 Pro a while back to replace my old GF3 that died. I figured when I upgraded boxes, I would just move the new card to it. I don't normally purchase entirely new boxes, I just replace certain stuff as I go along.

I just looked at excaliburpc and they only go down to the 2000+. Is it really worth trying to find one of those processors, or just get a 2500+ or 2.4c and overclock the hell out of it? Money really isn't that much of an object. I don't want to go spend $300-400 on the processor, but 200 or less is fine. I was also going to buy top quality ram, motherboard, and hd's.

For the money, I'd go for a XP 2500, ABIT NF7-S board and some decent PC3200 memory. With those, you can do 3200+ no problem. That will be comparable to a 3GHz P4.

P4 2.4C can have some amazing overclocks, but trust me, they are a pain in the *** to o/c. I've had zero luck getting several past 3GHz using multiple motherboard and memory configs. The XP2500/Abit NF7-S combo, on the other hand, has worked every single time (built like 6 setups for friends).

Good call! Definately move the 9700pro to a new system as that poor baby is starving in there! I can almost hear it's screams!


I'd have to say if I had to buy a new system right now, I would definately get an athlon64 3000+, with probably a cheap soltek motherboard.


If I was a little more flexible, I would wait till the sis755 and nforce3 250 chipsets are released for the athlon64.


Another important event will be the release of Intel's Prescott in early february. As I am 99% sure it will be overpriced FUD I am only interested in the affect this will have on the market and on spurring AMD to release more processors!


A bit further down the line, there's the release of ATi and nvidia's next generation graphics cards, expected to be mid-march. This isn't so much interest to you as it would hardly be justifiable to upgrade a very nice 9700pro to one of these.


And then in april-may, Intel is expected to release PCI-express mobos with DDR2 support and BTX form factor. All of these are subject to much hype and speculation, but to me respresent a hardcore marketing ploy. None will be very available till the end of the year, and they are all unlikely to offer massive performance gains. Not worth waiting for imo, and knowing Intel, you could be waiting alot longer than you would expect.


So, to me, the hardware market is not as interesting as to some... I'm only waiting for low-priced athlon64s to appear, along with better motherboards.

I would definately go with the DLT3C XP1800/1700s if you can find one as all the ones I have had are rock solid stable @ 2.3!