Help my friend choose.

A friend of mine is asking for opinions about getting a new computer. He has a budget of $800. In order to help him get the best deal, I recommend him getting AMD. However, currently, both the Athlon XP and Pentium lifespan has reached the end of the line. The "next generation" will only be chosen by the end of the 2nd quarter because of PCI-Express, next Pentium line, and the AMD socket 939 and 940. At least that is what I heard.

I don't think he like to wait 6 months before getting the computer. I was also thinking of recommending the Athlon 64 line to him. Although this line may end when soon, but it will still be faster than any Pentium 4 and Athlon XP right now. I think he should get the Athlon64 3000+ now and can upgrade the CPU later if he has to. Do you guys think this is the right choice?

Or maybe he should stick to the 2500 barton with the Abit NF7-S version 2 mobo? But if he go this way, he can no longer upgrade.

Find out what the budget is for the mobo and CPU only.

I would stick with established platforms, Athlon XP and P4. There are far and few A64 S754 and S940 boards, and all the S754s MBs will become paperwheights giving not you any upgrade options when S939 comes. Also the A64 boards don't have any good overclocking features, one step above a dell for overclocking features. Nothing comperable to the overclocking of the NF2 boards.

Also you'll be buying alot of unproven technology and unoverclockable. Early chips have barly any potential. Your FSB ocing will suffer from bad chipset, bad ram, new bus with more possibilitys for erros. None of these designs are perfected yet.

Funny thing about that. An Athlon 64 3000+ overclocked only 10% will outperform just about anything under $400.

As far as errors I can't say, but this is the first time I've heard of there being a lot of instability. When overclocking the Athon 64 it is better to go Nforce3, though. Even with the Hypertransport problem.

People seem to think that socket 754 will live on in the low-end category for a while. I wouldn't bank on that, though. AMD has been rather unpredictable lately.

What will they be using it for? Perhaps the extra money could be spent on a high power video card and overclocked athon xp. Some newer 2500+'s have been doing 3200+ at default voltage with the majority of the rest only needing 1.75v. This is the route I steared my friend down. He has a 2500+ set to 3200+ (or more) and a Radeon 9800 pro. He couldn't be happier with his gaming performance. Since that's what he does most, it was the best option for him.

Good luck with your decision.

"A friend of mine is asking for opinions about getting a new computer. He has a budget of $800."

The 64 would KILL that budget.

I would recommend a good name power supply, like sparkle, or antec, a decent case, 256(even 512) mb or corsair-3500(or 3200), maybe a geforce ti-4200 or find a cheap 9500 ati card, and stick with a 40 GB hard drive until he can get more money. And try to find an unlocked 2500 barton(or locked if you can get a good mobo with the ram)

I just priced one (just the Case and what's in it) for $736 @ newegg. I did sacrifice on the video card, but a 9600 pro or XT should still come in under the $800 mark. This system was put together with mild overclocking in mind (a goal of 10%) with retail cooling. Still, for gaming, budget might be better spent on a better video card.

Also remember that speed upgrades often come in the form of memory or video cards later and often it's still better to buy a new mobo and CPU even a year down the road. I seldom upgrade just my CPU.

Shroomer said:

I just priced one (just the Case and what's in it) for $736 @ newegg. I did sacrifice on the video card, but a 9600 pro or XT should still come in under the $800 mark. This system was put together with mild overclocking in mind (a goal of 10%) with retail cooling. Still, for gaming, budget might be better spent on a better video card.

Also remember that speed upgrades often come in the form of memory or video cards later and often it's still better to buy a new mobo and CPU even a year down the road. I seldom upgrade just my CPU.

Click to expand...

I agree with you. Actually, I upgraded my video card the most when I build my system. There is no doubt that an overclock Barton 2500 and ATI 9800 series card, it will be an extremely fast gaming system. But my problem is because there is no way to upgrade the CPU without changing the mobo. We all know that when we build our own system, we want to overclock and also have room to upgrade everyhing in our system. I will feel kind of bad if he gets a barton now and can't upgrade his cpu any further later.

We all know that when we build our own system, we want to overclock and also have room to upgrade everyhing in our system. I will feel kind of bad if he gets a barton now and can't upgrade his cpu any further later.

Click to expand...

I'm debating over this whole issue right now as I want to replace my current system (see profile) because it runs really really bad (see the thread in general hardware about my keyboard issues) but I'm not sure if I should wait until prices come down on 32-bit (due to 64-bit) or if I should buy now or what. My main issue is that whatever I buy now I won't be able to upgrade, or even use in my next system (with the possible exception of my sound card, drives, and case, though any of these could die (PCI-X replace PCI, SATA kills PATA (IDE), BTX kills ATX). With that kind of instability in standards it makes it hard to put down money on things you know that you will only use on one system.

The problem is that there really is no solution to the issue... It's either wait and have something upgradable (never guaranteed) or buy now and have something nice that will last a while. Like I said. Good luck to you cause there is no easy answer to this one.