Need Your Guys Expertise Please !!

I am looking to upgrade my computer, I currently have a P4 2.4 on a Gigabyte 8iRXP board with 300 & odd mb of Ram, I currently use it for downloading and decoding films my machine it is on 24/7 & downloading 24/7 I don’t play many games on it only really Championship Manager and stuff like that, I was wondering what would be the best machine to build I was looking at the new Dfi Nf4 board with a AMD 64 3200+, my budget is around £400 - £500 any of your advice would be gratefully appreciated, Thanx in advance.

A 90nm 3200+ would be a fine start to build around. As for the DFi motherboard I've only seen one place taking pre-orders for it here in the states and the cheapest is the Ultra-D non-SLI variant and it was $249 which seems like alot. No doubt they'll be less when they become more widespread. Keep in mind these are PCI-E only so you'll need an appropriate video card to go along with it.

Well I am still at the saving stage at the moment so when I do actually get the money the price might have dropped and they would probably be more available, I live in the UK the are a few places on the net that you can place a black order on for you, what else would you reckomend ie memory etc.

Well nearly any memory with Samsung TCCD chips seems to do well with the dual channel winchesters. PDP Patriot XBL, g.skill PC4400, OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev2 all of these are good memory choices depending on availability in your area. For power supplies I'm a fan of sparkle/fortron so I'd suggest you look at their lineup when you're ready to buy. The fortron 530w or 500w blue storm are not likely to let you down.

So what would be the mager factor I would look into for the job I want to do, would it be memory or more processor power, because at the moment when I am decoding films my computer is running at 100% and tends to lock on certain programs ?

You mean it's locking up...not responding? If so it's likely overheating or your power supply isn't making the grade.

I think a jump to A64 will provide a big boost, especially in Championship manager (with lots of memory reads) because of the onboard memory controller designed to reduce memory latency. As always however with film encoding, more CPU power is more appropriate than more memory. You may also wish to consider a P4 with Hyperthreading, for a more responsive PC when working with multiple tasks. For cheap, and especially been as you don't play many games, you may even wish to try a dual CPU PC. I picked up a new Asus PC-DL from scan.co.uk and two Xeon 2.4's off ebay for a total of around £250. Very overclockable chips too

More info can be found in the SMP section of this forum.

At the moment I just have a cheap PSU. Dual processor would that make it more powerfull than a AMD 64 3200+ on a new Dfi Nf4 board with 1024mb Ram

wiggyuk said:

At the moment I just have a cheap PSU. Dual processor would that make it more powerfull than a AMD 64 3200+ on a new Dfi Nf4 board with 1024mb Ram

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no for single tasks, the A64 3200 will be better. However, if you want to browse the web, listen to music etc while you video encode, then Dulies are the way to go, especially since you don't game that much. Also read the sticky labled "Setting Up The Perfect DFI NF4/SLI System!" at the top of the forum. It is very good information. One thing you have to add to your list is a good power supply (make sure it's 24pin eps if you go DFI). Again look at the stiky.

wiggyuk said:

I am looking to upgrade my computer, I currently have a P4 2.4 on a Gigabyte 8iRXP board with 300 & odd mb of Ram, I currently use it for downloading and decoding films my machine it is on 24/7 & downloading 24/7 I don’t play many games on it only really Championship Manager and stuff like that, I was wondering what would be the best machine to build I was looking at the new Dfi Nf4 board with a AMD 64 3200+, my budget is around £400 - £500 any of your advice would be gratefully appreciated, Thanx in advance.

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If you are looking for multi tasking you do NOT want an Athlon64. A64s are gaming processors. What you should look at is a new Intel Pentuim4 LGA775. There are a number of options available for the LGA. But do NOT get an a64. It doesnt do multi-tasking well at all. <I own one>

I dont know much about the Intel Pentuim4 LGA775 at all to be honest, I have heard such good things about AMD`s that over the past few months iv just been reding up on the amd`s and ignoring the P4 I have a P4 2.4 at the moment which I have never really had any problems with its just too slow now.

That board only has a rating of 3 out of 5 is that the best P4 board ? and what memory works best with the P4 like I said I no nothing about P4`s at the moment I have been paying attention to the AMD`s would this setup out perform the AM6 3200 on the Dfi Nf4 for what I want it for ?

If you go for a P4 (With a socket 775 chip) you're likely to need DDR2 memory. I have no experience with it whatsoever so I can't offer real life experience; however I can tell you that from everywhere i've read that it's generally a little slower and more expensive than standard DDR.

Just to reflect on Sentenial's post however, the P4's will deal with multitasking in a better way due to HT and they do feel more responsive. In a lot of occasions, the tasks you are trying to accomplish will not justify a Dual CPU PC. Have a think, and if of course you wish to encode more than one film and still have a responsive PC then a Duallie is for you. Otherwise it doesn't justify the cost - and i'd go for the P4. I'm not particularly pro Intel or AMD in particular; I just look at requirements and make a decision.