Computer Died! Time to Start anew, need advice!

Over the weekend there was a big power spike at my place, and my ASUS A7V8X bit the dust, complete with exploding IC's and a totally siezed main hard drive. The motherboard on my living room PC tanked as well. I was able to ressurect a working XP 2600+ system with a spare A7N8X Deluxe mobo I had, but now that Im down a PC and faced with rebuilding my entire workstation - I figure its prime time to upgrade.

I've seen the results for the overclocked Intel E6300, and I can't help being impressed. I had my heart set on an X2 4200+ initially, but now that the Conroe is available, Im confused.

The 4200+ and a nice AM2 motherboard would run ~$300, while the E6300 with the ASUS P5W DH Deluxe would run ~$470. $170 is a lot of dough, but when I see those benchmark results for the oc'd E6300 it comes off as a steal for how powerful it is.

I basically want to hit the best price/performance point for my money. I use my PC mainly for digital audio work and multimedia content creation, games are secondary, although I am looking forward to being able to play Oblivion finally Any of these choices are going to blow me away compared to my venerable old 2600+ Im sure - but still I want to be sure to spend my $$ wisely.

What can we expect from AMD in the near future? Will there be a serious price drop on the 1MB Cache AM2 CPU's soon? Will the AM2 platform be a solid upgrade path? Id like to put together a new machine ASAP, but if waiting a few weeks means saving a few hundred, Ill deal with it.

Thanks!
Awake77

Well with the scenario's above: AMD vs. Intel - price is a good point.

If you go w/ an AM2 setup, get a 3800+/4200+ X2, a nice asus board, 1-2gb of DDR2 memory, you will still be cheaper than just a CPU and Mobo for the Intel. So thats up to you.

Both new setups will require your movement to DDR2 as well as PCI Express. So factor those in as well, and you should be able to save 200-300 total vs an Intel. Is $300 savings worth the 15-25% REAL WORLD performance hit you will take? Only you can answer that question. If it were me, id save the money and go with the AMD.

From what I've read AM2 will be compatible with AMD's 65-nm K8L, slated to come out next year. The selection of Core 2 Duo comaptible motherboards is rather lousy right now but that should change in a month. You might want to hold off about a month and see what's available.

From what I've read AM2 will be compatible with AMD's 65-nm K8L, slated to come out next year. The selection of Core 2 Duo comaptible motherboards is rather lousy right now but that should change in a month. You might want to hold off about a month and see what's available.

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Yeah, I was pretty disillusioned when I saw the only real good motherboard for the Core 2 is $250. Im sure that will change rather soon, too...

Both new setups will require your movement to DDR2 as well as PCI Express. So factor those in as well, and you should be able to save 200-300 total vs an Intel. Is $300 savings worth the 15-25% REAL WORLD performance hit you will take? Only you can answer that question. If it were me, id save the money and go with the AMD.

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I have to get new *everything*, except maybe case. All my old hard drives are ATA/100 and there's no sense in buying another one, when SATA2 drives are so cheap and so much faster now. My video card is an AGP MX440 (cough cough cough) - so Im pretty excited for even a lower end PCI-E option there.

I'd really like to stick with AMD, because despite not wanting to admit it I guess I am a fanboy to a degree - cant argue with those Intel benchmarks though.

If you absolutely need something right now, the I would go with AMD. In a month or so, hopefully the Conroe availability issue will be resolved. Also, motherboards for Conroe should be more affordable in month.

get a 3800+ X2 or if you can, find a 4000+ X2

get that asus board, A32mn-sli deluxe or something like that.

7900gt

some sata//sata2 HDD

good PSU, fortron, antec, enermax, etc.

2 x 1 gig of ram


-- can't go wrong with AMD, since Intel is very expensive right now.

Id check out www.mwave.com as they have very very good prices on all of the amd X2 line (288$ for a 4800+, i just picked one up)

How much are you looking to spend? Give us a budget, well help

Ah yeah, the budget

I dont really want to go over $1000 for the whole system. I have a decent Antec server tower (although that P180 looks damn sweet, so I dont need a case. Have to go new with pretty much everything else though. My current wishlist over at NewEgg is:

AMD X2 4200+ ($185)
Gigabyte GA-M55SLI-S4 Socket AM2 Motherboard ($94.00)
Powercolor X800GTO 256Mb PCI-E Video card ($139)
Antec TruPower 2 550W Power Supply ($89)
PQI Turbo DDR533 2GB RAM ($179)
2 Western Digital Caviar 250GB SATA2 drives ($160)

Total: $840

The PSU from my old PC is a nice Enermax 460W, and I have a generic 350W that I could stick in the XP2600 machine so I suppose a new PSU isnt essential. Although if I plan to overclock I suppose a 550W would be a good call.

I will definitely use the 2GB of RAM and plan to run the drives in Raid-0 with my 120GB ATA/100 drive in an external USB-box for daily backup. Im also going to get a high quality UPS - I never though the whole 'power surge disaster' thing would happen to me but damn if it did and Im not taking any more chances

Thanks guys,
Awake77

get a better video card. Get a 7900gt or a x1800xt or something.

White_Pawn said:

get a better video card. Get a 7900gt or a x1800xt or something.

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I really dont play a lot of games, Ill probably make some time for Oblivion but Id rather put the cash toward components that will make a bigger difference with the main work Ill be doing with the machine.

Unless there's some way I can use my GPU to process audio plugins

Do you have a toasted power strip to go with it. APC, Triplite and several others will replace your rig if it was on their strip and the surge actually came through the power line!

Do you have a toasted power strip to go with it. APC, Triplite and several others will replace your rig if it was on their strip and the surge actually came through the power line!

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Power strip still works, and Ill have to check the brand. I also need to give my renter's insurance a call to see if anything is coverd. Thanks for the idea!

Make sure your ram is ddr2 800 or better (pc6400). 533 is much slower and will limit your performance greatly. You can a 2 gig kit for the same price, and for some kits a little cheaper.

I would also then get a 7900gt or something.. That should put you right at 1k

Also.. How is your 120gig gonna be a backkup for a 500gig raid setup? lol

If you REALLY need to back up your files.. i recomend getting a external raid 1terabyte server to do a daily backup of your PC. You need twice the space of your drives because when it does a backup, you dont want to be overwriting anything because if your drives fail at that point.. your screwed.

Also.. How is your 120gig gonna be a backkup for a 500gig raid setup? lol

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- At first I figured Id just back my most important data daily, and keep an image of my system environment on DVD's incase of another incident.

If you REALLY need to back up your files.. i recomend getting a external raid 1terabyte server to do a daily backup of your PC. You need twice the space of your drives because when it does a backup, you dont want to be overwriting anything because if your drives fail at that point.. your screwed.

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That's a great idea - I could configure my XP2600+ to handle that task, perhaps. It'll have to wait though - the cost of the initial system is going to wipe me out.

Thanks for the tip on the 7900GT and the higher speed RAM - I may spring for the bigger GPU.

As much as I love AMD, I think for this next machine Im going for the Core2Duo - the performance increase for the cash spent is just to big to ignore. No doubt AMD will catch up/surpass Intel within the coming months/years - but I have a sneaking suspicion that while AM2 might still be the socket of choice, you'll need a new chipset to really maximize the benefits of whatever their new CPU will be - meaning a CPU/Motherboard swap either way for an upgrade.

Awake77 said:

but I have a sneaking suspicion that while AM2 might still be the socket of choice, you'll need a new chipset to really maximize the benefits of whatever their new CPU will be - meaning a CPU/Motherboard swap either way for an upgrade.

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Why's that?

I bet you could run an NF3 on an AM2 (assuming you magically hacked ddr2 support ) and it would perform very competativly

Chipset really isn't nearly as important as it used to be

Why's that?

I bet you could run an NF3 on an AM2 (assuming you magically hacked ddr2 support ) and it would perform very competativly

Chipset really isn't nearly as important as it used to be

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Because that always seems to be the way it is! Im sure whatever the new AMD chip is, it will run on current AM2 boards but there's always the 'latest and greatest' chipsets to go along with the newest crop of CPUs. For instance the Core2 runs on many 965 boards, but if you want all the bells and whistles, its that $250 Asus with the 975X chipset.

I always spend a little extra for the 'tricked out' motherboards because I like all the features, extra connections, etc - so if a new motherboard came out that optimized performance for the new chip, Id want to go with it.

But you're right - chipset doesnt seem to be as big of a factor as it was back in the XP's day.

Awake77 said:

The 4200+ and a nice AM2 motherboard would run ~$300, while the E6300 with the ASUS P5W DH Deluxe would run ~$470. $170 is a lot of dough, but when I see those benchmark results for the oc'd E6300 it comes off as a steal for how powerful it is.

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i don't have time to read everything, just wanted to say, with a e6300, a Gigabyte DS3 would be a much better choice. ~$150, will do 500+fsb, giving you a shot at 3.6ghz. the P5WDH will probably top out around 420fsb without mods. that's $100 saved right there.

Awake77 said:

For instance the Core2 runs on many 965 boards, but if you want all the bells and whistles, its that $250 Asus with the 975X chipset.

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the 965 chipset is newer than the 975 chipset, oddly enough.

i don't have time to read everything, just wanted to say, with a e6300, a Gigabyte DS3 would be a much better choice. ~$150, will do 500+fsb, giving you a shot at 3.6ghz. the P5WDH will probably top out around 420fsb without mods. that's $100 saved right there.

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Thanks for the tip!

Awake77 said:

Because that always seems to be the way it is! Im sure whatever the new AMD chip is, it will run on current AM2 boards but there's always the 'latest and greatest' chipsets to go along with the newest crop of CPUs. For instance the Core2 runs on many 965 boards, but if you want all the bells and whistles, its that $250 Asus with the 975X chipset.

I always spend a little extra for the 'tricked out' motherboards because I like all the features, extra connections, etc - so if a new motherboard came out that optimized performance for the new chip, Id want to go with it.

But you're right - chipset doesnt seem to be as big of a factor as it was back in the XP's day.

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The Intels actually are ikmportant when it comes to chipset however..

The Nforces dont really have that much varying, when it comes to bells and whistles aside from what the high end has Vs low end..

High end NF4 isnt too far from high end nF5