New desktop I will *not* upgrade for 4 years: AM3 & DDR3 Vs AM2 & DDR2

Hi all,

I'm building a new system and I'm wondering if I should get an AM3 board with DDR3 or an AM2 board with DDR2. Either way, I will be going with a phenom II X3 or a phenom II X3 black (any opinions on that, btw?) with 4GB of ram (max).

The goal is to build an upper-mid-level system at a good price. My last system was built in 2002. I was totally fine with it for 3 years (I could still run games... not well, but whatever) and I dragged it along for another 3 before the motherboard burnt out (it just doesn't turn on ).

I figure that with time horizons like that, an upgrade is not really an option; by the time I want to upgrade, all the tech will be outdated and I'll have to scrap most of it to upgrade anything.

So, considering the fact that I probably will not make any real upgrades to the system, is it worth it to pay the extra for an AM3 board with DDR3 ram? or should I just stick everything in a nice AM2+ board and get DDR2 ram for cheaper? I hear that, at the moment, there's no real advantage to upgrading to AM3/DDR3 for AMD. I also it seems that DDR3 ram is still overpriced while DDR2 is dirt-cheap.

I know similar questions have been asked, but all of them are in the lines of "get something now and upgrade later".

Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I'd be tempted to drop an AM3 CPU (pref 955) into a cheap but high end AM2+ board and 8gb of ddr2-1066 (which is much less than a decent 6gb ddr3 kit). Then a year down the road or so upgrade the mobo and ram when prices are better or something faster is available!

Otherwise as you said go with ddr3, don't get anything less than 1600mhz tho as 1333 or less is hardly worth the latency increase over ddr2-1066.

The performance diff of a 955 on ddr2 vs ddr3 is mostly single digits, with 8gb gskill cas5 1066 only being ~100 bucks, its hard to pass up (I couldnt!). 3.7-4.0ghz on this chip can be easily attained on good air

I would say it depends... what's your budget?

Since you don't plan on upgrading at all until your system is a legacy, try to get the best out there. For example, if budget allows, i7 is not a bad choice. (No flame wars intended). In that respect, if your budget is lower, I would suggest you to get AM3 over AM2+ since they are about the same cost, but with AM3 offering slightly more: 4GHz HT, lower-power-consumption DDR3. AM3 or AM2+, it will make very little difference to the overall system performance. Also, in a few years when DDR3 is mainstream and DDR2 phases out, you might be paying a premium to replace a bad stick of RAM should a DDR2 go bad. Yes it happens .

Your most important factor is the video card IMO. Just get the best one you can afford because it will make the difference in your gaming sessions. Please don't ask if you should get nVidia or ATI...

4 years is a LONG time in terms of PCs as you most likely know. I'd go for the DDR3 for sure as it'll be more future proof.

Id get DDR2 based, hardly any performace differences and its dirt cheap. I plan on doing something like this this winter. Going to a quad phenom2 on a AM2+ board with 8GBs of ram and win7 64.

Don't worry about "future proof" anything. Just get the best performing system you can afford at the moment. A core 2 quad, DDR2, and an HD 4890 would be an excellent choice.

It is much cheaper in the long run to buy components just at the point of diminishing returns and then upgrade stuff like video cards, hd's, and possibly ram in a couple years, rather than trying to buy top of the line now in hopes of staving off the future.

i would check out an q6600 rig, can easily be oced 3.4-6ghz quad

or if you have the money, go for an i7 rig, its very future proof, as i7 ...and the upcomming i9 both use the same socket, and sata 6gbps and usb3.0 should be comeing out in a matter of days- weeks

i am upgrading now to i7, and am not planning on upgrading for about another 3-4 years

antipesto93 said:

i would check out an q6600 rig, can easily be oced 3.4-6ghz quad

or if you have the money, go for an i7 rig, its very future proof, as i7 ...and the upcomming i9 both use the same socket, and sata 6gbps and usb3.0 should be comeing out in a matter of days- weeks

i am upgrading now to i7, and am not planning on upgrading for about another 3-4 years

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agree if you go with i7 you prob wont have to upgra for 4 years.. But going back to your original question i will say is worth the money diff between AM3 vs AM2..

For a 4-year+ system, I encourage folks to build what they can afford.

1) Go with a quad-core. This is something that future apps and OSes will take better advantage of as time goes on. Tri-core is great (I have two!) but the X4 810 is only a few bucks more, and may pay dividends a year or two down the line. We're seeing more and more multi-threaded apps all the time, so I doubt you'd feel remiss about going quad.
2) Don't stop at 4GB of memory. Just go with 8GB. It's cheap with DDR2, and nearly as cheap with DDR3; there's no real reason not to, unless you absolutely don't want to deal with a 64-bit OS...
3) DDR2 and DDR3 performance differences are negligible for AM2+/AM3. AM3 benches quicker, but real-life experience shows to most that the differences are nearly imperceptible by the seat of your pants. Since you won't be upgrading the memory after the build by all indications, DDR3 is no more future-proof in this case than DDR2.
4) If you game, get the biggest, baddest, meanest GPU that you can possibly afford. An HD 4890 is the way to go for a sub-$200 single-GPU card, if you have lots of money to blow, a GTX285 would also be a good investment. One of these should take you into the next generation of games with respectable levels of detail and frame rates.

Why would you spend the extra money for i7 when core 2 quad performance is so close? It is not like the motherboard, processor, or memory will be reused in 4 years when he upgrades.

true plus didn't they say they where disconntinuing the 920 and 940?so he would have to get the 965 or 975 which is WAY to overpriced. motherboards included. please no one take this the wrong way im not anti intel i have a q6600 also but i think the i7 is a waste of money compared to what that could buy you going with a phenom2 system.

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Why are ppl telling him to go Intel,when he posted in amd section and specifically ask AM2 or AM3?

Anyhow get Am3 if the few bucks extra don't bother you.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.211658

real nice combo here.

I personally went with DDR3, no brainer considering it's going to be dirt cheap to upgrade in the future, especially 4 years from now.

Yes, i7 costs much more then P2 x3 which is mentioned here, so why talking about it?

Let's look at some facts before proposing. Difference between DDR2 and DDR3 with AMD platform is really small. He won't upgrade and will just change everything 4 years or so from now. From that point of view future-proof system is worthless. So, go DDR2 and spend money you save on mobo/RAM on better CPU and VGA.

First off, a AMD64 CPU can address much more than 4GB since forever. There is no chipset RAM controller that needs to protect the upscale Itanic market to hold you back on RAM size

2nd, with a PC having to last for four years, a RAM upgrade will almost be inevitable and is one of the best ways to make an old system run better with all the new software that demands more RAM than in years before. If you then consider that DDR2 is on its way out and in a year or two only DDR3 is used, that means DDR2 prices will go through the roof then. Just check current DDR1 prices to see the effect.

So even if DDR3 costs a bit more now, use it.

I say get the AM3 platform with either a 720 BE Tri-core, or spend the extra and get the 955 BE Quad and be done with it. Also ddr3 RAM is becoming far cheaper than it used to be in comparison to DDR2.. There's less than 20 dollars difference (in Aus dollars) in most comparable ddr2 and ddr3 RAM sets (4gb kits). And the am2+ and AM3 boards are also fairly close in price (the UD5P AM2+ and AM3 versions are within $10 AUD of each other) I can't justify the use of AM2+ and ddr2 for a brand new build..

But it's entirely personal choice I spose. 8gb is overkill if you have no need for it. If all you do is game and run basic tasks like web browsing, msn, music, watching the occasional video, etc, then 4gb is plenty, and if you plan to OC 8gb will make it harder to OC . 8gb is only really needed for those who use RAM intensive apps.. I.e. Photoshop, After Effects, or any multimedia apps such as those. (You can never have enough RAM for Photoshop..)

wav3form said:

4 years is a LONG time in terms of PCs as you most likely know. I'd go for the DDR3 for sure as it'll be more future proof.

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How is it more future proof if they guy isnt going to upgrade the rig? The performance difference between DDR2 and DDR3 isnt much at this point and not worth the extra cost.

Quailane said:

Don't worry about "future proof" anything. Just get the best performing system you can afford at the moment. A core 2 quad, DDR2, and an HD 4890 would be an excellent choice.

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I agree with this post.

DDR3 is still in it's infancy... so even if you buy the fastest, lowest latency DDR3 available now... it's inevitable that in a few years their will be even faster/lower latency/lower voltage requirement DDR3 available.