Budget Upgradable AMD system: Socket A vs Socket 754

Hello,

I am fairly new to the whole building a PC thing. I decided to
assemble a PC mainly for software development purposes, internet
browsing (with some gaming, why not, but not hardcore, thrown in).
Mainly I will be using WinXp and Linux.

My idea is to assemble a budget system, using AMD chips. From my
initial research, the choice of processor is going to guide the rest
of the process. The Sempron 3100+ Socket 754 has a good price now,
about $ 180 CAD.

So my question now is if it is wise to pick the AMD Sempron, if the
price difference to the Athlon is worth it and also the Socket I
should choose - is AMD keeping the Socket A for new processors or
should I go with the Socket 754 and allow at least an upgrade path?

Thanks

Fabio

fabiogr wrote:
Hello,

I am fairly new to the whole building a PC thing. I decided to
assemble a PC mainly for software development purposes, internet
browsing (with some gaming, why not, but not hardcore, thrown in).
Mainly I will be using WinXp and Linux.

My idea is to assemble a budget system, using AMD chips. From my
initial research, the choice of processor is going to guide the rest
of the process. The Sempron 3100+ Socket 754 has a good price now,
about $ 180 CAD.

So my question now is if it is wise to pick the AMD Sempron, if the
price difference to the Athlon is worth it and also the Socket I
should choose - is AMD keeping the Socket A for new processors or
should I go with the Socket 754 and allow at least an upgrade path?

Thanks

Fabio

754 is the lesser of the 2 evils. The socket A platform might as well be
dead with the introduction of the Semprons. The 754 will support the 3100
and athlon64s which will leave you with a short upgrade path. Also, the
754s are slated to be the "value" platform for the near future. The 939
boards are the wave of the future, but with dual core cpus coming, how long
will that last?

S

"fabiogr" wrote in message
om...
Hello,

I am fairly new to the whole building a PC thing. I decided to
assemble a PC mainly for software development purposes, internet
browsing (with some gaming, why not, but not hardcore, thrown in).
Mainly I will be using WinXp and Linux.

My idea is to assemble a budget system, using AMD chips. From my
initial research, the choice of processor is going to guide the rest
of the process. The Sempron 3100+ Socket 754 has a good price now,
about $ 180 CAD.

So my question now is if it is wise to pick the AMD Sempron, if the
price difference to the Athlon is worth it and also the Socket I
should choose - is AMD keeping the Socket A for new processors or
should I go with the Socket 754 and allow at least an upgrade path?

Thanks

Fabio

Socket A and Socket 754 are both dead, as far as future upgrades go. LGA775
(Intel P4) might survive one round of upgrades. Either that, or socket 939
(AMD Athlon64). Technology changes so fast that it is foolish for anyone to
plan a *current* system with a future upgrade in mind. That is, by the time
you want to upgrade, it's likely you will have to start over with a new
Motherboard and CPU at the very least. I'd advise you to build as cheap as
possible and not worry about future upgrades. HOWEVER, if you want to roll
the dice and hope that your system will survive an upgrade, get yourself a
cheap socket 939 or LGA775 processor, and a rather high-end motherboard to
match it. But this really is a waste of money, IMHO. Build what you need
now, don't worry about a future upgrade. -Dave

On 5 Nov 2004 09:37:55 -0800, (fabiogr) wrote:

My idea is to assemble a budget system, using AMD chips. From my
initial research, the choice of processor is going to guide the rest
of the process. The Sempron 3100+ Socket 754 has a good price now,
about $ 180 CAD.

get a GIGABYTE K8NS (pro) or a DFI LANParty nF3 250Gb MoBo, a good
Ram & OC. it till it goes with default Vcore or maybe a bit mo
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...n-3100-oc.html

--
Regards, SPAJKY ®
& visit my site @ http://www.spajky.vze.com
"Tualatin OC-ed / BX-Slot1 / inaudible setup!"
E-mail AntiSpam: remove ##

On 5 Nov 2004 09:37:55 -0800, (fabiogr) wrote:

Hello,

I am fairly new to the whole building a PC thing. I decided to
assemble a PC mainly for software development purposes, internet
browsing (with some gaming, why not, but not hardcore, thrown in).
Mainly I will be using WinXp and Linux.

My idea is to assemble a budget system, using AMD chips. From my
initial research, the choice of processor is going to guide the rest
of the process. The Sempron 3100+ Socket 754 has a good price now,
about $ 180 CAD.

So my question now is if it is wise to pick the AMD Sempron, if the
price difference to the Athlon is worth it and also the Socket I
should choose - is AMD keeping the Socket A for new processors or
should I go with the Socket 754 and allow at least an upgrade path?

Thanks

Fabio


Upgradeable is very difficult these days. Planned obsolescence kills
upgrades. You won't be seeing any HX or BX bargain motherboards any
more.

The choice these days is overclocked DFI socket 754, or .90 socket 939
stuff. Figure which fits your budget. Either will work fine.

I think the guy who said it best was the one who said not to plan a system
around future upgrades. You never know... and the lga intel boards, IMHO
wont even survive one round of upgrade.

The problem being the whole 64 bit thing, of course. Remember the original
pentium? And the PII's ? The 'slot' nomenclature escapes me from oh so
long ago (10 computer years = 100,000 human years) but I nearly **** myself
when I saw that the dies changed so much for the PII and then back again for
the PIII. I said 'wow, what if they do this again with another generation
of chips?' I think you get the idea...

I upgraded to the K8SE Deluxe Asus board, with Athlon 64 2800 , 1GB non-ecc
RAM, SATA RAID0 120GBx2, and a 250 GB IDE HDD for laughs. This was from an
Athlon XP 1800, 256 MB RAM, and a *choke* 40 GB HDD. So of course a big
performance boost. But I just built and sold A P4 with an Asus P4P800 SE
Deluxe which destroyed my A64 on the Sandra benchmarks. It blew away nearly
everything in the memory and cache cayegory (according to Sandra) BTW.

So there's no easy answer. I think that any of the baords mentioned would
be okay. Except for the LGA775 LOL

you don't really need a AMD64 for what you want

someone really turned me on to the idea that you want to put most of your
budget into nice peripheals
they are how you enjoy your computer anyhow
of course you will want it to run good too
a socket A mobo will accept a fast enough processor to surf and play games.
Get good ram, you might be able to use it later, any thing you know you wont
need to upgrade for a while invest most of your budget in.

If you do want an upgradeable system, it wont be too cost effective, the
(939) mobo and processor are more expensive, and probally more power then
you will need any time soon.

--
We are Many
Mark 5:9
"nope" wrote in message
...
I think the guy who said it best was the one who said not to plan a system
around future upgrades. You never know... and the lga intel boards, IMHO
wont even survive one round of upgrade.

The problem being the whole 64 bit thing, of course. Remember the
original
pentium? And the PII's ? The 'slot' nomenclature escapes me from oh so
long ago (10 computer years = 100,000 human years) but I nearly ****
myself
when I saw that the dies changed so much for the PII and then back again
for
the PIII. I said 'wow, what if they do this again with another generation
of chips?' I think you get the idea...

I upgraded to the K8SE Deluxe Asus board, with Athlon 64 2800 , 1GB
non-ecc
RAM, SATA RAID0 120GBx2, and a 250 GB IDE HDD for laughs. This was from
an
Athlon XP 1800, 256 MB RAM, and a *choke* 40 GB HDD. So of course a big
performance boost. But I just built and sold A P4 with an Asus P4P800 SE
Deluxe which destroyed my A64 on the Sandra benchmarks. It blew away
nearly
everything in the memory and cache cayegory (according to Sandra) BTW.

So there's no easy answer. I think that any of the baords mentioned would
be okay. Except for the LGA775 LOL

nope wrote:

I think the guy who said it best was the one who said not to plan a system
around future upgrades. You never know... and the lga intel boards, IMHO
wont even survive one round of upgrade.

The problem being the whole 64 bit thing, of course. Remember the original
pentium? And the PII's ? The 'slot' nomenclature escapes me from oh so
long ago (10 computer years = 100,000 human years) but I nearly **** myself
when I saw that the dies changed so much for the PII and then back again for
the PIII. I said 'wow, what if they do this again with another generation
of chips?' I think you get the idea...

I upgraded to the K8SE Deluxe Asus board, with Athlon 64 2800 , 1GB non-ecc
RAM, SATA RAID0 120GBx2, and a 250 GB IDE HDD for laughs. This was from an
Athlon XP 1800, 256 MB RAM, and a *choke* 40 GB HDD. So of course a big
performance boost. But I just built and sold A P4 with an Asus P4P800 SE
Deluxe which destroyed my A64 on the Sandra benchmarks. It blew away nearly
everything in the memory and cache cayegory (according to Sandra) BTW.

So there's no easy answer. I think that any of the baords mentioned would
be okay. Except for the LGA775 LOL




I agree with the gist but, for the humor and irony of it, that 'weird'
Slot-1 configuration has ended up as my longest lived mobo, measured in
'upgradability'. It started with a Celeron 300 overclocked to 464, then to
a P-III 750 overclocked to 930, and now it's running a tualatin at 1.46 Gig.

A comparable P4 range to that life span would be like having gotten an
original socket 423 mobo expecting it to eventually run a 7 Gig P4. Heck,
it didn't make it to 2.4.

Howdy,

you don't really need a AMD64 for what you want
Someone really turned me on to the idea that you
want to put most of your budget into nice peripheals
they are how you enjoy your computer anyhow
of course you will want it to run good too
a socket A mobo will accept a fast enough processor
to surf and play games.

That might've been me - at the rate the processors and mobo change, I
don't think there's a point anymore to try to get a bleeding edge board
since the manufacturers seem hard-set on changing the die-type / sockets
now. Any upgrade entails getting a new mobo, CPU and RAM.

I really think it's a better bet to invest in solid peripherals instead.
Put more money on stuff that changes at a slower rate. Example: your
CPU/Mobo combo will probably be good for a year or two (if you're a
gamer), but a high-quality CRT or LCD screen will last _several_
computers.

Get good ram, you might be able to use it later, any thing you know you wont
need to upgrade for a while invest most of your budget in.

Getting RAM at the max rated clock rate is probably a good idea - it
might be usable in your NEXT upgrade. Maybe.

If you do want an upgradeable system, it wont be too cost effective, the
(939) mobo and processor are more expensive, and probally more power then
you will need any time soon.

Until AMD finally focuses on one socket-type (ie: they finally make up
their dang mind) - I would get a cheapo mATX mobo with an Athlon
[2500XP+] which are dirt cheap and wait out till the dust settles.

Besides, the main bottleneck these days is the video card.

If you're a hardcore gamer though -- all the above is YMMV.

- Yves