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Good Gaming CPU, Motherboard, Memory
I'm looking into upgrading my CPU, motherboard and memory sometime in
September. My target use is first person shooter games like Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Doom3, Half Life2 (if it ever ships), Far Cry, Unreal Tournament 2004 and the like. I play on-line if the game supports on-line play (3mbps up/256kbps down cable modem). I am an AMD noob so I am hoping someone can provide some AMD expertise. My target costs a CPU: $200 Motherboard: $200 Memory (1 GigaByte): $350 CPU: Preliminary CPU investigation indicates an Athlon64 3000+ socket 754 or maybe an Athlon 3200+ socket 754 (retail box versions) are in my price range. $172 and $210 respectviely at zipzoomfly.com. Are the Athlon 64 CPU's faster than the XP's. I thought I heard that the 64's were slower running 32bit applications but my recent reading indicates that the 64's are faster at least for gaming. Please clarify. Are these the AMD CPU's to look at in my price range? How good are the stock heat sink and fan? Are they noisy? Do they fail frequently? Should I replace them immediately if not sooner? Will the stock heatsink and fan support overclocking at all? Are there any versions, core voltages or date codes, etc., of the Athlon64 that are preferred or better for overclocking? Are there any verions, core voltages or date codes, etc., of the Athlon 64 that should be avoided? Are there different processes (i.e. 130nm), cache sizes and front side bus speeds available of the Athlon64's? Motherboard: I have no idea about motherboards that support AMD CPU's. I may want to try to mildly overclock the cpu so I'm looking for a good gaming/overclocking motherboard. I would prefer something with OEM overclocking tools and using BIOS settings to overclock. I need an AGP slot. I have an FX5700Ultra video card. I know it is low performance given the CPU's I'm looking at but upgrading is not an option. Parallet ATA is also necessary since upgrading the harddrive is also not an option. Both serial ATA and parallel ATA with RAID would be nice for distant future (6 mos or later) upgrades. On board wired LAN, USB, and sound is preferred as I have need of these. I prefer wired LAN since my cable modem uses wired LAN. I don't have any Firewire devices so Firewire is totally optional. Any suggestions? Memory: I have read that AMD CPU's with the internal memory controller cannot drive double sided memory. I believe AMD spec's the CPU's with internal memory controllers this way. Is this an issue I need to watch out for when selecting memory? I was looking to get some Crucial PC3200 Ballistix (DDR400) or some OCZ EL DDR PC-3200 Platinum Revision 2. What memory speeds do the Athlon64's support? Do I only need PC2700? http://www.crucial.com/store/PartSpe...64Z402&cat=RAM http://www.ocztechnology.com/product...3200_Platinum_ Revision_2 My priorities will be stability and performance. I want lots of FPS without having to figure out why my system keeps crashing and rebooting. Am I on the right track? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Much JS |
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