[tomasz86]

CoffeeFiend, on 13 July 2012 - 01:26 PM, said:

I've had great support from both ASUS and Gigabyte (even smaller players like Zotac recently), and I'm hardly the only one. Their products are very solid and reliable, and they are top rated on every site with reviews as well. There's nothing wrong with liking ASRock (I'm just not a big fan of their products myself) but to say the two biggest both suck is preposterous.

They don't really offer anything special in the lower segment of the market though. If you compare two cheap motherboards (same price) - one from ASUS and one from ASRock then in most cases it'll be much better deal to choose the latter.

[submix8c]

CoffeeFiend, on 13 July 2012 - 01:26 PM, said:

AMD had some decently priced alternatives (Athlon era), and then they peaked with the Athlon64. That was a far better CPU than the P4 (architecture, speed, etc)

I really don't want to hijack this thread, but...
Can I assume you also refer to the x2-series? I plan on reloading this Dell E521 sitting in the corner and have changed the 3800+ for an x2 3800+, later ($ permitting) the "max" the AM2 will take. Accepts 4g RAM, has 2 PCI-e slots (the shortie and longie) for upgrades (a dual-head VID card when $ permits). SATA-only - bass-ackwards MoBo.
It does seem pretty snappy on boot-up/running with the "stock" XP-MCE.
[/hijack]

This post has been edited by submix8c: 13 July 2012 - 02:34 PM

[CoffeeFiend]

tomasz86, on 13 July 2012 - 02:28 PM, said:

They don't really offer anything special in the lower segment of the market though. If you compare two cheap motherboards (same price) - one from ASUS and one from ASRock then in most cases it'll be much better deal to choose the latter.

I never claimed that ASUS was a "value" OEM either I'll typically buy the ASUS or Gigabyte boards if there's a good deal on them (which ends up being most of the time) but as you can see in my previous parts list (or my previously mentioned Zotac mini ITX mobo), I'm not married to a particular OEM. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, and it changes with every generation of new products.

submix8c, on 13 July 2012 - 02:34 PM, said:

Can I assume you also refer to the x2-series? I plan on reloading this Dell E521 sitting in the corner and have changed the 3800+ for an x2 3800+, later ($ permitting) the "max" the AM2 will take.

As you can see in benches that were out at the time, you'd get a very modest boost from that upgrade (the main thing you'd get from it is not speed but extra responsiveness, being a dual core i.e. the PC not "locking up" when a core is pegged at 100%). Google easily finds some people who managed to get some faster CPUs working in that Dell but you might have to search pretty hard to find the perfect AM2 chip for an upgrade (it seemingly doesn't accept AM3 CPUs which is the "oldest" thing you can buy new today). If the upgrade is dirt cheap then sure, why not. But I wouldn't sink too much money in an old machine either as an i3 upgrade would provide a huge boost for not too much money (relatively speaking) either. DDR2 RAM is pretty expensive too these days (twice the price of DDR3)

[tomasz86]

CoffeeFiend, on 13 July 2012 - 02:56 PM, said:

But I wouldn't sink too much money in an old machine either as an i3 upgrade would provide a huge boost for not too much money (relatively speaking) either.

Isn't Athlon II X4 631 a better choice if someone wants an inexpensive upgrade? It's slightly slower in general but costs half as much as the i3 and is better everywhere where all 4 cores are used.

This post has been edited by tomasz86: 13 July 2012 - 03:39 PM

[CoffeeFiend]

tomasz86, on 13 July 2012 - 03:39 PM, said:

Isn't Athlon II X4 631 a better choice if someone wants an inexpensive upgrade?

Quote

Socket Type: FM1

Nope. His motherboard is AM2 (not AM2+), so no AM3, AM3+ or FM1 CPUs supported. At least if he had a AM2+ socket then he could still buy a new AM3 CPU from a store. That wouldn't be a bad option for a cheap yet meaningful upgrade.His only option right now is the used market (and sellers seem to want $60 for a X2 6000+ with no HSF which is more than it's worth)

Then again, I wouldn't necessarily pick the Athlon X4 631 as a clear cut winner over an i3 after seeing most benches (the i3 is definitely more expensive though)

In fact, I'm considering buying a pair of AMD Athlon II X4 645's ($80/ea) to upgrade a pair of older PCs with Athlon X2's that are mostly used for light tasks like web browsing. $80 for a new CPU (keeping existing mobo and DDR2) vs an i3 + mobo + DDR3 (over $200 per PC) makes it a pretty simple choice to make considering the performance will be adequate either ways. By the time the Athlon II X4 645 won't cut it anymore for light-ish usage the i3 will be very outdated too.

[tomasz86]

Of course I was thinking about buying Athlon II X4 631 + FM1 board + DDR3. It would still be a lot (60-70$) cheaper than the slowest i3 2100.

PS Athlon 631 is very different from the older X4 630/640 ones. Its performance is similar to A6-3650 but without integrated graphics.

This post has been edited by tomasz86: 13 July 2012 - 04:05 PM

[CoffeeFiend]

tomasz86, on 13 July 2012 - 04:03 PM, said:

Of course I was thinking about buying Athlon II X4 631 + FM1 board + DDR3.

You'll have to add a case to that list, thanks to the proprietary Dell cable for the stuff in front of the case...

tomasz86, on 13 July 2012 - 04:03 PM, said:

PS Athlon 631 is very different from the older X4 630/640 ones. Its performance is similar to A6-3650 but without integrated graphics.

I'll have to look again.
Edit: I can't seemingly find any decent benchmarks. There's this one but that's only games. In 100% of them it's slower than the i3, and in all but one case it's slower than the X4 645, even though you said it should be faster than it... Honestly, I'd rather have 2 super fast cores (which is always fast) then twice as many cores that are half as fast (only performs on par with the dual core when the load uses all 4 cores which unfortunately isn't all that often)

[dencorso]

submix8c, on 13 July 2012 - 02:34 PM, said:

the "max" the AM2 will take.

Sorry, no. The max is the ADX6400IAA6CZ Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Black Edition, it's a Windsor, so 90nm, and it's hot as hell, but is probably the last great processor from AMD. Now, if you must have 65nm, then the Brisbane ADO5400IAA5DS Athlon 64 X2 5400+ Black Edition is the way to go, although not as fast as the ADX6400IAA6CZ. And all Black Editions have unlocked multipliers, so you can go beyond the specs, although not as much as you can read over the net. But 10-15% is possible while still stable. They're findable through eBay and the like, but you'll sure need a huge fan & powersink to cope with their heat, particularly the Windsor.

[submix8c]

@CoffeFiend & @dencorso -

I was aware of all of that. I've done extensive research on it (several days' worth). The initial "hijack" was about the comparisons (based on comment by da-Coffee-Nut). I am, after all, running a "Celery 3.3" single-core as we speak! And I already have 3gb in the E521 already - swapped some old computer parts for two 1g's from the local PC Recyclers. Need 3 more to round out this one and...

I suppose my better bet would be the "eMachine W3650 ECS 945GCT-M3 PCB3.1" sitting here in pieces. It'll take up to E7300 or X6800. Sadly, it only takes 2gb RAM 2x1gb (according to specs). It does, however, have 2-PCI+4-SATAII+1-PATA+1-PCIe-x16 (and the other useless x1).

Both have Floppy (a must for me).

[/hijack]

Back to the OP (that has $ to burn)...

[dencorso]

@submix8c:
DDR2? Just two slots? In my reckoning that makes 8GiB!
Ever heard of the KVR800D2N6/4G? They're rare birds (and out-of-production, of course), but can be found with an extra effort.
On the easier side, KVR800D2N6/2G are still in production and can be bought new. Still they'd give you 4 GiB, which is not so bad.

Later edit: Kingston pulled out the spec sheet for the 4 GiB modules. Although they still provide that for the 2 GiB modules, there's no telling for how long, so both are now attached to this post, for easy reference.

Attached File(s)

•  KVR800D2N6_4G.pdf (137.55K)
  Number of downloads: 2
•  KVR800D2N6_2G.pdf (138.02K)
  Number of downloads: 1

[submix8c]

@dencorso - if that reply was directed at me...

hmmm...

It appears that this is basically an Intel D945GCL which says that it will take 2x2gb, so.... maybe that would be the "real" (unsupported) max. It's not unheard of that a given board will support more that the Manufacture/OEM claims. I'm sticking with the eMachines BIOS though (apparently had Vista pre-installed once - again, mobo and cpu in a one-side-missing box only), so we'll see (in the future).
note - one heck of a time finding specifics on PCB Rev3.1boards - mostly the Rev3.0 show up.
[/hijack]

[gamehead200]

Hey all,

Just an update. I got all of the parts on Tuesday and assembled most of it then. I finally had a chance to throw in the SSD and the optical drive and installed Windows 7. This was my final build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/cuhl

And I think I'm pretty with it. It's blazing fast! Definitely the most powerful machine I've ever had my hands on (apart from a server).