New system in the works

[Bigedmond]

Well, my beloved chaintech board is at its end. When cleaning it the case, i noticed that the chipset cooler was just hanging by 1 bracket. The other was missing. Knowing this was a good change to get a new system, i took it, and got the wife to let me spend around 1500 on a new system.

Seeing how i wanted to try out a AMD 64 system, i am going with this stuff, some might change.

Motherboard - Newegg.com - ABIT Fatal1ty AN9 32X ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

CPU - Newegg.com - AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ 2.6GHz Socket AM2 Processor - Retail

Ram - Newegg.com - GeIL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

GPU - 8800 gts, maybe gtx

Hard drive - 2x Western Digital WD 500GB 5000KS SATA2 16MB 7200RPM

plus water cooling for the cpu and gpu. I alreay have the mobo, and the ram. everything else could change.

[Hitman]

MoBo - I don't suggest using ABIT, If you go with Intel C2D I suggest looking at EVGA Mother Boards.

CPU - I don't really suggest going with AMD right now, unless your a die hard AMD fan. Intel’s C2D processors out perform AMD.

GPU - The GTX's are nice but unless you have a monitor 24" or larger you won't see a big performance jump from the GTS.

Hard Drives - WD are good drives, but right now the Seagate 7200.10 drives are better performers.

[Quakindude]

Hitman has it spot on. If you can return that mobo and get a C2D setup, you would see a huge performance increase for every thing you do on a computer.

Right now, even the most die-hard AMD fan's are being converted to the Intel side. You just can't argue with the muscle that a C2D rig brings to the table.

[onebxr]

I have the an8 version of the abit fatality line and I must say that abit is a picky board. I am an amd fan but right now the way to go is Core 2 duo. AMD cant touch intel right now.
Listen to these guys they know what they are talking about, until yuri gets in here and starts talking about linux.
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[One4yu2c]

Originally Posted by Quakindude

If you can return that mobo and get a C2D setup, you would see a huge performance increase for every thing you do on a computer.

I'd have to respectfully disagree here. Outside of benchmarking, I'd be hard pressed to notice much of a difference between my (now aging) s939 4400+ X2, OC'd AM2 3800+ (up to 2.8GHz), E6300 Core 2 Duo (up to 3.0GHz), and E6600 Core 2 Duo (also up to 3.0GHz) rigs. The 2.6GHz 5200+ really shouldn't be considered a slouch by any stretch of the imagination, and with games being largely GPU dependent when coupled with any modern processor, it'd be hard to tell a performance difference between it and a C2D outside of benchmarking (I could care less about my Super Pi times). Heavy content creation could be a notable exception, but it'd have to be well more than casual usage.

That being said, I definitely would choose and recommend a Core 2 Duo foundation over AM2 for any new build. The performance guru in me will take the stronger setup, noticeable or not, and I'm more confident in Intel's upgrade path at this point than I am in AMD's.

[Bigedmond]

thanks. Its no problem taking it back. My last system lasted 2 years, i want this to last about that long with only video card upgrades.

I helped my friend water cool one of the new intel evga boards last week, but i read so many problems with them it got me worried. There have been alot of people saying they are great for teh first month, then they start going down.

[One4yu2c]

Don't be scared off by the motherboard offerings on the Intel side of the fence. There's a lot of good options out there, and specifically with the eVGA 680i, I believe Quakin has owned his for over a month now w/o issue.

When it comes to reading up on products, take into consideration the source and usage habits. Someone that is using exotic cooling and testing the limits of the overclocking headroom is bound to run into trouble at some point, versus someone that pushes their processor modestly and is conservative with any voltage tweaks. You can overclock and still have an extremely reliable machine, so long as you're not out there to break any records.

[Quakindude]

Originally Posted by One4yu2c

I'd have to respectfully disagree here. Outside of benchmarking, I'd be hard pressed to notice much of a difference between my (now aging) s939 4400+ X2, OC'd AM2 3800+ (up to 2.8GHz), E6300 Core 2 Duo (up to 3.0GHz), and E6600 Core 2 Duo (also up to 3.0GHz) rigs. The 2.6GHz 5200+ really shouldn't be considered a slouch by any stretch of the imagination, and with games being largely GPU dependent when coupled with any modern processor, it'd be hard to tell a performance difference between it and a C2D outside of benchmarking (I could care less about my Super Pi times). Heavy content creation could be a notable exception, but it'd have to be well more than casual usage.

That being said, I definitely would choose and recommend a Core 2 Duo foundation over AM2 for any new build. The performance guru in me will take the stronger setup, noticeable or not, and I'm more confident in Intel's upgrade path at this point than I am in AMD's.

I understand and agree with what you've said for the most part.

However, I do a LOT of DVD copying and video transcoding. This C2D rig does it much quicker than my AMD X2 4800 system. If I'm copying 4 DVD's in one day, and then converting them to Divx, that translates to about 15 minutes saved. Also, with my DVD Camcorder recording in Mpeg4 format, converting those movies to Divx or other formats takes considerably less time. So perhaps I pushed some of my particular usage in that last post. I need to remember that not everyone does as much video transcoding as I do.

My eVGA680i has been rock stable with my DDR2-800 ram @ 877Mhz and my E6600 2.4Ghz CPU @ 3.375Ghz. The CPU's voltage max is 1.3525V and I have it at 1.3650 to allow for voltage droop. The primary problems with the 680i boards have been folks that run hybrid RAID arrays and some of the other RAID setups. There was a SATA RAID issue for the first couple of months after the 680i's release. This issue is seemingly corrected now with the P24 Bios release. The reason a lot of folks were getting RAID problems after the first month is because that's about how long it took the SATA RAID Array to corrupt enough files to cause system instability. Instead of sticking with it and pushing for a Bios fix, a good many of these folks RMA'ed their boards.

It shouldn't have been an issue in the first place if nVidia would have properly tested the mobo's, but nVidia has been very quick to release follow-up Bios improvements to correct the issues. Some folks are still reporting RAID issues, but no where near the amount as before. Finally, PS/2 devices just don't like the 680i chipset. USB versions have no problems though.

[One4yu2c]

Originally Posted by Quakindude

However, I do a LOT of DVD copying and video transcoding. This C2D rig does it much quicker than my AMD X2 4800 system. If I'm copying 4 DVD's in one day, and then converting them to Divx, that translates to about 15 minutes saved. Also, with my DVD Camcorder recording in Mpeg4 format, converting those movies to Divx or other formats takes considerably less time. So perhaps I pushed some of my particular usage in that last post. I need to remember that not everyone does as much video transcoding as I do.

Heh, no biggie - that's the clarification I was hoping to see.

A user testimonial on content creation is a good point to have you expand on, as that's where Intel really shines (an area they've generally excelled at even in the Netburst heyday). For someone that does a lot of DVD copying/transcoding on a daily basis like you do, the performance differences between the two platforms gets exposed.

[Quakindude]

Originally Posted by One4yu2c

Heh, no biggie - that's the clarification I was hoping to see.

A user testimonial on content creation is a good point to have you expand on, as that's where Intel really shines (an area they've generally excelled at even in the Netburst heyday). For someone that does a lot of DVD copying/transcoding on a daily basis like you do, the performance differences between the two platforms gets exposed.

Forgot to add that when you do batch files for picture resizing or .png, .bmp, to .jpg conversions, etc..., it really shows it's legs as well. Funny you say in the Netburst heyday. I have a laptop with a P4 640 3.2Ghz CPU in it. Prior to building this C2D rig, I used to use the laptop as my home movie DVD editor because it got the job done quicker.