3500+7800 or 4000+6800?

[macross]

Wow. Go away for a weekend and the thread will increase in size 10 fold ;p

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. I am buying the parts this week for my father, so unfortunatly I can't wait for price drops. THough I am happy to say I told him to wait for technology changes nearly 2 years back.. now that is waiting.

Essentially this PC will be doing all the things old people do with PCs (I mean that in a stereotypical way). Surf the net, watch videos people email him, not send 100 meg files via email and then have to run some old odd thing called an ftp program.. BUT it will also need to run the games well.

If he can't slap Half Life 2 or CoD2 at nice settings I will hear nothing but bitching.

Looks like I will lean towards the higher GFX cards right now. Thanks again.

 

[gersson]

A better vid card will give you more of a performance boost where it matters.

Get the 7800 GT and the 3500+, man. Thats what I have. I used to have a 6800 GT and changing to the 7800 GT was a big change in games -- especially in COD2 and FEAR.

The only games where CPU matters a lot are Unreal Tournament and Half-life 2.

Other than that everygame benefits from faster vid cards.

BTW, I have a 7800 GT for sale for $250 w/ free shipping in the continental US...

let me know if you're interested -- its the eVGA 7800GT CO (the one with a large factory OC and a copper heatsink, 470/1100)

 

[AntiHax0r]

Get the A64-3500(Venice Core) and the 7800GT

Venice core performs about the same in almost any benchmark if not better compared to a 3500(Clawhammer), If you haven't read any other posts... the Venice core is the favorite of many for overclocking which you can easily get an additional 400-600mhz out of the chip.

7800GT would easily outperform the 6800GS, especially in high res and details.

If both options were both about the same price(I mean like-/+ $20-$30), I'd would definitely go for the 3500 and 7800GT

 

[bluesquid]

for gaming, go with the 7800, but for usual, general use. I would buy the 4000. if you look at the benchmarks, the single cores are actually starting to lag a little compared to the duals in multitasking. If he gets into anything cpu intensive, he will tell the difference.

My friend has a 6800, and it screams enough. I just bought a 7800 gt, and I think my x800 pro is almost as good. on cod2, which I play everyday, I get 200 fps with the x800pro. more than enough. and most players dont set the resoloutions all the way up. many I play against, use lower settings. daddy wont know the difference.

I mean I bought the best of everything I could. I would at least start with the best cpu to future proof his pc as much as possible. To what degree, is your dad gonna game? graphics cards are a pissing contest. a midlevel card will do everything he will need. but when a few more 64 bit programs come out, and he has got a few things going on, he will thank you for a great PC.

 

[macross]

My thought at this point is that he will notice a lower GFX card in gaming before he notices a lower CPU in normal apps.

Currently I am leaning towards:

CPU
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice Model ADA3500BPBOX - Retail

Board
ABIT KN8 Ultra Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra Motherboard - Retail

GFX
MSI NX7800GT-VT2D256E Geforce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

Case
Antec LifeStyle SONATA II Piano Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Case 450Watt SmartPower 2.0 - Retail

Memory
pqi TURBO 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered - Retail

All that plus XP oem will run about $955 before arround $50 in rebates. Already have drives and other comps form previous dead PC.

 

[mdd1963]

" if you do anything else, buy the better cpu."

LOL!

I can see a plethora of FX60/Radeon X300 equipped rigs headed our way now....; and they are all destined to be at the absolute rock bottom of the FEAR/COD2/BF2 framrate charts!

For gaming, the gpu easily equates to ~90% of delivered framerates, as long as you have "enough cpu"....some argue that a 3200+ is enough, others say the 3500+. Scaling charts provide the answer!

CPU comparisons in low res gaming is nice... for cpu benchmarking purposes...

But few buy a 7800GT to play games at 648x480...; ergo, given a decent resolution, the 3500+ gives nearly identical performance "IN HIGH RES GAMING" as an FX57 does...

Yes, a P3/600B with a 6800GS would be severly cpu limited....

But most modern games ARE gpu limited at at least some high resolutions, where the cpu, as long as at least A64/3200+/3500+ speeds, just don't matter that much...

 

[jonno]

go with a Athlon 64 3700+ and a Geforce 7800GT :twisted:

 

[parlee]

agreed, and if u cant afford a 3700, get a 3200 and oc it a bit to match 3800 speeds (3700 has 1 mb cache at 2.2ghz, 3800 has 512 cache at 2.4 ghz)

 

[kais]

3500 and 7800 gt no doubt it will do much better than the other 2 and also you will only see 1 or 2 fps difference

 

[Heyyou27]

That makes no sense. Why buy a more expenive processor if you're not going to use it for games? I mean, sure he could be converting video a lot, but that's not what he's probably buying this PC for.
7800 GT with 3500+

 

[parlee]

basically what were all saying is get a 7800gt, then whaever proc u can afford afterwards, u get anything lss than a 7800gt and ill cut ur balls off with a rusty coffee can cover

 

[AntiHax0r]

I would kill for a 7800GT or a X1900 now...

 

[parlee]

lol me 2, x700pro is nice but damn i can only dream maybe my next upgrade i wont buy outdated technology ... or just go out and buy one tommorow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! whos with me!

 

[grant_99uk]

I always say know what you are going to use the machine for, its pointless paying good money for a top end graphics card for playing the odd game and you find that you are doing more with photo editing which will need a better/faster cpu.
Also look to when you are going to upgrade your machine as the 939 socket is going to be replaced with the new m2 socket for all AMD cpu's, the 4000+ (single core) and the x2 4800+ (dual core) could be the last for the 939 socket
Just for people to know the 4000+ is a rebadge FX-53 with a locked multipuler so you can not go up but can go down the spectrum

 

[parlee]

i think he said for gaming, anyways a 3500 is barely slower than a 4000 in ALMOST ANY APP so theres no point in paying what, 150 more for a 4000 over a 3500 or 3200...

 

[Heyyou27]

Are you kidding? Nearly all PC games would benefit from a faster videocard. Another thing, the FX-60 is the last 939 chip.

 

[xwar]

IMHO, go for the 4000+ and the 6800GS. Most gamers tend to upgrade their video cards most often, and if you are a gamer then take the video card hit now, so when Vista and DX10 games start shipping you can upgrade to a Dx10-based card.

 

[parlee]

god ur stupid, when dx10 comes out a 4000 will be slow. dx10 might not even come out this year, ur saying wait for dx10, then ur gonna say oh just wait for shader 4.0 and thatll take u into 2007's summer, if u have the money upgrade now, ur never gonna get a better deal for a 7800gt... until its completly obsolete like a 6600gt, BUY NOW 3500 7800gt if u do anything other than that u should just go get an intel dual core 2.8 because its "future proof!" not. for real dont listen to the idiots about video cards, a 3500 will last longer than a 7800 anyways

 

[xwar]

god ur stupid, when dx10 comes out a 4000 will be slow. dx10 might not even come out this year, ur saying wait for dx10, then ur gonna say oh just wait for shader 4.0 and thatll take u into 2007's summer, if u have the money upgrade now, ur never gonna get a better deal for a 7800gt... until its completly obsolete like a 6600gt, BUY NOW 3500 7800gt if u do anything other than that u should just go get an intel dual core 2.8 because its "future proof!" not. for real dont listen to the idiots about video cards, a 3500 will last longer than a 7800 anyways

Why do have to respond in such a idiotic manner? I was just giving my opinion. You do not have to agree with me, but why call me stupid? Jackass.

 

[parlee]

because ur point of view is idiotic, why do u suggest that he spends more for a cpu that performs almost EXACTLY THE SAME in EVERY SINGLE BENCHMARK with the same stuff, over a 7800gt, between a 6800gt and 7800gt, that opinion is stupid. im not calling you stupid ur point of view makes me want to go throw up outside my window, saying that ur gonna upgrade a 7800gt soon is bs. 7800 will last at LEAST 1.5-2 years, even with dx10 out games will still support dx9, they wont just ditch every1 for new games, noone will make a profit. ESPECAILLY RECOMMENDING a 4000+ on a dead socket, yes it will be supported for a while, but why upgrade to the most expensive single core chip (besides fx) when am2 will be out soon and a 7800gt will work on it? buy the cheaper cpu, upgrade that in a years time and keep the 7800gt for 2 years.

 

[HideOut]

that was a figure of speech, the average user really wouldn't notice the difference between a 4000 and a 3500. in games it's the difference of a few frames, and in office applications and general use you wouldn't notice the difference at all.
the difference between a 7800gt and a 6800gs on the other hand is quite large. ergo, choose option a.

Your must be joking right? Use facts not 'doubt' please.

if you disagree with my facts, post benchmarks to prove me wrong.

Exactly

You could choose an opteron 144, 146, or 148 in the socket 939 option and overclock the piss out of it...Even better and on the cheap too

Hide

 

[hashv2f16]

first option and overclock the crap out of it