How long will FX-60 last? How low will it go?

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I have come up with a plan to satisfy my needs. :)

Please tell me if it makes sense.

I need a new computer in two months and I intend to build it. I can spend around $900 to $1k max and the basic socket design must satisfy me for at least 4 years. I intend to upgrade to vista in about 2 years, buy an extra gig of RAM, and to install FX-60 when it drops to about $160 to $200.

So it is crucial that Athlon FX-60 can be bought in two years or so, and that it costs around my benchmark. From what you have read and from your experiance, do you think this is likely?

Meanwhile, I intend to use run one of the older processors, like 3200+ Venice or 3700+ San Diego, that can be bought for $160 and $220 respectivly. So I also need a good socket 939 motherboard (will get an ATI video card).

I also, intend to overcloak both the processor I buy now and the FX-60 later. So that brings up my next question: picking ram that can be upgraded. If I buy a stick of RAM, I need to know that I can find a second stick of RAM with same timing or, better yet, the same model.

If I get something like Patriot Extreme Performance 1 GB DDR500 (3-4-4-8 ) will I be able to find the same stick 2 years from now?
 
It's really hard to tell. IMO, it may not likely happen as, AMD is much smaller than Intel therefore, they don't put out the same number of processors. I think the AMD FX series will be retained at a higher premium only because everybody knows it's a good product. Intel drops their prices because they're a much bigger manufacturer with more stock and a less desired product.

I'm sure they will drop the prices somewhat but, I don't think they're comine down as much as everybody would like to think they are. That's only my opinion though.
 
..... buy an extra gig of RAM, and to install FX-60 when it drops to about $160 to $200.
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The world stock of Athlon 64 FX-60 will run dry well before they hit US$200 each.

Look at all the other processors in the FX line, supply of them lasts maybe 12 months tops. They will not drop to US$200 until people start selling them 2nd hand on eBay.... and then you got no idea if the CPU even works.

:cry: (eg: They can sell it dead and claim it worked before you got it, and when you try to return it they'll claim you damaged it as it QA PASSED at their end - People do this to get free money from dead CPUs).

The supply of Opteron 100 series may keep churning for awhile, and also the Athlon 64 X2 line.

AMD like having their 'limited edition' processors with limited supply and unlocked multipliers being the main buying points.
 
No to FX ever dropping to $200, and since s939 is dual channel, no to buying 1 stick now, and one later.
Get the San Diego, the extra cache helps, and it helps with OCing.
Epox makes some very nice boards. DFI does to, but they take more work to set up.
Asus's new crossfire board looks nice, but it's too expensive.
 
Agreed. The FX-60 is a low-volume part and the supply will dwindle quickly after AM-2 comes out.
AMD has only two fabs and priority will be given to the chips that sell well. Indications are that AMD is pushing harder into the server space, which means Opterons will get the priority.
Your best bet is to get a lower-clocked X2 or dual-core Opteron now and overclock the s**t out of it.
Buy two sticks of good ram, a good motherboard (I like MSI), a big heatsink (can't go wrong with Zalman, but others have their preferences) and get a tube of Artic Silver 5 or similar thermal paste.
My X2 3800 is running great at 2.2 ghz (200mhz overclock). It could probably do more, but I need better RAM than the mid-level Kingston stuff I'm using. It did 2.4 ghz without generating any appreciable heat, but I had a few stability issues. Others have had better success.
The price point for the 3700+ is hard to resist right now, so that would be a good way to go. You should still be able to get an X2 or dual Opty next year if you decide you need dual core then.
The mainstream parts (lower-clocked X2s and Optys) are produced in larger volumes and will stick around for awhile. Socket 939 has been out for, what now, three years? And you can still find Athlon XPs for sale, even though AMD quit making them a good while back.
In short, FX-60 will always be in short supply. X2 4600 and 4800 chips will be available for quite some time. The 3800-4800 chips can be overclocked a bit, fairly easily to FX-60 level -- but the FX-60 is already nearly maxed out at its stock speed -- essentially, a factory-overclocked part.
 
I would guess that AMD will do the same thing it has done with past FX line processors: Stop selling the FX-60, but release it under a different name when it is no longer cutting edge.

For example, AMD could stop selling the FX-60 but sell the identical product as an Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (or whatever model number they choose).


I am doing something similar to what you are doing. A year or so from now I plan to upgrade to an FX-60 and add a second video card.
 
FX60 will probably never get below the $900 level. Both AMD and Intel artificially inflate the prices of their premium processors in order to add to the allure of the product.
As far as the RAM goes, I would definitely buy two sticks of RAM at once so that you can take advantage of DDR. You will see a significant performance increase with two sticks instead of one.
 
The allure is consequential, the price being high is because it takes the select cream of the crop processors to perform at these speeds stably, and the price is needed for the additional testing for classification and designation required by this spec, plus it also is considered as profit used to keep profit margins lower on other CPU's in the line, thus this creates the aforementioned allure, IMO.
I too do not see the FX-60 being sold for much less than 10% by AMD either.
 
Ok, so you killed my idea. Thank you. :)

Now I have new questions:

Will a lower grade CPU like x2 4800 or some Opteron, both in $600 to $800 range right now, drop to at least $200 range in a year, when Vista comes out? Is that more reasonable?

About using one stick of RAM, my idea ws as follows. I can only afford 1 Gig now and I want to upgrade to 2 Gigs in a year. I fear using four sticks due to introducing more delay. So, the questions is how much will using four sticks slow things down?

I will probably get 3700 for now, due to price, but I fear it will not be enough to handle Vista. :?

Please, share. 😛
 
OK, that's another thing I don't get. Why are you so Gung Ho for Vista?
My company's tech guy did a test with a Vista beta. It's going to be a huge memory hog. A tech site (sorry, link not handy) did a test a few weeks ago and determined that Vista is going to need about 800 mb just to run. In other words, you'll need 2 gb of memory just in order to be able to run Vista AND a program on your machine.
In other words, Vista is yet another example of Microsoft's crappy, bloated programming.
Plus, it's full of digital rights management crap.
Plus, history shows that the first iteration of any new Windows OS doesn't work right. It'll probably be buggy until the first service pack comes out.
As for me, I'm keeping my copy of Windows XP Pro running as long as I possibly can. I won't go to Vista until new games that I want to play REQUIRE that I move to Vista.
 
I won't go to Vista until new games that I want to play REQUIRE that I move to Vista.
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I have the fashionable Micro$oft hate too, no worries. 8)

And I won't be going to Vista for as long as I can. I only mentioned Vista to give posters some idea of why I might wnat to upgrade my processor years. I am planning a computer that I can work with for five years, so I suspect I will HAVE to install Vista on it eventually. :wink:

Now I just realized something. Latest Opterons like 246 and 248 (in $200 dollar range) use socket 240. And I know that upcomming DDR2 motherboards will be socket 940. So if I get one of these Opterons now, will I be able to put a future AMD, 940 socket, processor on that same (just DDR) motherboard?

Will future 940 socket processors work on current Opteron (socket 940) motherboards, and if so, what motherboard would you recommend for mild overcloaking now and later?

Curiosity only leads to more questions. 😛
 
Latest Opterons like 246 and 248 (in $200 dollar range) use socket 940. And I know that upcomming DDR2 motherboards will be socket 940. So if I get one of these Opterons now, will I be able to put a future AMD, 940 socket, processor on that same (just DDR) motherboard?
Will future 940 socket processors work on current Opteron (socket 940) motherboards, and if so, what motherboard would you recommend for mild overcloaking now and later?
Click to expand...
No. You're correct that socket AM2 will be a 940-pin socket. However, it will not be pin-compatible with the older socket known as Socket 940. They moved the positions of some of the pins. The AM2 cpus will not plug into an older Socket 940-pin motherboard ... well, I suppose you could FORCE it into the socket, or clip off some of the pins so that you could make it go, but of course, then it would no longer work :lol:
Since AM2 is designed to work with DDR2 memory (possibly DDR3 as well later on, we don't know yet) AMD has taken this step to make sure no one accidentally tries to plug it into a DDR1 motherboard. AM2 is not meant to be backwards compatible with DDR1, so that's not something you'd want to do anyway.
The anandtech site had a full review of the socket change:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2688
 
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