s754 or s939 ?

[fo3]

I'm planning on upgrading my pc and I can't decide on whether to get a s939 or a s754 AMD cpu. The prices on the sets would be about the same. Right now I'm choosing between:

s754 athlon 64 3000+(2000mhz) Mobo: Epox Socket 754 EP-8KDA3+, nForce3 250GB chipset.

s939 athlon 64 3000+(1800mhz) Mobo: Abit Socket 939 AV8, VIA K8T800 Pro.

I would like to see some opinions on the motherboard choice of the both cpus aswell, since those aren't fixed yet either.
The rest of the set will be a His IceQ 9800pro video card and 2x512MB ddram. I'm hoping that a 400W power supply will do for this?

 

[pat]

if you plan on AGP for a while, socket754 will offer you a much better price/performance than the socket 939 and there is a better choice for socket 754 motherboard than for socket 939, especially with nforce3. I suggest going with nforce 3 because it has more feature than the VIA one.


For the 400w, if is is of fairly good quality, it should be up to par.

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[Rugger]

What do you primarily plan on using this computer to do? Gaming? Internet? Work applications? Video encoding/decoding?

Whether you go s939 or s754, I recommend you stay with an nVidia chipset - it offers the best performance/reliabiity.

s754 will become the "budget" socket for AMD and will not A64 beyond 3700+ - future s754 chips will not support 64bit processing. When mainstream 64bit OSs for home computers (Windows 64) and 64bit applications become common, the s754 platform will have a serious performance disadvantage. The Newcastle core s754 are great chips that are clocked 200Mhz (about 10%) faster than their s939 counterparts. The s939 can run RAM in dual channel mode. This dual channel mode gives ~5% performance advantage over the single channel memory in s754, but does not make up for the 200Mhz clock speed difference.

The s939 is AMD's performance line of CPUs that will continue to support 64bit processing nto the future. Mobos supporting s939 will be compatible with AMDs dual core CPUs if plan on upgrading to a dual core CPU.

Any recommendations will be based on my first questions to you.

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[reader850]

Will dual channel (with a 939) be an even greater advantage when using 64 bit programs? If dual channel gives a 5% advantage in 32 bit, is there something about 64 bit (greater bandwith requirements?) that will cause the dual channel advantage to be more than 5%? Any guesses as to how much more?

 

[fo3]

It will probably be mostly for gaming. Internet use aswell ofcourse, but if it can handle games, then internet shouldn't be a problem.

 

[pat]

But remember he is still running AGP, and by the time it will need more power, that will probably be the video card rather than the CPU... Getting a faster PCIe video card would have him to upgrade everything anyway, because, a this time, better CPU would probably be available for cheaper price.

I dont see socket 754 having serious performance more than current 939 chip.. even in future.. CPU in this class are very perfomant..no matter if thay are 754, 939, or Intel.. bottle neck happen much more at vido card and HDD right now..

<font color=red>Sig space for rent. make your offer.</font color=red>

 

[Rugger]

Will dual channel (with a 939) be an even greater advantage when using 64 bit programs? If dual channel gives a 5% advantage in 32 bit, is there something about 64 bit (greater bandwith requirements?) that will cause the dual channel advantage to be more than 5%? Any guesses as to how much more?

I just don't know at this point. There will have to be OS/programs that can take advantage of 64bit before you will be able to really test something like this.

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<font color=red>You're a boil on the arse of progress - don't make me squeeze you!</font color=red>

 

[Rugger]

But remember he is still running AGP, and by the time it will need more power, that will probably be the video card rather than the CPU... Getting a faster PCIe video card would have him to upgrade everything anyway, because, a this time, better CPU would probably be available for cheaper price.

Based on his post, I thought he was purchasing a mobo, CPU, vid card and RAM. If that is the case, then why not make the jump to s939 with a PCIe card like the 6600GT. The price difference between the two has nearly evaporated and the nF4 chipset is becoming more seasoned/tested. The primary price difference between the sockets right now is in the mobo and you can find quality, inexpensive options for s939. I'm starting to lean more and more towards s939 - especially if the upgrade is going to include the video card and mobo.

I dont see socket 754 having serious performance more than current 939 chip.. even in future.. CPU in this class are very perfomant..no matter if thay are 754, 939, or Intel.. bottle neck happen much more at vido card and HDD right now..

Exactly! Say the dual channel gives a 5% overall performance advantage and the 200Mhz gives an overall 10% performance advantage - if that is the case, then s754 only gives a net 5% performance advantage. I know that those are generalizations and the true performance advantage between clock speeds and memory will not exactly reflect those percentages so don't flame me for that. I'm just trying to provide simplistic examples that illustrate that we agree there is no major differences in performance between the two sockets at same PR rating. The s939 will be slightly slower, but the difference will probably only show up in benchmarks.

Right now both sockets are great options and each has pros/cons, but s939 is gaining a lot of ground in by book with decreasing prices, OC capability, increased features on newer CPUs (Venice core). If he's upgrading both the mobo and vid card, then I recommend going s939. If he's just upgrading the mobo/CPU, then s754 will work just fine for him as long as he doesn't do frequent CPU upgrades.

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[fo3]

ok, thanks for the help everybody

 

[Rugger]

Which route are you going?

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<font color=red>You're a boil on the arse of progress - don't make me squeeze you!</font color=red>

 

[fo3]

I'm going to buy a s939 processor, since then I can use double ddr and the upgradeability is better for that on aswell. Although I would probably need a new graphics card before another cpu upgrade in the future.