J.B. & Kathy said:
Building a new PC and need expert opinion on which CPU to buy. Prices are
falling and need to know whether to get the AMD 64 / 3000+ Venice core or
the AMD 64 /3500+ Venice? All advice welcome.
Thanks,
Jay
Dear Jay,
PC Magazine's ExtremeTech just ran a bunch of tests that might be of
interest to you:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1876721,00.asp
Figures price/performance for various uses.
If you just do email, surf web, word process: AMD 3000: that's what I
have, and, it's overkill. Would still be using my PIII if motherboard
had not died, it was more than adequate.
For any sort of gaming: higher CPU speed of course best. And, of
course, if you do other processor intensive stuff, higher CPU speed
better. (Video, photo editing, etc.)
By the way, I am not a big fan of VIA chipsets, having run into some
issues with them over the years. NVidia's Nforce4 chipset gets
consistently better reviews from various sources, and, it seems out on
the web, there is a bit of hate and discontent in relation to VIA for
various problems they have. You might want to consider one of Asus's
Nforce boards: the A8N-E is about the same price as the A8V deluxe;
and, for not a huge amount more, the A8N-SLI Premium has the heatpipe
cooling system instead of the horrific fan Asus was using on the A8N series.
HTH,
BC
# AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 *E6* Processor Model
ADA3500BWBOX - Retail $205.00
64 bit Support: Yes
Cooling Device: Heatsink and Fan
Hyper-Transport Support: Yes
L1 Cache: 64KB+64KB
L2 Cache: 512KB
Multimedia Instruction: MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, 3DNOW! Professional
Operating Frequency: *2.2GHz*
Process Type: 90 nm
Series: Athlon 64
Voltage: 1.35-1.4V
# Model #: ADA3500BWBOX
# Item #: N82E16819103569
# ** This item is warranted through the product manufacturer only.
# In Stock
# AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor Model
ADA3000BPBOX - Retail *$141.00*
(limit 2 per customer)
64 bit Support: Yes
Cooling Device: Heatsink and Fan
Hyper-Transport Support: Yes
L1 Cache: 64KB+64KB
L2 Cache: 512KB
Multimedia Instruction: MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, 3DNOW! Professional
Operating Frequency: 1.8GHz
Process Type: 90 nm
Series: Athlon 64
Voltage: 1.35/1.4V
# Model #: ADA3000BPBOX
# Item #: N82E16819103537