|
| |
| > On Mon, 02 Aug 2004 20:56:10 +0100, Humga wrote:
| > > My friend wants one from the latest family AMD CPUs so choosing an
| > > Athlon64 is the right way to go?
| >
| > The right way to go is the 939 pin AthlonFX with a motherboard using the
| > Nvidia Nforce 3-250GB chipset. For desktop applications the 939s have a
| > small advantage over the older Opterons because the hypertransport runs
at
| > 1GHz rather than 800MHz. They also run cooler because of the Cool and
| > Quiet. The Nforce 3-250GB also has a very fast gigabit ethernet
controller
| > on chip. The only board supporting the Nvidia ethernet at the moment is
| > the MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum which just started shipping.
|
| I've done a little research into the 939 pin versions and *phawww* they
cost
| a bomb - maybe not exactly a bomb but they do cost a lot...
|
| Pricewise, I think the 754 pin Athlon 64 is more realistic for home
| gaming/office
|
| >
| > > 754 pin is "single DDR channel". This isn't related to the number of
DDR
| > > RAM sticks on the mobo is it?
| >
| > It is related. The single channel limits the number of DIMMs to three,
all
| > of which are on the same bus so the signal integrity is marginal for a
| > fully loaded system. The dual channel parts (the 940s and the 939s) have
| > two DIMMs per bus for a total of four. Because there are only two DIMMs
| > per bus the memory system is more robust. The 940 pin parts use
registered
| > DIMMs which further improve the signal integrity, but at the expense of
| > slightly longer memory access times. Because the registered DIMMs have
| > register which isolate the RAMs from the bus it's also possible for the
| > DIMMs to have more RAMs on them so you can have more total RAM. However
| > for a desktop system you won't need to use 2G DIMMs. I'd suggest staring
| > with a pair of 512M DIMMs (for a total of 1G). That's plenty of RAM for
| > most desktop applications. You will still have two vacant sockets so in
a
| > year, when 1G DIMMs get cheap, you could add a pair of 1G DIMMs which
| > would give you 3Gs of memory.
|
| I personally have an nForce2 (ASUS A7N8X) and I think I know what you
meant
| by single channel (CPU). I have 2 512MB PC3200 DIMMs and they utilise this
| "dual-channel" feature on the mobo...apparently gives it better
performance.
| Athon XP are single channel right?
Not exactly. The Athlon XP alone doesn't dictate the number of memory
channels. They don't have the memory controller on die. That is one of the
big advantages of the A64. If you have a dual channel motherboard with an
Athlon XP, you can run dual channels of RAM.
|
| > I don't know which OS you are planning on using. Linux fully supports
the
| > Amd64 today, WinXP won't have support (except in beta form) until the
end
| > of Q2 next year. So if you want to take advantage of all of the features
| > of the AMD64, including large memory systems (>4G), and the extra
| > registers in the AMD architecture use Mandrake 10 or SUSE 9.1 (I prefer
| > Mandrake).
|
| I've used Linux Red Hat 9.0 before and because I had been a Windows user
for
| such a long time I really cannot find (due to poor knowledge) it easy to
| learn :X In the end I formatted the hard drive and reinstalled Windows
| XP...I know what you Linux users are thinking right now
|
| Back to the main topic, I guess my friend still wants the 64-bit CPU
because
| it sounds good...but without any real performance boost...I don't care
| because he is the one paying for the components
|
The A64 still gives a considerable real performance boost, even ina 32-bit
environment. It will be money well spent.
