Depends on your budget and where you live. Prices are getting
compressed so there isnt the stark differences in ranges now so it
depends on how much you have to stick to a budget.
After getting rid of my 2500/3200 barton Im using my old 1000 gig XP
and its surprisingly decent as long as I dont have to do anything like
compression and uncompression - RAR files or make MP3s etc and other
CPU intensive stuff its not bad at all. The other is games of course.
So a 2 gig AMD XP isnt bad at all for casual users. However Id give
the old recommendation of going with the Barton 2500 since the OEM is
around $85 - if you have a fan/htsink already or can get one cheap its
defintely worth it plus a cheap nforce2 or VIA motherboard that can
hit FSB200 - and if you have DDR 400/3200 already. If you can get the
MB and CPU for $150 or less around there then its a decent deal.
IF you start hitting $200 - the problem here is the compression of
price ranges between the 754 socket vs the 939. Generally I would say
get the 939 but it depends on how tight your budget is. Sometimes if
you are a kid or a student you CANT spend that extra $50-100. IF you
just cant eventhough the prices have gotten so close its generally not
worth getting the 754 there are some deals which might make it a
better deal for people who just cant spend anymore and have DDR
400/3200 mem. Ive seen some deals recently for combos -
Like this AMD 64 3200:
http://shop3.outpost.com/product/4304795
Generally its a ECS board one of the lowest makers of motherboards.
This is if you are in the US. The 754 will give you more options than
the older XP socket A boards though they are slated to be phased out
in a year or so. There are lots of sub $100 754 boards.
The best bet is to the 939 socket AMD 64 but the hot
chip 3000 AMD 64 939 is going up and down in price because of the
supply and demand situation. However if you look around you should be
able to get a retail version of $159 or so.
The big choice here is PCI express or not.
IF you pick an older AGP/PCI board its
NFORCE3 vs K8T880 VIA - and the prices can be cheap - sub $100
to $129 or so for the top rated MSI board. Theres lots of good boards
here that are OCeable etc but youll end up in the high $200-300 range.
About $100 more than the lowest 754 deals. Thats generally not a big
deal but it all depends on your budget situation. The nforce3 etc are
all reasonably mature boards that are full featured etc.
The thing is the PCI express boards - the makers have kind of put out
teasers - initially at least some low prices and claims of
availibility so for a bit more you feel like spending even more and
going for it. Thats what hooked me but frankly the availibility stinks
so far and Ive heard of some problems , you know theres going to be
more bugs reported as time goes on and prices are really fluctuating.
The boards were supposedly available in Dec - some SLIs the really
high priced units were and you can get those now - but the prices are
$200-300 ! The initial range was reported like this - nforce4 budget
less than 100 to 100 , nforce4 Ultras 100-150 and SLIs 150-200.
Anything below SLIs the inventory is spotty. The only I know is maybe
the Gigabytes - an ultra and budget. You can get the Giga budget but
they upped the price from 125 or so to 145 and up.
The one Chaintech which was briefly available in Dec but sold out and
not available - Ive read there might be some problems though the
consumer feedback at Newegg of the initial batch is good , was the one
Im look at - an ULTRA for 116 or so initially but thats been creeping
up to 129 now and still not available.
I finally see some MSIs listed at one place with an ETA of 1/19 so
hopefully by the end up this month there will be more choices ,
inventory that will bring prices down.
You can sell your AGP card and try to go all out for PCI Express -
theoretically it will cost you maybe $330 or so a bit more than a 939
AGP/PCI board and 939 CPU - slight difference in the MB once the
prices come down. However youll probably end up selling your AGP for
cheap and buying a 6600 for $100-130 or a 6600 GT $180-230. The 6600GT
PCI express is sold finally at COMPUSA this week for $220 so with PCI
express vid cards finally beginning to sell (its the first one at my
local COMPUSA which only sold AGP until this week) PCI express prices
and availibility may improve too. So right now we are right on the
cusp - frankly it stinks right now but theres a constant teaser the
last few weeks about how things will change any week now which makes
you want to just go for it.
If I had a brain Id just buy a nforce3 now - I dont have the PC I want
, Im stuck with a AGP 6800 I have to sell and I cant stand waiting.
Ill also end up spending probably 100-150 more. Im getting my LCD
Viewsonic tomorrow , if I went 939 + nforce3 I could order it right
now and have a PC in a few days and save 100-150. As it is ---- Im
still waiting for the Chaintech ultra or ANY other decent Ultra chip
nforce4 to get in stock at a reasonable price $130 or less AND itll
probably have bugs AND I have to sell my AGP AND I have to buy a lower
end 6600 GT or wait until 6800 PCI express - which sell for ridiculous
prices and are also hard to even find OR wait for this mythical ATI
800 XL and spend even more $$. Maybe weeks of more waiting and extra
$$. If the 800XL takes more than a month forget it then, the 6600GT
will be reasonable. Id rather get the 6800 PCI express since you could
possibly unlock the pipes and overclock it a bit. In stock form its
really close to the 6600GT.
I think a $230-240 6800 std 128 meg price is decent but the price now
is often a mindboggling $270-300 with an occaisonal deep sale down to
$230-240.