...and for my Birthday
I dunno whether we have really in-depth serious PC specialists on SACanada, but I am looking for some more shared brainpower on putting together my next PC.
In March of 2001 I bought myself a system that I selected by board, chip, videocard, harddrive, DVD etc. I then got A-Power here in Vancouver to put it together for me and install the operating system.
That is the system I have been using since then and on which I am writing this post:
Chip: .....1GHz AMD Thunderbird processor
Board: .....MSI board, which blew, and was replaced by an Asus A7V333 version 1.02 266MHz
Memory:..... 256 megs, later upgraded to 768 Megs
Video card: .....nVidia GeForce 2
Display: .....Samsung 17"Syncmaster750s
Sound: .....Creative SB Live!
DVD/CD: .....A-Open 12X DVD/CD drive ( no burner)
HDD: .....Quantum Fireball AS30.0 30MB
HDD2: .....Last Xmas I added an 80GB Western Digital WD800JB
Floppy: .....generic
keyboard: .....Fujitsu standard 101/102
Mouse: .....Microsft PS/2 mouse
Operating System: .....Windows 98 Second Edition ( I don't get viruses
)I test it regularly at PCPitstop and I have tuned it to the point where I have a lot of stuff optimised. Except for the fact that I am a die-hard Win98SE fan, the rest of the system pretty much checks out at 103-105% of the performance of more than 3200 other similar systems they have tested. So I think I have done well with what I have.
However, it is clear that this one is scraping the bottom limit of PCPitstop's evaluation range. They give 1GHz as the lowest frequency chip one should have at all. The plan is that this PC will go elsewhere in the family.
I have looked at upgrading it, but the motherboard is 266MHz and chip is Socket A AMD Athlon, both of which are now at least two generations in the past and the maximum upgrade ever that I can get as regards chip for this board is an AMD Thoroughbred at about 1.8MHz for about $110. Even though that would nearly double the chip speed, I'd have a board that is far below current par, running at 1/4 of the board speed of the latest boards, and limited to using AGP-based video cards...a dead-end.
I am annoyed that I have somehow bought myself into a dead-end and have been spending the evenings over the past three weeks studying the PC field in depth so as to understand the trends and dead-ends. Here are my conclusions, and I'd like to hear the views of any guru we might have here. I'd also appreciate corrections to my observations. Just because I use the right words, does not mean I know my way around this field properly.
A. AMD vs Intel:
I have always viewed AMD as the "pocket rocket" chip guys. Their chips ran congenitally hot in 2000-2001. This was my first PC with a cpu fan, which has blown twice. However, right now it seems:
a] While Intel may still have the edge on raw frequency THEY NOW RUN HOTTER
b] AMD have now also implemented 90nm lithography to use less power/run cooler. The 90nm version of the AMD64 3500+ runs 10C cooler than the 130nm version that is often incorrectly sold as beingthe same thing.
c] ONLY AMD is ready for 64-bit computing and 64 bit Windows
d] Their AMD64 3500+ 90nm Winchester processor is at the supreme "sweet spot" of price versus performance in Dec 2004.
e] Until late November 2004, only Intel-compatible motherboards had PCI-Express compatibility, the new standard for plug-in cards...now the AMD compatible PCI-express motherboards are coming in
f] Intel have made their new chips to work with DDR2 memory, which is expensive. AMD achieve the same result at systems level using older and cheaper unbuffered DDR memory. I like parties that think at systems level.
g] The latest boards for Intel's latest chips have been using the 925X chipset, which is great, but there does not seem to be significant gain over the previous generation of Intel stuff and Intel is still pricey.
h] My overall impression is that Intel have been seriously badly upstaged...To me as a non-specialist, it almost looks as if they did not hear the market and drowned in the details of their own chips, rather than to view their chips as part of a system.
SO..unless someone talks me out of it , I am buying a Socket 939 AMD64 3500+ in 90nm linewidth technology (The Winchester)
B. Motherboard
This is a major problem. The motherboards that fully utilise what Intel can do, are already out and can be bought in Vancouver. The AMD-based ones of comparable performance and technology are all late to the market. This is not the fault of AMD...it is the motherboard manufacturers that are late to the game. They must be kicking themselves now. Obvioulsy the boards must be able to take the Winchester chip and the chips that are to follow in that family. So the boards must be Socket 939, the latest AMD64 socket format .
a] I must have a motherboard with PCI-Express, the new standard.
b] The board must take the Winchester, and be able to also handle the best AMD64.
c] I want massive capacity for memory
d] It seems the nVidia nForce 4 chipset allows everything the AMD64 Socket 939 chips can do
e] I want 3Gb/s speeds to the harddrives
f] I want 800MB/s Firewire (the fast version)
By 9 December 2004 I find that there are only two boards to choose from on the planet ( please tell me there are more) that implement the full suite of all that the AMD64 processors have to offer together with the new PCI-Express standard. The boards need to allow me to upgrade processors later
They are the:
1. Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-9 nForce4 (Ultra or SLI)
2. Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe nForce4 ( they have no non-SLI board)
There is a PCI-express Socket 939 board available from A-bit ( brand new), but it uses the VIA chipset. I'm not clever enoughto know whether that matches teh nVidia nForce 4.
SLI is a PC Gamers indulgence, in which you put two identical cards on your PC and they share the load. I am just an ordinary guy and see no reason to do that. SO, if I take SLI off the table as being for fanatics, the Gigabyte GA-K8NXP-9 nForce4 Ultra wins because it offers more facilities than the Asus and looks like it is first to market.
Gigabyte also have a tremedoius set of things that they include in the package, including a gigabit wired LAN, a wireless LAN card (!), massively adjustable overclocking ( which I'd like to start playing with), PCI-express slots, PCI slots, lots of SATA and IDE drive abilities, 10 USB ports, Firewire, AC '97 sound.
I have given the other players until halfway to Xmas to deliver, but I am giving up hope.
Now, HERE'S THE THING:
I think there are all kinds of dangers in buying so early in the market. There are hardly any motherboards on the market and a bad board can ruin a good chip decision. Usually the board manufacturers go through a number of version and BIOS revisions before they settle on what I would see as a reliable product in which all the snags have been resolved. For example, my present board came out in a version 2, which was vastly more capable and faster and would have now given me a totally viable PC for today's uses. I have to use the PC I buy to earn my daily bread and I cannot afford to have it unstable or down.
SHOULD I DENY MYSELF MY CHRISTMAS & BIRTHDAY PRESENT?...and wait a few months more?