Help with MoBo and CPU

[Josh]

Consider me a novice would be best. I am thinking about
building a system but can not quite figure out the difference
between Intel and AMD. AMD seems to be cheaper with more
options to choose from.

The other thing I would like touched on is that the AMD processors have slower listed speeds but higher FBS. Is a faster CPU best or is it an overall wash?

Thanks for your help,
Josh

[Whizbang]

AMD is conservative in rating the processor and also uses different standards.  I "cut my teeth" on the old Intel processors but am now sticking with AMD.  They are much better priced as well as the better price for the mainboards.  The new 64-bit dual core processors are also more adaptive that the Intel which require special boards for the dual units.  AMD 64 bits across the range have shown to be at least equal to Intel in speed and usually somewhat better.  They are also reported to run cooler.  They are a heck of a lot cheaper.  Most gamers and custom shop computer makers go with AMD.

As for Mainboards, look at MSI, Gigabyte, Epox, and Asus first.  Start with NewEgg, Directron, ZipZoomFly, and Chief Value for sources; and also go through Pricewatch for other buys.  Check with ResellerRatings to get some idea of customer opinion.

[pat]

In addition, what type of system are you looking to build? Gaming, general office type work, high-end video station?
Do you have a budget in mind?

[Whizbang]

Pat brought things to focus.  Detail what you want and there will be some good advice given here on virtually every computer component .   ;)

[scuzzy]

I was one who initially stuck to Intel, probably due to their excellent marketing techniques. However, once I discovered AMD, that all changed.

AMD offers superior CPUs, and the bang for the buck is significantly in their favor. Every system I build is AMD, and I now avoid Intel. If you are a gamer, AMD is normally even with Intel, or ahead.

Just for the record, Intel makes some really great CPUs. However, you pay a lot more for the "privelege" of "Intel Inside". To me, it's simply not worth it. I prefer "AMD Inside", without all the marketing hype.

[Carskick]

And just FYI Josh, the "listed speed" is not an accurate measurement of CPU performance, if the "listed speed" is the clock speed. This is a common mistake amongst ameatures. The best way to compare processors and see how they perform is by looking at benchmarks, such as those on Anandtech.com . Benchamarks show specific components compare in similar situations, ie gaming, video editing, multitasking, etc.

[Josh]

Hello,
Sorry about the delay before I could respond. I have been reading alot of the previous posts and other articles online to try to learn somethings before getting much further.

What I am in need of is a new motherboard, cpu, and ram.
I will be carrying over my current graphics and sound cards, cd-rw, and hd.
I will be at some point replacing case and powersupply but I will prolly ask for help with that later.

Looking mostly for gaming purposes. 100% on doing AMD system.

Price range well hoping MB 150-200
cpu same 150- 200
memory 100-150

My dream would be to keep it near 450 total.

Thanks for all your assistance.
Josh

[query]

What video card do you have, and in what format (AGP or PCI Express).  That alone will dictate some of your choice of board.

One thing to be very careful of with new mainboards is that the industry in Taiwan is undergoing very rapid consolidation - a lot of the bit players are fading or failing outright.  I'd bet that within a year or so, there'll be no more than about 3-5 smaller  vendors left standing in addition to the top five:  ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, Foxconn, ECS, and perhaps a very few others.  Even Intel no longer makes its own boards - they are contracted out to the above list of companies.

Most of the bit players in the industry are losing money rapidly and don't have the resources to design new products and compete with the larger vendors any longer - bear that in mind.

[Chandler]

Are you in the US?  How about this?

• Athlon64 Venice 3000+ Retail $146.00
  
• ASUS A8V-Deluxe $114.00
  
• Crucial 512MB PC3200 $43.88
  
• Fortron 350W 120mm PSU$44.49
  
• GeForce 6600 AGP ~$100

[freelance]

iv very recently gone over to amd.. iv built 2 intel pc's a p3 and a p4. the p3 was VERY stable and cool, oc'd to 1.2 from 1.0ghz. the p4 was ok, not particualy stable and i blew it up whithin 2 weeks. ( i might add the p3 lasted me 3 years!) so i built an amd system, regrettably based on a pc chips mobo. that was boa ( broke on arrival) so i rma'd it and have now got a asus on its way. i might add though it had its faults ( ie i couldnt get into bios etc etc...) it was dead stable. so im hoping the asus mobo will improve on this. (adding speed). my dad always had intel based systems. 2 years ago he bought a compaq presario xp3000+. it has its faults but is a good machine. all in all iv had more problems with intel than id like to count, and iv premanantly gone over to amd and would recommend them to anyone.

[Carskick]

My intermediate family has owned a total of 3 Intels and 5 AMD machines, and every one of those CPUs works to this day, well except for the Intel 486, but when it was thrown away 2 years ago, it worked.

Anyways, in this day and age, I would easily say AMD is the way to go, particularly the 90nm Athlon 64s. I have never had a computer run so cool as my first build a week ago, which has a venice athlon 64. None of my CPUs have ever had instability issues caused by the CPU, but I still highly reccomend the 90nm Athlons for their low temps, which will further improve stability, and put less stress on the entire system. On the flip side, Intel's 90nm CPUs still run very hot, just as bad as the old AthlonXPs, if not worse.

[Josh]

I suppose I should probably be picking all this out at the same time but if you have noticed I am a bit on the slow side. I have set firmly on ASUS motherboard after doing some other reading and such however I cant quite figure out the specific positives and negatives of the current options. I am posting a link from newegg and if anyone has time I would like an explaination why one is better than the other. Price is not an issue out of this list I just want to know quality v. features. Thanks a lot for all your time and help.
Josh

NewEgg Link



Link edited by Carskick

[Whizbang]

URL refused to connect with me.  Specify the mainboard numbers you are interested in to give us another option for searching site.

Absolutely unbelievable, but NewEgg is actually down as I poast this, and several others are down too.   ???

[Bill]

Not so unbelievable.  I've noticed difficulty all day.

There is a fault somewhere....

Bill

[Carskick]

Newegg is back now. It was down earlier today. Weird. He was basically listing Neweggs ASUS mobo selection.

Anyways, the only reason I did not go with an ASUS mobo in my build was they did not have the Nforce3 Ultra Chipset available. I needed an AGP setup, plus Nforce 4 has glitchy PCI support. Some VIA setups in the 939 slots are known to have faulty or nonexistant PCI/AGP locks. However, if you don't plan on using PCI cards in the near future, or don't plan on overclock, one of the boards will be perfect for you. I heled my friend do a build with the ASUS A8V Socket 939 VIA K8T800 Pro, the first on your link. It seemed very good, disregarding overclocking. The only other flaw was it defaulted to almost 1.6volts for a Venice 3000+ rated at 1.35-1.4. A small BIOS adjustment corrected the issue. Now that's if you want AGP.

If you want PCI Express, get the Nforce4 board that gives you the feature set you want, ie, SLI, or extra SATA ports. It's all based on your needs.

[Josh]

Well, that prolly hits the real issue. I do not know what SLI, SATA, ie really means I know PCI and AGP but those others I am not familar with.
Most vid cards come PCI or AGP as far as I remember and that is really all I would be concerned about, I think. Thanks for helping hopefully I am not hopeless.

Thanks,
Josh

[Mark H]

Well, that prolly hits the real issue. I do not know what SLI, SATA, ie really means I know PCI and AGP but those others I am not familar with.
Most vid cards come PCI or AGP as far as I remember and that is really all I would be concerned about, I think. Thanks for helping hopefully I am not hopeless.

Thanks,
Josh

SLI lets you run two video cards in parallel and SATA is a type of device interface (hard drive, CDs). SATA drives have a much smaller cable to them than the flat cable of IDE drives.

In my opinion, you can live without SLI, SATA and PCI-express for now. I built an AMD 64 system that rocks with SATA and IDE drives as well as an AGP video card (no SLI or PCI-express) in my system. It all boils down to what you want.

Mark H

[Whizbang]

I do not mean to cloud the picture, but I would also look at MSI boards.  The Live Update feature, especially for BIOS, is the best I have seen.  AGP 8X prices have really fallen since the PCI Express cards have hit the market, and the difference in noticable performance is marginal on top end offerings.  Warranty for both Asus and MSI is 3 years.

[Mark H]

My mobo is a MSI one for my AMD 64 system.

Mark H

[Josh]

I might be crazy but my current drives are IDE and will not work with a SATA board yes? Secondly I dont think I need to run 2 video cards I am not that hard core. So I suppose I would go with a non sli board, ? on the sata issue, I will look at MSI thanks for the extra option. Anything else I should consider before starting my CPU search?
Thanks for everything,
Josh

[Whizbang]

If you want a 32 bit and want to start slow and build to it, look at the MSI K7N2GM-V that has onboard video.    I even sold the two older video cards that I had because the onboard chip is very good.  You can set the dedicated mainboard memory to 128megs for the video.  There are only three PCI slots, but that is really more than most people need anyway.  The onboard LAN is good also.  This board also has four IDE options on the standard 2 board connections and also 2 SATA hard drive connections for later expansion.  Internet retailers are having a hard time keeping them in stock.  Current selling price is around $60.00 at ZipZoomFly or NewEgg, when you can get one.  Check Pricewatch.  I purchased three of these boards and they are the most stable ones I have had.  Only problem I have had is with one board where I am trying to do multiple hard drive option loading.  Bios occasionally hangs, but other two boards on more conventional setup, one belonging to my daughter, tick perfectly.

If you are looking at going with a 64 bit board,  ZipZoomFly has an

MSI K8N NEO4-F nForce4 Athlon 64 Skt939 DDR ATX Motherboard w/Audio, Gigabit LAN, RAID/Serial ATA Retail ***Free 2nd Day***delivery.
1000FSB, ATA133, 4DDR DIMM, 1 PCI Express x16, 2 PCI Express x1, 4PCI, USB, Audio, Gigabit LAN, RAID/SATA  for $85.99.

It does have PCI Express instead of AGP though.  A big plus is that it is dual processor ready, if you want to upgrade.

It also has onboard gigabyte LAN.  
-----------------------------------------------------
64 bit 3000 Venice at about $145.00 for the 939 board, unless you are ready to go dual processor.   My experience there is nil.
I would get a 2800XP for the 32 bit board at about $100.00

[slaxorz]

It does have PCI Express instead of AGP though.  A big plus is that it is dual core ready, if you want to upgrade.

It also has onboard gigabyte LAN.  
-----------------------------------------------------
64 bit Venice at about $145.00 for the 939 board, unless you are ready to go dual core.   My experience there is nil.
I would get a 2800XP for the 32 bit board at about $100.00

;D

[freelance]

I might be crazy but my current drives are IDE and will not work with a SATA board yes? Secondly I dont think I need to run 2 video cards I am not that hard core. So I suppose I would go with a non sli board, ? on the sata issue, I will look at MSI thanks for the extra option. Anything else I should consider before starting my CPU search?
Thanks for everything,
Josh

most sata mobo's come with ide connectors (mine certainly does!!) so you needent turn down an exellent board on that account. just make sure IDE is listed in its specs.

[freelance]

and i forgot to add i would get a cpu that you want, and then get a mobo that will accept that cpu and has the ability to upgrade to a faster one later.

[Carskick]

Dual Core right now is a little pricey, but AMD decided to have the 939 slot host both the single and dual core CPU, meaning you can buy an Athlon64 venice 3000+ for $150 now, and when the 4800+ gets do be $150, switch it out. Buying Socket A now isn't a good idea, as it is discontinued. I'd even prefer getting a 754 board and a Sempron CPU, at least there is a little more upgrade pottental for relatively no extra cost. Dual core is effective in many situations, but not in raw processing power unless the software can truely take advantage of it. Once dual core is mainstream, software that takes advantage of it will be as well. Until then, it will only give a small performance boost for a high price. Don't get me wrong, it has potential, but it doesn't shine unless it has optimized software, or if you are an avid mult tasker. I have an Athlon64 3000+ overclocked to 3500+ speeds, and it does all I need, including multi tasking without a hitch. Great CPU.