754 or 939...need to decide by midnight TONIGHT (2 hours left!!)

[larg0]

so my dad is treating me to a comp upgrade for christmas and we've been going over the available hardware out there. as anyone who has ever put together their own PC before knows, the number of possible components and decisions can get very overwhelming - ESPECIALLY during the transitions of 754 to 939 and AGP to PCI express.

he's already denied putting any funds to a new video card, so odds are i'm going to stick with my radeon 9800 pro AGP for now.

As far as CPU goes, we've already decided on either the athalon 3700+ clawhammer (754) or the 3700+ san diego (939). it's important for me to decide tonight because of this deal on tigerdirect:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...details.asp?EdpNo=1178956&Sku=MBM-K8V-A643700

the last day for this combo is today...i just talked to my dad and he told me to go ahead and order it unless i can find some serious reason not to.

question 1: is there any reason to skip this deal because of the mobo: ASUS K8V SE Deluxe

i've read a billion customer reviews (none on newegg unfortunately), all of which were very positive, the main problem seems to be RAM pickiness...something i am not concerned about. However i am worried that this board may be a little outdated now, as any official review i can find is at least a couple years old, and the ASUS site has very little information on this board.

question 2 (the big one): will 754 be a bad move on my part?

for the past week, i've been trying to find out if there is any serious proof that socket 754 has gone the way of the buffalo and would make for a poor choice. maybe 80% of forum posts on the internet say that 939s only real benefit *at this time* is it's future-proof position in the computer market. I dont deny that this is true, but how far in the future are we talking? i know AMD has stopped production on the 754 chip, but this 3700+ clawhammer is almost just as good as its 939 san diego counterpart.



will i be kicking myself in 6 months for going with the 754? how about in 2 years? i realize that my next major upgrade (after this one) would probably be a 939 (assuming the market doesnt go in yet another direction by then). But, as a gamer, how many years of comfortable gaming will i get out of the 754 AMD 3700+? if it is 2-3+ years, then i could justify buying a whole new motherboard when the time comes.

also, i would like to keep the total price in the 200-350 dollar range - fortunately the difference in cost between the 754 and 939 3700+ AMD chips is pretty much negligable.





so there it is...i guess i'd like as many responses as possible in the next 2 hours - i plan to put up another post specifically about the motherboard...one that is not as longwinded as this one since i am running out of time.

THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO READ THIS!!11

 

[mossimoboy]

You will definately be sorry if you don't go socket 939 now.
Thats what I'm upgrading for.

Socket 939s are the latest besides 940, but I don't think many drivers are compatibile with 940s.

Also, you will be kicking yourself if you dont go with pci-express now, thats also what I'm going with for x-mas. AGP is going out of date fast.

I'm not saying 754 sockets are bad, but if I were you I'd go with the latest.
I'm not sure how fast the gaming economy is moving, but you will probably be better off with 939 for atleast 3-4 years.

 

[swker98]

i second the socket 939 because you can upgrade and most of all you can get duel core also the 939 sandego has 1mb of cach whach is always a plus
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103539
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813152049 i sugest the vnf4 ultra as it isnt picky on ram has a has a pci express slot and is very user frendly as far as im concerened, i built a system with it and its terrific no probles , and you will same some cash to, only down fall is no fire wire, and the onboard sound is greart

 

[larg0]

thanks for any feedback

if i were to go 939, i would have to get a 939 AGP board because that is the only video card i have (with no where near the proper funds to upgrade). there is the option of getting one of the few boards with both PCI-e and AGP, but they're not necessarily the most reliable.

for the most part i'd like to keep video cards out of this decision - the next video card upgrade i get could just as easly be an AGP - the top end AGP cards are not very far off from the high-end PCI-e cards at this time...so a future video upgrade would most likely include one of the high-performance AGP cards of today (probably ranking medium performance by the time this would happen).



also the L1 and L2 caches seem to be the same for both chips...the 939 has a higher fsb (1000) than the 754 (800), but from what i read on other forums, it seemed like that wouldnt make too much of a difference

 

[LoneGman]

On Newegg, there's an ASrock board that's gotten good reviews from all over, and has both AGP and PCI-E slots as well... The price is also right at under $70.

Check it out:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157081

 

[larg0]

well despite what everyone said, i decided to go with the amazing deal that was the athalon 64 3700+ 754 socket chip + ASUS mobo for 200 dollars...

...but when i got to the site, the rebate offers were over.


i figured it would at least still be offered until midnight on the west coast.

tiger direct has it out for you californians



with no pressure for time, we've decided to just hold off on making any choice for a few days...thanks for the feedback, though

 

[DonNagual]

I think the time difference error has saved you.

It is an omen.

The Gods of 939 have spoken, and are calling your name.

Will you ignore their demands?

 

[PanicX]

DonNagual shares my opinion, though my reasons differ.

Mainly because TigerDirect is notorious for not honoring their rebates. I've been burned by them and if you even mention TigerDirect on any deal sites, you'll be flamed off the internet.

Choosing to go with 754 or 939 IMO isn't dependant on the processors so much as the chipsets. Basically, you'll be more than frustrated when your dad caves in for a video card upgrade and ALL your options are outdated. Going AGP now, on a gaming rig, is a bad decision.

 

[DonNagual]

Here you go. This sounds like a perfect match for you.

939 socket, so in a year or two when you want a dual core CPU, it is ready for the love.

You can stick your current AGP card in there, and it has an empty PCI-express slot waiting for you when you are ready to upgrade.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157081

 

[werty316]

Stick with gettting a S939 system so you can take advantage of dual channel controller. S754 is pretty much dead. Any board withe the nForce3 chipset you should get but if you don't plan on OC then get VIA.

 

[larg0]

thanks, but thats already been linked...also i was in the progress of writing the following when my email beep went off notifying me of another response:

[EDIT: the previous statement was intended for donnagual, but someone else posted before i finished]

i would like to make the move to PCI express, but i certainly wouldnt be able to for a while. i had already come across that ASrock mobo someone linked in this post, but didnt give it too much thought - however at this time, the ASrock mobo is the road i'm thinking of taking (after trudging through about 190 of the 255 customer reviews).

but as a hypothetical comp build, i dont really see a huge problem if i were to stick with the AGP. imagine tigerdirect didnt worship satan, and i got that asus combo package. it would, hands down, be my last 754 system and my last AGP system. but when i felt forced to upgrade my 9800 pro - say about a year or so from now - my cash flow would still be just as bad as when i bought the pro (for $194) a bout 1.5 years ago. So i wouldnt be looking for any top o' the line card, but more like what is considered a higher-end card at this very moment in time...say, for example, an X800/850 or a 6800.

even if i were to make the same upgrade at the same time, but to a PCIE card, i would still be looking for cards in the same rough price range. - e.g. the same aforementioned cards, only with a PCIE format.

my argument is that no matter what card i got, they would be just about interchangable in terms of quality - check it:

using the radeon X850 XT w/ 3DMark05 as an example here - the AGP version scored a 6098, while the PCIE version got a 5952

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050705/vga-charts-pcie-02.html#3d_mark_2005
vs
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050524/vga_charts-02.html#3d_mark_2005

sure, the best PCIE card beats out the best AGP card, but i still probably coulnt afford this 6800 SLI business in a year.




i realize this post seems like it belongs in another forum - i just still dont see why it would have been that terrible of a decision (based on my logic anyways). despite this amphetamine-lengthed post, you'll all be happy to know that in the end, i've decided to go with the 939 san diego chip - and most likely with the ASrock board...i'm sure i'll post something about that dual board to get some more feedback in the next couple days...but i've spent too many hours working on this stuff now and i really need to watch all the shows i missed tonight


hooray for DVR

 

[DragonMaster]

I would have told 939 but I see that it's not everybody's case to be able to get 939 cheaper than 754.