Hi there, can u guys please explain me, what is exactly an Athlon 64 ?
We were going to buy a new PC, and
CPU AMD Athlon XP 3200+ 2,166Ghz, FSB 400MHz, 0,13, B, Box
is the same price as
CPU AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 2,0Ghz/512kB, FSB 800MHz, Soc. 754, Box

So what is the difference between these two computers ?

and another question:

is this motherboard a good one ?
Abit KV8 Soc.754/K8T800/A133/SA/U2.0/H6x/GL/ATX

PS : sorry if my questions are n00by , lame , etc.
:blush:

Well without going into details the Athlon64 3000+, even with its frequency below that of the AthlonXP 2800+ is a much better chip (especially when it comes to gaming). It also has the "cool'n'quiet" feature which lowers the speed & voltage of the CPU when it's not under much demand, similar to what laptops do. As a result, the system will run cooler'n'quieter.

That Abit board is nice but still does not have a functional PCI/AGP lock, so overclocking will be somewhat limited because of that.

ehm... but why athlon64 is much better ? what will be better in gaming ?
also, can u suggest something good , we dont want to buy expensive ones like
CPU AMD Opteron 242 1,6Ghz/1MB, Soc.940, FSB 800MHz, in box
or
CPU Intel Pentium 4 3,4GHz/1MB, FSB 800MHz, HT, 478, in box

and we are looking at
CPU AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 2,0Ghz/512kB, FSB 800MHz, Soc. 754, Box

CPU AMD Athlon XP 3200+ 2,166Ghz, FSB 400MHz, 0,13, B, Box

and
CPU Intel Pentium 4 3,0GHz/1MB, FSB 800MHz, HT, 478, in box
What will you suggest ? Or maybe something else ?

( and what exactly is Intel Pentium M? )

It's better then the AthlonXP because it is of a newer generation. It has taken the strong sides of the AthlonXP (very good floating point, exclusive cache system, 3Dnow, SSE) & brought its own innovations (integrated memory controller, longer pipeline, SSE2, cool'n'quiet, integrated heat spreader) & that's not even taking into account 64-bit computing (which isn't available yet on Windows platforms).

The Pentium-M is a laptop oriented CPU & there are no motherboards available or at least that you can purchase easilly, to use them on desktops (as of yet).

Opterons are for servers & high-end workstations & requires Registered ram modules which is more expensive the regular ram. The 2xx in 242 means it has been validated to run in either single or dual CPU platforms.

The Athlon64 3000+ is the best bang for buck CPU out of the ones you listed.

and finally, about the mobos:

Abit AS8 Soc.775/i865PE/800/SATA/F/USB2.0/H6X/L/ATX

Abit IC7 Soc.478/i875PE/800/SATA/USB2.0/H6X/ATX

Abit IC7-G Soc.478/i875PE/800/SATA/USB2.0/H6X/GL/ATX ( this one is the most expensive, but is it the best? )

Abit IS7-E2 Soc.478/i865PE/800/SATA/USB2.0/H6X/LAN/ATX

Abit KV8 Soc.754/K8T800/A133/SA/U2.0/H6x/GL/ATX

Abit NF7 Soc.A/nForce2/ATA133/LAN/USB2.0/H6x/ATX

Abit NF7-SL Soc.A/nForce2/SA/LAN/USB2.0/F/H6x/ATX

Abit VT7 Soc.478/PT880/800/SA/DualDDR/U2.0/H6X/LAN

which whould you suggest ?

Well it depends on the CPU you intend to use. You can't get any board & put any CPU on it.

You could first look at the boards, find which one has the features you want (SATA, RAID, onboard sound, Gigabit ethernet, Firewire, etc.) & from there choose the CPU to go with it.

what is the best one with Athlon64 3000+ ?

and i dont really know what is SATA, RAID or Firewire, and yep onboard sound would be good

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2128

That link won't really help as the Athlon64 3000+ is on the Socket-754.

Read this article instead -> Socket 754 roundup part 2 @ Anandtech.com

SATA = Latest disk attachment technology. Just a higher throughput connection for hard disks slowly replacing ATA133 and now other devices such as optical devices are becoming available with this type of connection.

Firewire = Port similar to USB2 in speed, used mostly for connecting high speed video devices such as digital video cameras etc.. Also used by Apple iPods and other media devices.

RAID = Redundant Array of Independant Disks. Allows for several setups, either slight access speed increase with splitting data between several drives or mirroring the same data on both drives to provide and online backup of your data.

I had the Asus K8VSE Deluxe motherboard and it was great. Can recommend it for a 754 solution, although if your buying now then an nForce3 250 based board would be your best buy since it supports PCI/AGP locks and features an onboard hardware firewall for protection when online.