New Build / AMD Chipset Question

[Bob McBob]

New member here...

I'm building my first PC and here's what I'm looking at putting togeather:

- Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe 939 nForce 4 Mobo
- AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Hammer Chipset
- Corsair ValueSelect 1GB (2 x 512) DDR SDRAM 400 (PC3200)

I have a few questions for you fine folks:

1) Is there any appreciable difference between Hammer/Winchester/Veniece chipsets, or is it all fairly minor variations? Recomendations anyone?

2) The processor comes with a heatsink/fan. Should I ditch that for a fancier one or is the one that ships with the processor generally adequate? I'm building a budget gamer.

Thanks for your feedback. I'm sure I'll be back with more questions as I get into this project. I've been quite impressed with the quality and depth of info on these boards.

- Bob

 

[vnf4ultra]

1). I'd go for a venice, they're newest and have a better memory controller built in than winchester cores. Venice also seems to overclock very well.

2). I have a winchester 3000+ and I'm using the stock hsf, and I have it oc'ed from 1.8ghz to 2.45ghz, and it's still plenty cool, sometimes the "cool and quiet" feature of my board completely stops the cpu fan since it's cool, even while oc'ed. That'd never happen with an intel cpu, they run hot. A aftermarket cpu cooler may work better, but I don't really see the need, at least in my case.

Good luck on the build.
One suggestion, use a Quality power supply, like an enermax or antec.
Here's a good system building guide if you're interested.
http://www.hardwarezone.com/guides/amd-socket939/
The first couple pages are a little boring, but I think it's a good guide.

 

[Bob McBob]

Thanks for the feedback

The power supply I have tentatively lined up is:

Thermaltake Silent Purepower 480W

Seemed to have good reviews on NewEgg and the specs look good.

Thanks for the link to the guide. I'm reading everything I can get my hands on right now and it's always nice to have another reference.

- Bob

 

[vnf4ultra]

I think that psu has a 20 pin main atx connector, while the newer nforce 4 boards have a 24 pin connector. Some boards can use either(20 or 24). For 20, they just leave 4 blank, but I don't know if yours can do this or not. I think it'd be best to get a 24 pin psu to start though. Here are some decent ones.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103465
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817101516

Are you doing sli? If so you need a psu that has 2 pci-e power connectors, like the last psu I listed.

 

[Justin]

I have that exact same power supply. It came with a 20 --> 24pin adapter in the box. Right now it is driving dual athlons. It's a quality product, I reccomend it. It'd fit nicely with just about any system.

 

[RealBlackStuff]

That's the ONLY good PSU that EPower has ever made. Their other models are not even wanted for scrap-metal! That Tagan is up there with the best.

 

[Justin]

Just to clarify, I was referring to the Thermaltake 480W Silent Purepower. They are known for quality stuff.

 

[vnf4ultra]

That's the ONLY good PSU that EPower has ever made. Their other models are not even wanted for scrap-metal! That Tagan is up there with the best.

Lol, how true, I have the epower tagan 480w psu in my a64 rig, and it's a good one but I've heard the other e powers (non-tagan) are waste. BTW, there are two tagan 480w's the one I linked to above is the newer one(u22), which has dual rails(that can combine if desired) and two pci-e(sli) power connectors. I have the older 480w, but it seems like a good unit.