AMD 64 question

[GMeagle86]

I was wondering if I got an 64 bit AMD CPU and a motherboard....would I have to get WinXP 64 bit edition? or would winxp pro work? are there many advantages to getting a 64bit processor?

Do any of you have a motherboard/processor combo you would suggest? I do use a lot of processing power...video editing...photoshop some gaming....etc.. I kinda want it to have PCI express...(do PCI express Motherboards come with an AGP slot?)

Thanks!

 

[Hipster Doofus]

See what you find in here.

 

[ShepsCrook]

No, you don't need Windows 64bit Edition.

The AMD64 bit processors are both 32 and 64bit compatible. You should really read their site on the processors. They make it clear because that's one of their main selling features is that it's 32bit compatible.

Yes, there's a lot of advantages.
64bit processesors are dominating the Gaming world right now.
They run VERY cool and are highly overclockable.
They are the next Gen. processors so they have a longer life span then 32bit.
They have extremely high FSB for nice media prosesses.
They utilize the Cool N Quiet feature which uses less power when the processor is doing nothing keeping the processor cooler.
The 64bit chip along with Windows XP SP2 provides advanced processor and system virus protection.

As for the motherboards, theres a few floating around and I'm still looking into them because I'm debating on which board to purchase and or processor.

I'm thinking about an AMD64 3200 with 1mb cache (ClawHammer 754 pin)
or a 3500 (Newcastle 939 pin)

Obviously the 939 gives you more power, as well as a longer lifespan, but the main thing is, it costs A LOT more. And with Dual core coming next year, and 90nm chips coming at the end of this year, I might want to save some of that cash until then, or get a cheaper 64bit now and save the extra for later.

Decisions Decisions.

 

[GMeagle86]

wow, there are a lot of decisions.

Is PCI express an option yet?

 

[ShepsCrook]

Oops, when I said 32bit processors are dominating the gaming world, I meant 64bit. I corrected it.

 

[Tuffgong4]

pci express for athlon 64 probably won't be around til the end of the year

 

[ShepsCrook]

Yeah, I think that's the time frame. There's a DFI that's suppose to come out soon that is suppose to be REALLY good. But noone knows for sure.

 

[GMeagle86]

Dfi?

 

[ShepsCrook]

http://www.dfi.com.tw/Product/xx_pr...p?PRODUCT_ID=2840&CATEGORY_TYPE=LP UT&SITE=US

 

[ShepsCrook]

This is only for the 754 pin series AMD64s. Not the 939 pin models.

 

[ShepsCrook]

Here's the Asus 754 Board of choice.
http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socket754/k8n-e_d/overview.htm

 

[ShepsCrook]

There's the Abit boards too. The K8V Pro and Pro 3rd Eye or something like that. Those I haven't heard too much about.

 

[GMeagle86]

My motherboard currently doesn't have stats (fan speeds, tempts etc.) is that standard now with the newer motherboards..??

You guys have been a great help!

 

[ShepsCrook]

Yeah, I'd say most motherboards have that feature now. Alot of times, the fan temps and whatnot are all in the bios.

 

[Sazar]

sheps... consider using the EDIT key when posting information please... seeing 6 or 7 posts within a coupla minutes doesn't help the flow of a thread at all m8... its common etiquette...

gmeagle... a coupla articles put up for people considering a move to a64's... was accurate @ the time of writing...

http://forum.osnn.net/showthread.php?t=39474

there are no current pci-E motherboards for a64 based systems, however there is no advantage currently to switching to pci-express... if you into video encoding and the like you may want to look @ a pentium 4 setup as an option as well...

for gaming and the like an a64 setup would be best by a few fps...

consider what you are going to be doing with the system... consider a budget and then go with a system configuration that will best suit your needs...

socket 754 is a decent solution if you are not going to be using massively memory intensive applications... generally it is not that far off a sckt 939 system though I would advise going with a socket 939 system for future proofing reasons... the 754 range will likely top out @ around the 3900+ or 4000+ or something like that from the grapevine...

there are no advantages to using a 64bit o/s @ the moment unless you decide to use a linux distro... in that case you can see some big gains...

winxp-64 has shown little to no gains in tests so far though this is with an unfinished o/s and generally raw drivers... it has potential however...

pretty much all new motherboards come with system monitoring software and thermal diodes built-in... as is the a64 processor have a built-in thermal diode to prevent the cpu from over-heating... any extra's are generally part of the package that the mobo maker ships with the board...

the information for my board (fan speeds/temps/clocks) are all displayed via an MSI tool that monitors the data and also allows me to OC via the desktop (not that I really oc at all anyways )

btw why is it that you want to get a pci-E based board?

 

[ShepsCrook]

I'm sure he's looking for PCI-E because of PCI-E based video cards. There's no other real reason for that unless that is your desire.

Sorry for the multi posting on this one, I was trying to get the information out as fast as possible for him and hitting edit takes longer then just throwing up a quick response.

 

[GMeagle86]

I only get a new motherboard/cpu every few years...so when I do. I want to make sure I get a fairly good one so that it won't be outdated soon. I was just wondering about PCI-E...if it had already come out, and was going to be cheap I might have got it, but for now I am going to stick with AGP for my video card.

BTW, good guide Sazar.