AM2Gamer - coming this week

seVVVen

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11 Jun 2006
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*****EDIT June 24, 2006: AMD rig is being scrapped in favor of the upcoming Intel Conroe......sigh.

It's been a few years since I put together my decent P4 1.6GHz (OC'd to 2.1GHz) and it's time for a massive update.

The 'second' the AMD AM2 X2 4400+ hits the stores (hopefully this week), I'll be putting this sweet baby together.




NZXT Lexa Classic Case ATX (already bought)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 [AM2] 4400+ Dual Core Processor
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe WiFi Edition AM2 motherboard
2GB Corsair TWINX2048-6400C4 DDR2-800 w/EPP
Asus EN7900GTX 512MB nvidia vidcard
Enermax Liberty 620W modular PSU (ELT620AWT)
2x - WD Caviar SE16 SATA II - WD3200KS - 320GB (640GB total)
2x - WD Caviar (Ultra ATA-100) - WD2000JB - 200GB (already own, 400GB total)
Plextor PX-716SA Int. SATA 8mb (6X Dual Layer DVD & CDRW)

Onboard MOBO sound should be fine with my 5.1 Logitech speaker set for now. Will upgrade to Creative's X-Fi Fatality edition sound card later on. Monitor/kybd/mouse = keeping what I got already but a 20" LCD is definitely coming soon after (likely the NEC 20WMGX2 widescreen :).

Considered getting the new Asus EN7950GX2 instead (1GB) but figured since I'll likely upgrade the vidcard next year anyway for the newer DX10 series vidcards for Vista, the EN7900GTX beast should do just fine for now.

Same thing goes with the PSU, I will likely upgrade to 1000W+ next year (if i add a 2nd vidcard in the SLI) but 620W is enuf with a single vidcard.

Watcha think?
 
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Why not work with the conroe processor instead?
 
Valid question about the Conroe but so far I haven't seen anything 'independant' that shows it's any better than AMD. A lot of the so-called pre-benchmarks are heavily Intel-skewed. AMD makes great gaming-oriented cpus and AMD seems to work better with nVidia products than Intel does. (or so I've been told).

Not to mention, with the amount of pain-staking research I put into this current rig, it would burst my head to look for all new mobo/vidcard/ram components that work well together for the Conroe stuff. Maybe in a couple years or whatever I'll go back to Intel.
 
Well, I've used it a few times and fwiw, those "intel-skewed" benches you are talking about are accurate :)

If you've really put that much time and effort into your research, you would know the marchitecture of the core2 procs will be better than the AM2 socket procs.

AMD is going to be behind till k8l drops, at least. Even the stop gap multi-proc/multi-core band-aid method is not likely to prove much use.
 
why not get an eVGA 7900GTX or somethin? must be spending quite a bit more just for the Asus name. i mean yeah.... Asus is nice and lovely, but i doubt they have as good of a warranty.
 
Simply put, Asus has me hooked. The quality and design rarely disappoint. Look at eVga's extras and features (are there any?) vs the huge list of additional features Asus includes with their 7900GTX card.

e-GeForce 7900 GTX EGS
http://www.evga.com/products/moreinfo.asp?pn=512-P2-N570-AX&pwindow=features&family=22

Asus EN7900GTX
http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=2&l2=6&l3=0&model=1062&modelmenu=1

well worth the extra $50 or so IMO. And 3 years warranty vs a 'life-time' (still means about 3 years anyway) doesn't make any diff. If it doesn't fail in the 1st few months, it should last the warranty period.

And the eVga doesn't have King Kong's face on the card .... I mean c'mon.. ;)
 
well.... i don't even look at those extra apps cause not once have i used anything like that. yes.... asus is a quality (and well known) name.... but i'd rather keep my $50 and spend it on something i'd get more use out of than apps to put my face in the game and crap like that.
 
Actually. Conroe is a much better processor at the moment. Although AMD will be releasing K8Ls sometime late next year that will hopefully bring them back into the game. The AM2s just don't have that much power to compete. The only gain you get with AM2 really is a new memory controller, as well as DDR2 which doesn't have that much of an advance.

I would also look into maybe going with 2 7900GTs in SLi. Your cost will be around the same, plus you'll have a better setup than just a single 7900GTX. Ram is good, HD's are good. Oh and I have the Plextor 716SA, I wouldn't recommend it. Yeah, SATA is nice, but the drive doesn't perform all that great. I'd go with a BenQ 1650 or whatever their new one is. It's been kicking the butt of the plextor for a while.
 
Yeah, I'd recommend SLI over a single card solution or poke around the ATI x1900XTX :)

I'd also serisouly consider Core 2 next month..
 
That's a lot of cash to invest. As others have said, I would try to wait for Conroe if I were you.

Keep in mind the only REAL difference in the AM2 is support for DDR2 RAM. The Conroe will actually go up in performance by around 40% compared to their previous chips, and down in power consumption by about 40%

:up:
 
Well AMD has made the decision for me. I just learned the AM2 4400+ with 2MB cache will not be released after all and most of the online retailers have started deleting it from their catalogs. It turns out AMD is cutting all the mid-range AM2 chips with 2MB cache so they could manufacture Opterons with 2MB cache in their factories. All thats left is the super-expensive high-end 4800+ and 5000+(or whatever) and the lower end models with 1MB total cache (512Kx2).

I still might go for that in the 4600+ model, but I'm uber-disappointed in AMD for pulling that stunt. As for waiting for Conroe, once again we've been treated (check THG's latest-suckup-benchtests) to an Intel-sponsored, Intel-prepared benchmark 'test' and it will be weeks before an indie benchmark test is released for the Conroes. I did read the Hexus article but it still doesn't ring totally true. I simply can't understand how Intel can still be charging over a $1000 for some of their current EE line and these so-called killer Conroes are supposed to appear next month at 1/4 of that price fpr the highest model. When it's too good to be true....

Sort of in a holding pattern for the next few days I guess.......
 
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Can you then explain how and why AMD is going to slash prices upto 40/50% when Conroe is released on their processors when they are charging 1000+ for some of them?
 
Its great I think how Intel now is forced to panic and slash prices, All along as AMD gathered more and more steam , this has lead to a great ends for the consumer, we now have choice, and value thanks to AMD.
 
That is a good point Shamus, and is the beauty of competitive competition. Similar to how MS owns the PC-based Operating System market, it's good to have a choice in the CPU market that both provide advantages.

I'm excited to see what really comes of the Conroe, in reality it should cause AMD to make a serious move as well to level the playing field. From what has been hyped, the Conroe will p0wn anything AMD currently has out.

I love seeing two companies fight for my hard earned processor dollar :smoker: :cool:
 
this looks like a pretty sweet build..

I will post mine in a few days...I have to find the file...

Sweet case too btw...

where did you get it?...i know what its called...lol..but not where to get it locally..
 
PC Power and Cooling is very expensive... When I built the rig I have now last april I seriously considered getting one and It just didnt seem worth the money. You can still get a very nice PSU for about half the money, not as nice as the PC Power and cooling but a better value atleast.

At the same time though, the worst thing you can do is underestimate the importance and value of your PSU. If you feel its worth spending around 250 after tax and shipping on a PSU knock yourself out.
 

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