gideontech.com — Between the choice of AMD's AM2 or it's ?old? socket 939 chip, which would you choose? Here's an article that sums up the differences between the two and what you can expect from choosing one over the other.
Sep 20, 2006 View in Crawl 4
jeebugornSep 20, 2006
i have heard of the corn row
alucardxSep 20, 2006
looks like core duo 2 until AMD's nextgen chip comes out.. K8 i guess.
spyrochaeteSep 20, 2006
AMD and NVidia are good buddies too. In my opinion Nforce is the best chipset for the AM2 right now, and SLI support is far better on AMD than Intel.Also notable is the fact that Intel, in response to the ATI/AMD merger, is limiting ATI cards to a slower bus speed. Consequently, ATI has recently stated that they are no longer interested in supporting Intel whatsoever.The fairly even religious AMD/Intel debate might turn into a desktop user / gamer debate at this rate. Between its insistance on continuing to support the ancient 775 socket and intentional underclocking of ATI cards Intel is really limiting its future options.
kakapu4uSep 20, 2006
For those Fry's deals that are processor and motherboard combos, are they listed as separate line items on your receipt? Or do you find an not very knowledgeable agent to do your return?
balberty9Sep 20, 2006
Just to crush all the intel vs AMD debate now. The companies themeselves took two ENTIRELY different roads. Intel, completely redesigned their dual core architecture for Core 2 Duo. AMD on the other hand, had the market on lock and decided to skip a dual core redesign completely and head straight for quad core (ala K8L/Barcelona). So for everyone thats whining about AMD not keeping up or how Conroe "kicks ass". Just wait until next year when a mere quad core intel (2 core twos slapped together) gets its pants handed to it by a new native quad core AMD. Then we will see whose the "bitch" goat4.
jaguartSep 20, 2006
I totally agree. Buy what you can afford now, knowing full well that in 12 months you can go with a vidcard upgrade to keep your system current, and then in 24+ months expect to dump the whole thing for a new one, as even power supplys are becoming obsolete with newfangled connectors.Its better to go modest and plan for a totally new system, than to go totally high-end thinking its the last thing you'll ever need to buy.
smiley2billionSep 20, 2006
"DDR2 is not going to make that huge a difference"Exactly. AMD knows this. Here's a quote from the article (where it lost me)"AMD touts this as a major technological breakthrough."AMD waited forever to bring out AM2 because they knew DDR2 wasn't worth messing with until know. Sure it has the hardware virtualization, but how many of you even know what thats for? (Hint: Linux + XEN)I just built a new machine using the 4800 x2 with the 939 chip. I also have a 4400 x2 939 as well. They're both great chips, as I'm sure the AM2's are as well.
junesixSep 20, 2006
Fry's has already caught on to this in our neck of the woods. The proc and mobo show up as two separate line items but the proc rings up as full price while the mobo rings up at a discounted price when purchased together. For instance, the 3800+ Orleans combo I bought recently rung up at full price and the ECS mobo was $10 for the full $129. So if you return the mobo, you're left with a normally priced proc.