New Computer Upgrade

[Neutron]

Well, I ordered an Athlon64 motherboard and an Athlon64 2800+ today. I want to try out Windows XP 64-bit. I really got it because I keep hearing that the Athlon64 is EXCELLENT for gaming!

My current system is a P4 1.8

 

[dfergie]

This sys is an 1.67gig athalon, my older sys is a 1 gig P3... I have a p4 3 gig with ht tech but it is in my ht room rarely used..btw my first pc was a 300mhz k6 as I got into pc's rather late I had and have C-64/128's....btw I did a lot of gaming on the C-64/ 128's now I rarely do that with pc's...

 

[Neutron]

My very first computer was a TI 99/4A, then I got my first modern computer which was an 8088.

 

[dfergie]

With my c64 and a 300 baud modem I could access a local bulleten board, and sort of chat and long distance get in touch with a bbs in Albuqurque... the forerunners of the net... then I got a 1200 baud modem... like broadband

 

[TuxCoder]

I miss all the BBSes in my area. Several Wildcat ones, some quite good, and there were others. I remember one was trying out a graphics interface that sucked royally and thus did not last long.

To this day I still know the phone number for "Bob's Bulldog Express", my favorite. 411.org shows that number as still being valid, might have to give it a shot. There was also "3 Angels" and "The Mausoleum". I'm sure others will come back to me now that you guys have got me flashing back to the good ole days.

But back to the thread topic, that sounds like the beginnings of a pretty nice system, Neutron. You'll have to put a 64-bit Linux kernel on there just for me, OK?

 

[Neutron]

I've seriously thought about 64-bit Linux.

If it wasn't for World of Warcraft I would go full blown Linux. Gotta look at a dual boot system though thanks to WoW.

I'm considering test driving Win XP 64-bit RC1 as well.

I really want to learn this 64-bit CPU.

I got a sweet deal on the motherboard and CPU. The motherboard is a Gigabyte K8NS with the nForce3 250 chipset. I got it brand new off of eBay for $61 including shipping.

The CPU I got is an AMD Athlon64 2800+. I got it from ZipZoomFly for $127, including free FedSux 2-day air. It's in a retail box so it comes with a fan. The CPU will run at 1.8GHz, but it's FSB is 200MHz bumped to 800MHz due to it's system bus. The thing I will REALLY like is the memory controller is built into the CPU, so it runs at full CPU speed, not FSB. This has really helped with performance.

I'm going to eBay my MSI PT8 Neo motherboard and P4 1.8GHz once I switch everything around. I've also got a Dell P4 motherboard I'm going to eBay, plus my Samsung 4040R DTivo. I'm hoping to get somewhat close to break even point for the upgrade.

 

[charper1]

You made a wise chipset choice! To get the top specs from the Athlon64 you need to run the nForce3 Pro 250 mobos. I would look into upgrading to the top rated Athlon64 mobo however, the Asus K8N-E DLX. You don't want to hold back the processor!

I run this board with the Athlon64 3700+ and 2GB of PC3200 Pro memory / CAS-2

 

[Neutron]

What OS are you running?

Have you noticed any performance gains over a 32-bit CPU?

 

[charper1]

I still run Win2k Pro, and will untill something REALLY better comes out. and I noticed a big performance boost, BUT my system before was a AthlonXP 2800+ Barton/333 FSB with 2GB of RAM so its really not apples to apples if you know what I mean.

 

[Neutron]

I'm jumping up from a Northwood P4 1.8 to the Athlon64 2800+

I'm hoping to see some differences in how both operates when playing graphic intensive and CPU/memory intensive games like World of Warcraft.

 

[Neutron]

I've definately seen some differences so far. I'm even running Windows XP 64-bit beta, since RC1 isn't public yet.

The install took 40 min, on my P4 1.8 XP Home took over an hour, close to 1.5 hours.

It boots up faster. I'm going to try my game out tonight and see if I notice any differences.