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Is it a Good Time to Get an Athlon64?

Posted by Cliff on from the short-and-sweet dept.

City_Idiot asks: "I'm looking to upgrade my current P4 2.4Ghz and i'm giving serious thought to a Athlon64 3200+. The tests look good, and it gives a 3Ghz P4 a good run for its money but is the technology ready for end users?"

2 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Alternatives by cgenman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Don't forget alternatives to buying an Athlon 64 that can increase speed and productivity. A Dual-Processor machine can be a real speed boost, and is more natively supported. Likewise, faster system busses, more ram, and going to a RAID setup can increase speed. At that kind of cost, why not put everything in a RAM based rocketdrive? Have you maxed your graphics cards? Do you have a cheap 8139 NIC that taxes your processor?

    Let's not forget human-centric productivity increasers, like macro-scriptable keyboards, larger moniters, and deleting AIM. Have you considered DVORAK?

    There are many thing cheaper than an Athlon64 that will increase productivity. An intern, for example. Only when the system is both financially sound and better than the alternatives should the transition be undertaken. Perhaps you are the system network maintainer for Google, but for most people the Athlon64 just isn't ripe yet.

    --
    The ______ Agenda
  2. I too am planning an AMD64 home system.. by trentfoley · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Price are from pricewatch (excluding companies operated by bzboyz)

    103.00 Antec Sonata Case
    TruePower 380 Watt ATX12V power supply
    193.97 ASUS SK8N NVDIA nForce 3 pro150 Chipset DDR RAM AGP8X 5xPCI Audio LAN 6USB2.0 ATX
    722.00 Athlon64 FX51
    27.00 Thermaltake A1838 CPU Heatsink/Fan for AMD Opteron / Athlon64
    202.00 2@512 MB PC 3200 registered
    35.00 1.44MB Floppy/6in1 Flash
    246.00 2@Seagate ST3160023AS 160GB Serial ATA 7200rpm 8MB
    200.00 Visontek ATI Radeon 9600 XT 256MB
    58.50 Samsung SM-352BEB 52X24X52X16 CD-RW & DVD Combo Drive
    206.00 Plextor PX-708A/SW-BL Dual Format 8X DVD
    1179.00 VP201B Viewsonic Monitor

    Add in thermal grease, round cables, etc and the price comes in below $3200.

    Needless to say, I give AMD64 the thumbs up. If you can afford to go, you will help accelerate adoption.

    Plus, don't forget that the Athlon64 is still a very fast 32bit processor. However, I'm not sure if the FX chip is worth the premium. I'll be building the system in January (after I get my xmas dough) and will then know.

    The last high-end system I built was a dual ppro200. SMP in Linux was experimental (yet worked great for me) back then. Yet, this very old computer is still running and handling several domains' email. It has more than paid for itself. I hope this new system fares as well.

    As an aside, if anyone sees something blatantly wrong with one of my part selections, please explain. I'm torn over going over to ATI. I haven't tried an ATI card since the early 90's and I hated them. However, from what I understand, ATI is the gamer's choice.

    BTW, I have absolutely no need for the power this machine will provide. I just want to play and learn with 64bit OS's and still be able to run 32bit games with great graphics.