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The Athlon 64 3000+, A Budget Gamer's Perspective
VL contributes a link to Viperlair's budget-conscious and game-oriented review of an AMD processor that's not on the bleeding edge, but makes a good showing for the money: "For the price of the Socket-939, you can pick up an A64 3000+, K8T800 based motherboard, and a decent mid-range video card. For gamers on a budget, I think the choice is obvious."
The benchmark screenshots that they post show the chip being outpaced by a 3.2Ghz Pentium 4??
GNAA/the government now offers free shipping supplies to shippers and anuses cavities
now and I can aford 3 or 4 and make my super computer... all I need is some homemade duct-tape.
- Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
....in Police Quest IV?
Amd will be switching over to all 939 eventually.
And it's a 64! :)
What games are good these days? I haven't gamed since the days of Quake I. I liked the old Mechwarrior games, too. What's out now? I'm a fan of realism, first-person, and strategy/tactical combination games.
Engineering and the Ultimate
...it gets you!
Yawn.
This review claims that the cheapest socket 939 processor is $450. With the recent price drops, you can get a retail 3500+ for about $350, compared to $220 for a 3200+ or $175 for 3000+. Also, the review would have been much more useful had it shown results for both versions of the 3200+, so that you can compare the impact of clock speed and cache.
> Trying to put together a new system
/.'d article didn't go into any depth between Mac or PC... just cardies.
Heh, you and everyone else now that Doom 3 is out! I'm considering going with a Mac, as I'm a developer, but I may stick with a PC. Anyone know the differences between the top Mac vs top PC with Doom 3? The recent
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
But will it run Duke Nukem Forever?
From the article:
Although there is no official 64-bit version of Windows, the chip can run 32-bit code natively. For those who are anti-Microsoft, there are some 64-bit versions of Linux, but if you're feeling adventurous, you can always pick up a beta of Windows XP 64-Bit Edition.
Since when was running Linux an anti-Microsoft thing? This is the kind of crap the OSS community needs to stomp out in order to give Linux the reputation it deserves and broaden its adoption, especially on the desktop.
On a more constructive note, since UT2003/4, Quake3, Doom3, and a handfull of other badass games are supported by Linux why isnt there a Linux-Gamers distro. Even if it were just a bootable knoppix CD that could take advantage of the Athlon 64 and play these games off your harddrive it would really help get linux on the desktop in the gamers croud. I can just hear the taunts coming from the LAN dude playing Doom3 on Linux in 64 bit, "You wanna piece of me, you cant handle my BFG! I got 64 bits with your name on it", etc...
Or was it just me?
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
used to be the lazy man's way to make sure you got a good mobo. You could always just buy an Intel branded board and you'd be good to go. With AMD, you had to navigate through several choices to avoid a crappy board (yes, I know those choices where there for Intel too, but they were so easy to avoid).
:).
Whelp, Nvidia came along and changed that. Now I recommend AMD/Nforce to everyone I talk too, if only for the kick-@$$ sound on the higher end boards
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
While CPU speeds may not be going up as fast as they used to, prices just seem to keep falling. You can now build yourself a socket 752 system with a decent video card for $1000, minus monitor.
My last build, a T-bird 1.4ghz, was in 2001. It cost $1200, yet the thing was built with a lot of the cheapest parts - the case, the mobo, the drives. It overheated constantly because of the poor airflow in thge case, which I eventually fixed through a crude expansion to the existing front intake in the bezel, and by moving the case fan from the side to the back.
My next one, to be ordered sometime this month, is going be smaller(using the Antec Aria and an m-ATX), faster(A64 2800+), quieter(better PSU, fans and heatsinks), and cheaper($950 including all-new cards and peripherals, unlike the previous one, which stripped whatever it could from the one that came before it).
Is it really worth anything or is it just hype?
It is evident that Piquepaille is just a karmawhore whose aim is to make money for anti-slash with his ad-links.
Devious, isn't it? Slashdot is helping anti-slash financially by accepting Roland's submissions.
--
Secret Squirrel
a link to [a] budget-conscious and game-oriented review of an AMD processor that's not on the bleeding edge, but makes a good showing for the money... "For gamers on a budget, I think the choice is obvious."
So, if you're on a budget you shouldn't buy bleeding edge? Wow, thanks for that amazing bit of insight. I'll file it next to "the Pope might be Catholic" and "day is warmer than night" in my mental list of secret bits of info that might come in handy sometime.
Seriously though, doesn't it seem like we're constantly being told this by Slashdot every six months? I wouldn't mind, but even if it wasn't so bloody obvious then it's the kind of thing that the average Slashdot reader would have learnt years ago.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
XP 2500 ($80), FX5700 or Radeon 9800 ($200), SB Live 4.1 ($30), 1 gig DDR ($200), 160 gig Seagate SATA ($120), ASUS MATX MoBo ($100), CD-RW/DVD Combo drive ($75) and a nice case ($75).
This comes in at just under $700. It's a very nice system that can play any game out there. Really who needs more than that for your current gaming needs? Sure you can shell out another grand for the bleeding edge but I would rather spend another 700 in two years and kick my old box down to the wife.
The sweet spot for me mostly lies around the bottom range of hardware that is sold new. A couple of times better than what you have, brandnew, with warranty, and relatively affordable.
For single components, ignore the component-only specs, always consider how they improve your full setup. A CPU that's twice as fast, won't make your entire system twice as fast.
Buy Athlon 64 3000+ rather than 3200+. Save $64. Get a socket 939 motherboard thats upgradable as socket 754 will be for AMD budget chips. Overclock the 3000+ and get better performance than the 3200+ not overclocked (duh), or leave it stock and stay within 10% on high resolution in most games.
Interesting,
Far Cry benchmarks at 1024:
Athlon 64 3200+ - 36.26 FPS
Athlon 64 3000+ - 33.21 FPS
Quake 3 benchmarks at 1024 (why do they still bench it?):
Athlon 64 3200+ - 322.7 FPS
Athlon 64 3000+ - 321.8 FPS
a 3 frame lead makes a difference when your only in the 30 FPS ballpark, nothing a few graphics settings cant fix, but when we talk about 322 vs 321 FPS I'm blown away that anyone would care.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
Why was this modded down? The parent was absolutely correct to admonish the grandparent poster who was suggesting something that was not only techinically incorrect but also really absurd as far as performance is concerned.
I mean, really people, get your prioitie sstraight. Are we going to have a honest discussion of the facts or some la-la land of moderator censorship of posts that attempt to provide accurate information?
Blatant racism over at metafilter.
XP 25000 (120$), ASUS a78nx-e deluxe (130$), nvidia ti4200 (80$), dvd burner (80$), 512mb cosair twinx ram (195$), seagate 160gig SATA 8m (120$), thermal take silent cpu fan (30$). Nice case 75$.
Thats a deluxe athlon setup and its 830$ canadian$$. Not only will it run all games, you get digital surround sound built in along with native command queing over sata. Plus 400mhz frontside bus. BLAZIN!
Face to face
Blood to blood
The mountain
You tumbled from
And in the land of rape and honey
You prey
Step by step
You climb the mountain
You prey
Fist to fist
Eye to eye
The rulers of the wasteland
And in the land of rape and honey
You prey
Step by step
You climb the mountain
You prey
Head to head
Chest to chest
Which country is the very best?
And in the land of rape and honey
You prey
Step by step
You climb the mountain
You prey
If you mean Soundstorm....they got rid of it for the Nforce3. They'll bring it back for the Nforce4.
Which (unfortunately) is still an uncorfirmed rumor.
There seem to be conflicting messages. The Inquirer has had two articles ([1], [2]) where they claim there will be a "SoundStorm 2" / SP-10 onboard.
However it has not been corfirmed by nVidia. In fact a "guy" from nVidia has said:"There may be some truth in there, but none of it has anything to do with audio. Makes me wonder how old this guy's data is.". [source].
If you are anti-Microsoft, what are you going to run? Probably Linux (if we're talking x86). Also, many people who run Linux for other reasons still exhibit a dislike for Microsoft. So, running Linux is not strictly an anti-Microsoft thing, but many people who do run Linux are anti-Microsoft. I think there is a correlation between people who run Linux and people who are anti-Microsoft, though obviously not 100%.
In regards to the Linux Gamer distro, all those games you mention are retail copyrighted games. You can't just slap them on a CD and give it away (I guess you can slap the Linux binaries on a CD). Also, all those games take up multiple CDs and you probably have to install them on Windows to get the data in a useful format. So, if you have to install them on Windows anyway, why the fuck would you bother to run them under a Linux live cd? The only way this would make sense is if the Linux binaries could unpack all the data from the original CDs. But then you would need hard disk space for that so why would you bother running a live cd instead of a regular distro?
They could have mentioned that, too. It's really nice to see my 3000+ stay below 30 degrees C(at 800MHz) most of the time I'm using it(and no case fans or anything, just what came in the box), and not even always going full-speed when gaming... Fairly quiet, too, even with my really cheap and quite loud case.
:)
Wouldn't help much in comparison with 3200+, but it's still a nice bonus on all Athlon64s, especially when over half of your time is spent on normal workstation tasks, with the rest being gaming
*sigh*, as a sibling post elegantly put it, seen too many people (including myself) burnt by VIA based boards to go back to them anytime soon.
I'll go back to buying AMD chips when AMD takes the time to put out quality boards like Intel does.
Quality > Features
Splinter Cell (and its sequel Pandora Tomorrow) are awesome games. They're really more sneaker than shooter, though. Splinter Cell 3 is due out sometime before Christmas.
I'm a huge fan of the Age of Empires games (Civilization is similar, but more involved). If you like that kind of thing, Rise of Nations is cool. You advance from the Classical Age all the way to the Information Age, trying to conquer the world. There is nothing more fun than dropping nuclear missles on enemy nations before sending in your troops to capture the cities.
Thief 3 is a good game, but again it's a sneaker. There are some really good levels (the haunted house will have you shitting your pants). But there are also some really dumb characters and species. If it were an entirely secular game it would have been awesome, but it's only 4/5 stars.
UT2k4 is good to just drop in and play online for an hour or so. Nothing fancy about it; it's just fun. The vehicles are great.
If you haven't played it, Half-Life is still a good game. I occasionally pull it out when I'm bored. I'm still waiting for Half-Life 2; it looks sweet. Also, I am a devoted Duke fan and STILL have faith that Duke Nukem Forever will be one of the greatest games ever. Hell, I still play Duke Nukem 3D (using the win32 or Linux ports).
If you've never played GTAIII or Vice City, go to the store right now and buy them. You will thank me later. GTAIII looks and feels dated to Vice City, but it's still a fun game on its own.
That's about it. Every other game is for niggers.
doom 3! (u expected linux huh! >:|)
Someone is already working on that, its called Linux Live Game Project, a live CD that is orientated around gaming, the home page is at http://tuxgamers.altervista.org.
A site I run with a friend currently mirror their distro over BitTorrent, check it out at The Linux Mirror Project
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
because it means within 12 months I can do a MAJOR speed upgrade on my current A-bit AI7 from P4/2.6/800 to a P4/3.2 Extreme edition with 2 meg of cache which will have dropped from today's 670 quid to about 100 quid.
and in the real world of non true 64 bit applications that do not require memory address spaces in excess of 4 gigabytes my old cheap p4 will still beat their "unequal" system component specs.
oh yeah, when your poxy sata hard disks can compete in REAL (eg NOT burst mode for 512 bytes) I/O speed with my second hand and cheap U160 scuzzies you let me know huh.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Heh. When I think gaming people I think windows. But, in this case, it's pointless: there's no stable 64-bit version of windows.
Now, if we start talking linux, then yes, this is great. At least with an nvidia card (note: ATI still has not come out with 64 bit drivers for linux).
And no, I didn't RTFA.
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
There's another version of the 3200+ that is 2.2GHz and has the 512K L2 cache, which is the one that most people will be getting anyway.
With btx-board standard, pci-express and new grafx cards coming out, is it worth upgrading now, and again in half a year? Or is everything far away?
Dude, you forgot to factor in the cost of the dual 20" LCD panel display into your price. Add $2000.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
"A P4 Extreme will NEVER be $100, especially since it has a 2 meg cache."
The price of a P4 EE has nothing to do with DRAM prices.
This guy is either lying to sell an article, or he needs to have his head screwed on straight and rearrange his priorities. Alternatively he's working for viperlair to work through college and the hardware in question doesn't actually belong to him. Viperlair doesn't seem to make that much money however.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
With Doom 3 coming out in, oh, 2 days, maybe I'll be able to run it on 640x480 (with an nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra) with all settings on low, but it's definitely a big maybe. Anyone got some deals on 2 GB packs of Corsair DDR400 RAM? Or perhaps my own personal Japanese guy to tweak my computer to run Doom 3 a little higher?
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
Yeah, OR, you could just buy an XP 2500+ (which cost next to nothing nowadays) and overclock it to XP 3200+. Seriously, with a plain Tt Volcano 9 it runs very well. Hell, during winter I even ran it with the original OEM fan.
I just spent $850 on a similar setup.
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (1MB Cache)
512MB PC2700 DDR333 Corsair memory (Add to the 1GB of identical memory I already had, totaling 1.5GB PC2700 DDR333)
nForce 3 chipset board
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB/256-bit VIVO
Not too shabby.
Now I can run that really cheaply!
I just got a 3000+ on a soyo mobo, not 939. It runs great. The extra $100 isn't worth a 3.2 ghz p4 especially if it's a prescott. The 3 ghz p4 northwood is probably the only one that can be considered really because of the price and prescott's cooling issues.
The cool thing about Soundstorm is how it encodes multi channel sound into Dolby Digital on the fly. This enables the use of any DD receiver to be hooked up via a coaxial digital cable. Even an Audigy2 platinum cannot do the same thing; you've either got to have one of their own sound systems, or use 6 cables to hook up your receiver. Tough luck if it only has coax/optical. My sound art partner is using one such DD receiver to compose surround sound pieces with Sony Vegas 5.
ISO certified == THX certified
Does it matter what the internal temp of the system or CPU is as long as its within normal operating parameters?
I have a P4-3.2 and at Web browsing levels its at 29C, and when rendering in TMPGEnc its around 40. BFD. Motherboard temp goes up around 4 degrees C.
I hear people talk about this like it matters. Maybe if you were calculating cooling on a room with hundreds of systems, but for Joe Jackoff and his home PC, who cares?
I priced out A64 3200+ when I bought my system; I read through a bunch of web sites and tallied the A64/P43.2 benchmarks and it was roughly a dead heat; slight gaming benchmark for A64, slight multimedia advantage P43.2.
P4 3.2 was way cheaper, though -- there was a premium to be paid for the A64 system.
nm
My doesn't have frequency scaling, but it runs noticeably cooler when idle, and the fans turn down. All you have to do is halt the processor when you aren't using it and then have the chip be properly designed to not dissipate a bunch of power when halted.
Frequency scaling (actually called clock skewing) does help a little because it makes your RAM dissipate less heat too. But I haven't needed that.
"Memory prices are too high to allow this, and prices for memory are going UP not down"
He must have been talking aout DRAM prices. You can't buy on die cache.
Fixed the title. Seems sorta backwards to limit yourself to what's happening right at this moment. By the way, even in 32 bit applications, it's still the best bang for the buck. Why pass on it because of a feature you may or may not use?
When I want a new computer, I see what Fry's has. They usually have a decent Athlon cpu + cheap MB for $80-$100 at any given time. Lately it's been Athlon XP 2700 or 2800's -- which are really quite fast. The MB is cheap, but I've had generally good results with them.
You could get a system that will play Doom reasonably well for something like $400. If you have $1000 to spend, sure, you can get something that's a bit better, but not that much better.
::shrugs:: The AMD 81xx chipset is rock solid as well. It makes perfect sense, doesn't it?
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I don't think I'd call the Viperlair part of the OSS community. They are welcome to join, of course, but they look hoplessly meshed in the windoze world. All of their tests were Windoze based, so they could not really offer any performance measures for the same hardware under Linux.
The anti-M$ statement is very much at odds with the next breath they take:
Being a poor student on a budget, that doesn't mean I want a substandard CPU ...
Well Golly! For the $200 the rest of us have to pay for Winblows, you might just get yourself a better processor. Given all the trouble Widows still is to configure, how many coppies of it will you have to buy? As a student, do you dare risk your gaming machine just to do your dull old homework and vice versa? If you buy two coppies of Winblows, you are half way to another excellent system in the hole. That's not anti-Microsoft, that's just the money talking.
There are live game CDs but they take the performance hit that implies. There are several Knoppix spinoffs that come this way. More importantly, Game companies themselves are looking at custom distros as a way out of the M$ tax.
Linux multimedia is better than ever and way better than the word had way back when I quit fooling with Windoze. It's gotten good enough so that a person who does not want to fidget endlessly with configurations might be able to be a gamer again under Linux. Quake 2 is available as a debpackage that works and runs better than it did on my last windoze system. Between that, better configured ALSA and real interest on the part of game makers, I'm very encouraged. Gaming may not be here now, I can't tell, but when it does arrive it will be much better than anything M$ because all of the subsystems are so much cleaner.
M$ is evil and their code blows. That's anti-Microsoft. Does my opinion somehow make you like M$ more? Strange. Hitting your hand with a hammer is stupid and hurts. I hope that does not force you into the "I love to hit my hand with a hammer" crowd.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Every two months or so. Dell sells their 20/21 inch LCDs for $750.
--Pat / zippy@cs.brandeis.edu
But I have never spent more than $800 total on any system I've built. Frankly an $800 system is a lot for me. I am jealous of people who spend over $1000 on a computer and it is no big deal. Computers are my life... but I can't afford to ever have even close to the best. I have to settle for crappy to mediocre. It's not fair.
Meh.
I mistook the article to say 9800, not 9600. That does take a large chunk out of the price, and makes a lot more sense.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Yes and this poor poor box still has to resort to killing processes to get back require ram at times Largest amount of swap this system as filled completly is 4g total memory and wishing for more. Just to top things off it is just a poor 650 slot A athlon. Note this title is my normal setting. Problem is not what one program uses is that I can have over 1000 programs runing side by side started by me.
Best way to blow most linux boxs away is the make -j command on some large source code projects ie mult gcc compliers loaded side by side and it is a real pain when it fails. Size of machine helps but the ram is the big problem. You can do the same on windows but expect a crash before it gets completed about 6 to 8 Yes it failes my test are you stable.
Basicly I hope to own a computer with about 6g of ram so I don't have to use swap files for some time into the furture.
I want 64 bit so I can break the 4g limit neatly
About a month ago I bought this chip with an ASUS mobo for about $300 dollars at my local fries. I was upgrading from an Athalon 1800+, and the speed incresese is definetly noticesable. This is a great chip, and you can get it for great prices.
In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and is widely considered as a bad move.
It all depends on whene and where you dump all your money. You can either buy a machine that'll get you by until the next big thing, or poor lots of money in right now and have an awesome machine that'll last you a while. Either way you'll probably be spending close to the same ammount
-K
When half-life too comes out in a couple months, such a system will be completely inadequate. Namely, due to the fact that it'll need a rip-your-ass-out expensive video card in order to play nicely.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
For gamers on a budget, I think the choice is obvious.
Of course! Buy a Mac!
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
Prices from Newegg:
Athlon64 3000+ $175
MSI motherboard: $115
Total: $290
Mobile AthlonXP 2500+: $88
Abit NF7-S motherboard: $69.18
Total: $158
Note that the mobile AthlonXP 2500+ is all but guaranteed to hit 3200+ speeds in that motherboard - and likely higher. In other words, for about half of the price, you'll get the equivalent of a 3200+ chip instead of a 3000+ chip.
Yes, Athlon64's are nifty. But the aforementioned XP-M is going to have enough horsepower to run pretty much all of the games that the Athlon64 3000+ will run. If you want the niftiness and have the money, buy the Athlon64 - but if you're really on a budget, there are much cheaper ways you can still get outstanding performance!
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
"Linux's development model pales in comparison, stability-wise to FreeBSD's,"
Trollbait.
" Linux is a great starter if you want to learn unix."
More Trollbait. Yep its a great "starter" OS but once you learn it you can move up to a real *nix like say *BSD...
"That leaves us with linux. linux tries to do everything for everyone but does all of it at a level lower than all of the systems listed above."
So Linux is Jack of all Trades Master of none?
He does say Linux is good for some things to his credit but sadly he just has to get in those "BSD is superior to Linux" jabs. Read between the lines people, the negative comments cancel out the positive ones.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Man I paid $640 for two nice samsung 19" LCD's At $1400 total, I wonder if another two inches is worth $600...
"For Gamers on a budget the choice is obvious."
For Thousands and thousands you must be droping in the top-of-the-line AMD 64FX with the fastest GPU available, or throwing a bunch into some overpriced riced-out case mods. The AMD 64 3000+/3500+ combos are not that expensive.
Tm
Sure beats the hell out of his old SlotA-533 :)
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
I still have the Slot A Athlon motherboard and 700MHz CPU. Someday, it'll be my OpenBSD firewall...