Building amd system.

[Venus_Gospel]

Hi there, I am currently looking to build a Amd 64 system. But I am not sure what motherboards/ram are good out on the market. my budget is roughly 500-600$ if anyone has any suggestions please post thanks. :)

[BB_One]

:welcome: to BE Venus_Gospel,

I presume you have read a few thread in this forum as to what possible solution could satisfy your need. It is rather difficult to point you in one direction or another without asking some more question, so if I may ask.

The $500 to $600, is that for only the ram and motherboard, hence you have selected your Cpu already? Or is that to include the CPU ?

Is there any other things you need to squeeze in that budget? Power Supply? drives? vidoe card..etc??

What will be the main task of the rig? Office work or gaming?

If you are re-utilizing existing components can you tell us which ones? Mainly for starter the Power Supply and Video card for example. We would not point you to a PCI-e solution if u have an AGP card. From all your reading, do you have a preference for example for something in particular, socket 754 or 939 maybe?

Looking forward to reading you.

[Venus_Gospel]

Hey thanks for the welcome, Yeah I already was looking at a 3000+ 64 Amd processor 939 . But as far as what i need i would need all 3 peices, processor/ram/mobo. I am gonna use my old parts such as case/gforce 4200 ti 128mb 8x card, and my 60gig hd. But basically what i want my system for is Gaming, down the road say a month after i get the new parts i am gonna buy a 6800 Gt video card. As far as the ram i want to buy if possible some descent 512x2 dual channel. I appreciate all the info. My current system specs are XP 1800+, 512 ddr 2100, gforce 4200 ti 128 mb 8x, gigabyte 7vtxe+ 266a chipset, maxtor 60gig hd, 400w Psu, windows 98 lol i need to upgrade that to at a later date.

[BB_One]

Socket 939 is an excellent platform to move to and in doing so you are somewhat futur proofing yourself (upgrade only processor down the road). Bare in miond that you will lock yourself into an AGP solution which 12 to 15 months from now will be dead, and the newer Video cards will be PCI-E based. (Mind u, u'll be able to get Geforce 6800 GT agp card for example and that should still perform nicely)

The 3000+ (1.8 Ghz) Winchester is a nice processor which if u combine with a good mobo and ram should allow u to overclock on air at around 2 ~ 2.1 GHZ.

Choosing the 939 Platform does offer a couple of challenges today, due to the new motherboards that are to be released over the next few weeks and months, with 2 vendors claiming some release mid-november. MSI and ASUS. But will only support PCI-e graphic cards.

Existing 939 motherboards in my opinion, are somewhat flaky and with the new release base on NVidia nforce 3 Ultra coming out soon (January??) from DFI, it might be worth waiting to see what they will do specially if it comes close to/or performs like their UT 250GB mobo .

Memory, again respecting your budget and performance criteria my recommandation would be to go with OCZ PC 3200 Platinum Rev 2. That's an excellent performer and will help squeeze within your budget hopefully ~ lets look at possible pricing.

OCZ EL Platinum Revision 2 Dual Channel Kit 184-Pin 1GB(512MBx2) DDR PC-3200 ~ $270.00

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8GHz, 512KB L2 Cache 939-Pin 64-bit Processor ~ $169.00

For budgeting purpose let's look at an existing MSI Mobo

MSI "K8N Neo2 Platinum" NVIDIA nForce3 ULTRA Chipset ~ $139.00

Total for this offer at newegg: $578.00

You would need to add a good cooler for the processor since the one offer here is the OEM version, so you'll touch the high end of your budget.

If you wait for the newer mobo, you can expect to pay around ~ $20.00 dollars more

We could reduce cost by lowering RAM choice, and still have a decent system.

Lastly, and that you need to consider and evaluate. You power supply although rated as 400Watts...may or may not be delivering the proper voltage for this solution and you may have to buy a newer power supply. Doing so and not skimming on such an important piece of the equation you might have to fork in excess of $100.00 to have something solid.

Hope all of this help, anymore info u need u know where we are. :wave:

Edit: In the event that you are looking for a 939 Mobo now and that MSI seems tempting, go read this review done by our very own Pastorjay, very well done review that should provide the info to help make your purchasing decision.

http://www.bleedinedge.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5399