Buying a new comp: 3200 Venice or 3800 X2?

[quinriva]

Recently playing AOE3 and Quake 4, I've come to the eventual realisation that my Ti4200 and Athlon 2800+ just don't cut it any more. As such I’ve decided to buy myself a new computer for Christmas (well actually Christmas just happens to coincide with the time I’ll have enough money to do so, so let’s say Christmas plus or minus a week).

I already have some decent Corsair XMS RAM and a few Seagate 7200.8 drives, so I’ll be keeping those. The graphics card was an easy choice, a 7800GT. The 6600GT just isn’t quite good enough, and the price to performance ratio of the 6800GT isn’t as good as that of the 7800GT (about $480 as opposed to $550 (PCI-e obviously), and all the niceties of alpha layer antialiasing). I have yet to decide on a brand; with the 6600GT it was easy, the Leadtek Extreme clearly lead the field for price to performance ratio, but the 7800 GT’s aren’t as clear cut just yet. Clearly the cheapest brand is XpertVision with Gigabyte, MSI and Albatron all following within $30 bracket. I’m open for suggestions here, but about $620 would be my limit (it is hard to justify spending more than $600 on a graphics card and normally I wouldn’t spend more than $450 but the 7800GT is just so juicy).

The decision for the motherboard was a bit more difficult. DFI’s decision to indefinitely delay the release of the LanParty UT nF4 SLI-DR Expert has ruled it out (unless, by some miracle it ships prior to Christmas). This leaves two primary contenders: the ASUS A8N-SLI Premium and the DFI LanParty UT nF4 SLI-DR. What was once an easy choice, back when the DFI carried a $100 price premium is no more. The recent drop in price by DFI, and increase by ASUS has put both boards around the $260 mark. The overclockability offered by DFI is certainly an incentive (as I full well intend on a maximum overclock), as is the replacement BIOS should something go wrong (at just $15 more) as I can only wish that I had one with no less than 5 faulty BIOS’ in the past 3 years (I have four Socket A motherboards, only one works). ASUS offers the incentive of software switching for SLI. Although I will unlikely purchase a second 7800GT until the price drops below $350 (which is not soon), when I do eventually purchase a second card, it will be largely to utilise a quad-monitor setup, the SLI feature would merely extend the life of the system; switching to SLi for games an Normal for desktop & work. I have no intention of boosting performance through SLi in the near future as it is just not reasonably (two 6800GT’s cost $960, while a single better performing 7800GT costs only $550). Which board to choose?

The climax here comes in what is largely the most costly decision: choice of CPU. The Athlon 64 3200 Venice sells for $235, while the 3800 X2 is $495 and the 4000 San Diego is $10 more at $505. Note that the 3500 and 3800 Venice’ are not really choices as all three Venice cores stated overclock to about the same frequency. Note also the huge overclocking potential of the 3800X2 – 2.4GHz with stock cooler. I’m not really big on utilising many of the programs that utilise dual core chips (video encoding etc.) and although I do sometimes use these programmes I generally tend to employ my server for such tasks (or my new server, i.e. my current computer). The server may be slower but it won’t tie up my primary computer and generally video encoding time is only an issue if I can’t use my computer because the encoding process is hogging resources. However it is said that some of the new games coming out (namely my personal favourite and sequel to Morrowind, TES IV: Oblivion) are beginning to utilise dual cores. Obviously some of the major players will likely bring out patches to utilise the potential of dual cores: I’m thinking Quake 4, Battlefield 2 and obviously any game base on the Unreal 3 engine. Some might not be so sure about the impending nature of games utilising dual core, but I pose this to you: All three next-gen consoles being released in the coming months boast dual or even multicore processing. I think that games benefiting multicore processing are just around the corner. But is the extra $260 really worth it? On the other hand, upgrading a 2800 Barton to a 3200 Venice wouldn’t be much of an upgrade, although an upgrade to Socket 939 (and hence PCI-e compatible) is necessary none the less.

The final and far less exciting component of my decision is what to replace my generic-piece-of-crap power supply with. I am hoping that my 350W power supply will be sufficient to power the system temporarily, although I have a feeling that my eight hard disks and two optical drives won’t be able to function until it is replaced. I was thinking of an Antec Neo-Power 480W, at $140 this seem a viable solution; but is there a better option. I not running any sort of mega-cooling and I only have three fans, two 120mm case fans and an 80mm CPU fan. Additionally it is likely that I will end up putting most of my hard disks in my servers to run as media servers, leaving only two in my main computer (one for the system and files, and another for games). I hope that this will not have to be an immediate consideration and I will likely wait until March to replace the PSU.

Finally, there are the future considerations. These are somewhat less of a necessity and I can wait 6 months for them.

Ageia’s PPU, Creative XFi, Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard and G70 Gaming Mouse.

Hmm, I can always dream.

[ripken204]

get the evga 7800gt, good thinking for getting a gt and not gfx

the dfi mobos require a minimum of 480watts or they wont run. get the ocz powerstream 600 or else your going to have alot of problems

for the cpu, if you can afford the 3800X2 then get it! but even better, if you can find a dual core opteron then get that

[quinriva]

I noticed that the eVGA card is good but it costs over $100 more than xpertvision, albatron, MSI and gigabyte. The last 4 cards are ~AU560 while the eVGA model is $670. I really don't think the minor boost in performance is worth the extra $100.

Is it really necessary to purchase a 600W power supply? I know everyone's all about these beefy power supplies, but isn't 600W is a bit excessive?

How does the dual core opteron compare to the 3800X2. I've seen some very impressive overclock with the Toledo cores (E6 stepping I believe). As I intend to use this my computer primaryily for gaming, and I intend on using my Corsair XMS Pro RAM (non-ECC RAM).

[Jeremy]

Don't listen to Ripken, he'll tell you to buy the most expensive of everything regardless of what your budget is.

[suryad]

Agree with ripken. More is the only way to go!

[Thai3g_Eclipse]

I noticed that the eVGA card is good but it costs over $100 more than xpertvision, albatron, MSI and gigabyte. The last 4 cards are ~AU560 while the eVGA model is $670. I really don't think the minor boost in performance is worth the extra $100.

Is it really necessary to purchase a 600W power supply? I know everyone's all about these beefy power supplies, but isn't 600W is a bit excessive?

How does the dual core opteron compare to the 3800X2. I've seen some very impressive overclock with the Toledo cores (E6 stepping I believe). As I intend to use this my computer primaryily for gaming, and I intend on using my Corsair XMS Pro RAM (non-ECC RAM).

eVGA's also comes with a 'Step-up' program that allows you to trade your eVGA card in for a better one and you only have to pay the difference, along with a lifetime warranty. You don't necessarily need a 600 watt power supply, but rather one that can stablize its voltage rails. An Antec TruPowerII 550, OCZ PowerStream 520W, and the Fortron Blue Storm 500 is fine, but I would not trust your current 350 watt power supply to run an Athlon64 system with a 7800GT. For such a system, the +12V rail is the most important, and I recommend a power supply with at least 24A on the +12V rail.

[ripken204]

didnt realize you were in australia, prices there suck compared to US. if you see here

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....and&Order=price

the evga is right in the middle

for the psu, either get the ocz powerstream 520 or 600, i would recommend the 600 if you plan on going sli in the future

jeremy-he is kind of planning to use alot of money on this, unless he wants get a cheap psu and blow everything up, he should listen to me

[quinriva]

I don't really intend on spending a lot of money I'm just trying to get the sweet spot. Unforntunately at the moment the 7800GT is the sweet spot and I have about enough money to splurge on it (just as I did when I bought my Cosair XMS Pro RAM). Similarly with the CPU, I was until recently looking at getting the Athlon 64 3200, because it overclocked to the same performance of an OC'ed 3500 and 3800; however the 3800 X2 is a really good deal right now. If the 3800 X2 hadn't been released I wouldn't have even thought about getting a dual core system.

If possible I want to save money at every corner so I don't want spend any more money unless the performance boost is significant. In otherwords if I spend 10% more I expect a 15-20% performance boost.

The OCZ Powerstream 520W is AU$225 while the Antec TruePower II is AU$170 and the FSP Blue Storm 500W is only AU$140. is the OCZ really $85 better than the Fortran? It's only 20W more and I doubt the rails in the Fortran are that bad. Would the Antec be the best choice. The 600W Powerstream is $320, I could get 2 Antec's for that so I'm not even going to consider it.

BTW www.staticice.com is a really good search engine for Australian Pricing.

Anyway anyone know what the best brand would be for a 7800GT (of the above four)?

Oh and which core is better for the 3800 X2, the Toledo or Manchester?

The end price should be somewhere between AU$1200 - $1400

I wonder if the step up policy is available in Australia?

[ripken204]

any of those psu's would work fine but the ocz would be the best

get an evga 7800gt

the 3800X2 on comes with the manchester core

BTW, i just got AOE III and it works pretty well on my laptop, its 3 yrs old. amd athlon xp mobile 1600+, 768mb ram, ati 64mb 320m. im playing on high graphics and there is no lag at all

[quinriva]

Sure it does, but it looks like crap with 'low' settings.

Anyway, there is no way in hell I'm paying an extra $100 to get an eVGA card, instead of say the OC'ed Leadtek model (which is like $585) or even a regular Albatron. eVGA might be faster, but it isn't $100 faster.

The 3800X2 comes with either Toledo or Manchester cores. The Toledo core just has 2x512k switched off. There is some debate over which is the better overclocker. In theory I think the Toledo is.

[ripken204]

oh ya, i forgot its way more expensive where u live. well then get whatever.

and im googling about the 3800x2 and apparently there are some toledo's. they were originally manchester. you would want to get the toldedo then b/c it has 2x as much cache but like u said turned "off". there are ways to unlock it but you'll have to wait until someone figures out the trick.

Edited November 8, 2005 by ripken204