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AMD Hardware

Is it a Good Time to Get an Athlon64? 124

Posted by Cliff 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?"
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Is it a Good Time to Get an Athlon64? More

Is it a Good Time to Get an Athlon64?

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  • run ordinary 32 bit linux on it for now? (Score:5, Informative)

    by anon mouse-cow-aard ( 443646 ) on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @11:37PM (#7750788) Journal
    Yesterday's posting [orgarticle.pl] described issues with current
    AMD 64-bit linux distros. Can one just use
    a 32 bit one for now, and wait a while for the
    64 bit ones to mature?

    If not, it doesn't sound reasonable (as in, what?!!?
    Getting X to work is a challenge?)

  • Yes (Score:4, Insightful)

    by gmhowell ( 26755 ) <gmhowell@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @11:38PM (#7750795) Homepage Journal
    Yes, it's a good time, as a fool and his money are soon parted. WTF are you doing that a 2.4 GHz machine won't keep up? A little extra info, please? OS, apps, etc.

    • Re:Yes (Score:5, Funny)

      by DAldredge ( 2353 ) <SlashdotEmail@GMail.Com> on Thursday December 18, 2003 @12:05AM (#7750927) Journal
      EMACS.

    • I'm jealous of the fact that I could never afford to upgrade that soon. My recent upgrade was from a 600Mhz Athlon to an Athlon XP 2600+ barton OCed to 3000+. At this rate my next computer will be quantum....

      • Re:Jealous? (Score:1, Troll)

        by dJCL ( 183345 )
        Kidding? My current is a 500 AMD, I'm picking up a dual Athlon board from a friend this afternoon and am very glad that I pay reseller prices for my CPU's on this one...

        But besides that, once I have the money, I will see about getting a dual amd64 system(they will probably be pretty good by then). With 4 lcd displays, SB audigy vX(whatever is newest then) ATI video and gig network to access my (to be built) terabyte file server... ah dreams...

      • I went from 600MHz PIII to Atlon64 and I love it.

        However, the HDD in the 64 died and is in the process of being replaced and so far I havnt had anything I really needed to do that I could do just fine right here on the PIII. Why upgrade from a p4? maybe the proper option is to make sure there is enough ram/decent graphics card or get rid of all the junk you are running on startup/spyware.

    • Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @04:04AM (#7752185) Homepage Journal
      He's probably got the "ooo new toy!" itch. I wouldn't mind getting one as well, but I do 3D rendering [conceptart.org], and network rendering is a whole lotta fun. Lightwave used to be 64-bit (back in the Alpha days) so an investment in a machine like this seems like it might be worthwhile.

      As fun as it'd be to have a machine like that, I should share with him the conclusion I came to: Don't buy the latest greatest hardware unless there's some big screaming reason to do it. If Lightwave were 64-bit, I'd probably have bought one. Instead, I bought a dual Athlon machine. And ya know what? I enjoy the heck out of it. Maybe he should consider one for himself? Personally, I think the nicer multi-threading he'll end up with will yield a more responsive computer than having a single processor, even at 64-bits.

      • Re:Yes (Score:2, Interesting)

        by chthon ( 580889 )
        After investigating the opportunities here in Belgium for building a dual Opteron system, I came to the same conclusion. For the moment I rather have dual Athlon MP system, with SX-6000 raid, and 2Gb of memory, for which I know that current software will run well.

        Since I am creating and giving courses on Linux, this system will give me plenty of horsepower to create courses on Linux for midrange systems : databases, web servers, UML, terminal servers, volume management, backups and so on, while at the same

    • Re:Yes (Score:2)

      by escher ( 3402 )
      Yes, it's a good time, as a fool and his money are soon parted. WTF are you doing that a 2.4 GHz machine won't keep up?

      You've never tried radiosity rendering, have you? Or maybe a TV-res scanline render animation of a few seconds that includes anti-aliases ray-traced reflections? 2.4GHz is spittle.

      Besides, how else is he going to be able to play Doom III at a decent framerate? :)
      • You've never tried radiosity rendering, have you? Or maybe a TV-res scanline render animation of a few seconds that includes anti-aliases ray-traced reflections? 2.4GHz is spittle.

        Yes, that's correct, but I think that you and I both know what 99% of people with the "upgrade itch" don't really need that much firepower, and just want the latest snazzy computer specs and toys! :)
  • Prices come down on earlier models which are just as good as the new ones.

    Save some money, buy the last generation chips instead of the latest and greatest.
  • ...if you should adopt the newest fastest processor out there? Here's your answer: 50% - Hell YES! 50%-Why when you can just load a BSD/GNU/LINUX flavor of the week onto some portable device that runs at 1/10th the clockspeed of the newest fastest machine?
    100% - As long as you don't use microsoft wares on the processor

  • Upgrading from a 2.4 P4?????? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by flabbergast ( 620919 ) on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @11:42PM (#7750814)
    Wow, you're considering upgrading from your 2.4 P4. I just upgraded TO a 2.4 P4. *sigh*

    Anyways, my question is, what do you do that requires THAT much horsepower? If you're web surfing, writing emails and writing letters in Word, then I'd recommend that you not upgrade to anything and that your P4 should be more than adequate. Details are important here. For instance, you want to work on porting XXXXXXX to run natively at 64 bits. Then of course its a good time to upgrade, and it probably makes sense for what you're doing. Or perhaps you want to frag some people when HL2 comes out. Then I'd say "probably not worth it" or ask "What kind of video card do you have?"

    We can't give you a recommendation off the top of our head without any details.

  • Simple analysis (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Wednesday December 17, 2003 @11:52PM (#7750860) Homepage Journal
    Here's a simple analysis to determine if now is the time:

    Figure that between now and summer, the price of an Athlon64 system with a given set of specs (RAM, HD, video card, etc.) will go down about US$500.

    So, ask yourself this - is $500 over the next six months worth it?

    If you are making money with this machine - you are a consultant, or do freelance work that earns money, will the roughly 40% speed improvement make you back that $500 in six months?

    If you are a hobbist, will the "fun" of being one of the first people on the block with an Athlon64 be worth $500 over the next six months?

    Me, I am looking at the Atlon 2000+ I'm typing this on, with the Radeon 7500, and saying "I'll wait". But that's me.

    • Alternatives (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @12:14AM (#7750972) Homepage
      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.

      • Re:Alternatives (Score:5, Funny)

        by Zork the Almighty ( 599344 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @01:20AM (#7751478) Journal
        Wow, those are all great suggestions. And one of them could actually give me a blow job!

      • Re:Alternatives (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Alphanos ( 596595 )
        There are many thing cheaper than an Athlon64 that will increase productivity. An intern, for example.

        I wouldn't imagine that changing from an Intel P4 to an Athlon 64 could cost more than about $1500, even if you went for the FX version and needed to buy new registered memory + motherboard. How long can you pay for an intern with that much money:)?

        • Pretty much forever, since most don't get paid (except in pizza and soda :-).

          We've had many interns in our lab; most work so that they can get experience to put on their resumes. That way, when they graduate from college, they can be hired as experienced. Heck we've tried to hire some of them ourselves after training them.
      • I have a friend who got himself a dual AMD machine and had no end of trouble and problems with it, he wanted a kick-ass games machine but ended up with all sorts of SMP_not_supported driver hell with the graphics card and soundblaster card.

        If you intend this as a games machine, go for hyperthreading P4, or athlon64, don't go dual processor, its not worth that hassle.

        • SMP (Score:2)

          by Detritus ( 11846 )
          I've built SMP machines from Intel CPUs and motherboards with Intel chipsets without many problems. The trick is to get a motherboard from a company that knows how to design an SMP motherboard, or just buy a low-end SMP server.
        • The solution to that is easy: Don't buy cards from crappy manufacturers, like Creative for example. I've got a dual Athlon MP here, and it works prefectly fine win Windows and Linux with a GeForce 2 MX 400 and Terratec DMX XFire sound card.

          BTW, HT is supposed to work more or less the same as SMP, so it will probably give you the same driver problems.
          • Creative does not manufacture video cards, AFAIK they are made by MSI (Micro-Star).
            • Right, I was talking about Creative sound cards. When I bought my dual computer it was known that Creative drivers didn't work with SMP. I'm not completely sure about now.
              • Right, I was talking about Creative sound cards. When I bought my dual computer it was known that Creative drivers didn't work with SMP. I'm not completely sure about now.

                Hmm... I've been running a dual processor since the 350 MHz PII was released. Still using in preference to faster machines (that I have passed on to my children) because of the far greater responsivnss of a dual processor. It has never had anything but Creative soundcards and it has survived Number 9/Matrox and nvidia graphics cards w

                • Then probably that's why it works. IIRC, SMP wasn't supported by Creative, which meant no SMP-compatible Windows drivers. Linux on the other hand has its own open source drivers. I think all ALSA drivers are SMP safe.

                  In any case, that wouldn't work for me, because although I use Linux 99% of the time, I do need to boot Windows once in a while. Creative cards caused me lots of problems as well, especially the combination of the SB Live with the VIA686B southbridge, which caused lockups and disk corruption.
                  • Fairy Muff


                    Although I don't actually use Linux in this particular case. I have some severe reservations about Linux ablbeit far, far less than I have about Microsoft OSes. I'm a BSD geek. I should have mentioned that. I've had no troubles with any BSD but I never actually loaded Linux or an MS/OS on the SMP box.

        • I've got a dual Athlon MP 2200+ w/ an SB Audigy and Radeon 9700 PRO. It works fine under Windows and Linux, and I've never had an SMP driver problems. Your friend did something wrong.
      • Yeah, interns are really productive, especially when they don't use birth control.
    • If you are a hobbist...

      Is that like a pervy hobbit fancier?
  • If you really need the power, wait about what....half a year, 9 months? and get a p5 when they come out, I believe they'll be running at 5-7 ghz, which should be more than adequate for whatever you're doing now...and unless you're running a render farm or something, I don't see why you'd need that kind of speed. Wait, spend the money if you need, but 64 bit I'd say is a no go for now. Not enough apps can take advantage of it.

    • Re:Wait a bit (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MikeCapone ( 693319 ) <skelterhell @ y a hoo.com> on Thursday December 18, 2003 @01:11AM (#7751434) Homepage Journal
      You think that Intel chips will be running 5 to 7ghz 9 months to a year from now? Look at their roadmaps...

      Personally, I'd go with AMD over Intel any day.

      Performance/price ratio is almost 2:1 in favor of AMD EXCEPT at the very top of the line where it gets closer (with AMD still winning by a nice margin).

      Intel is only better if you have a really fat wallet.

      Yeah, I know; websites tend to compared a Athlon 3200+ with a Pentium 4 3.2ghz and conclude that the P4 is better.

      But they get the CPUs for free! If you actually compared, say, an Athlon 2800+ from AMD with something SIMILARLY priced from Intel you'll see that AMD is clearly the winner.
      • With all the benchmarks from Toms Hardware or Extreme Tech, etc, you can it sum up.

        AMD is the fastest for games, except older Quake3 engine based.
        Intel is faster at Media creation programs and desktop applications. (SSE2, and Intel optimizations are the main reason...)

        Bang for the buck, I'd go with an ATI 9600 or Nvidia 5600 and AMD 2600 cpu for the sweet spot on a good gaming rig that will do everything now. By the time Doom3 or Halflife 2 comes out next year, the 500 bux you save could upgrade your mot
        • Funny, a little while back I bought exactly what you said. A 2600 (OC'd to 3000) with a Nvidia 5600, and 1GB ram. Full system including a nice case (window, some leds) for I bought this in anticipation of HL2 (before the first delay and then the code leak delay). It plays HL great. I'm usually the first one to enter the game after a map change. I play at a steady 60fps (my monitor's limitation, not the machines). Even in heavy fire fights is stays at 59 fps.
          I may have to upgrade the video card come

  • Athlon64 3000+ (Score:5, Informative)

    by Laven ( 102436 ) * on Thursday December 18, 2003 @12:22AM (#7751042)
    Take a look at the newly released Athlon64 3000+ processor which is compatible with the same socket as Athlon64 3200+. Both chips are 2.0GHz, but the 3000+ has 512KB L2 cache instead of 1024KB L2. The price is around around $220 vs $420, which is a significant difference.

    I personally bought the 3200+ two months ago, but I totally would have been happy with the 3000+.

    Also check out Fedora Core 1 preview release of AMD64 [linuxtx.org]. Official test1 release should be coming soon because they fixed the last blocker bug in pango.

  • Confused about the question (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mnmn ( 145599 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @12:31AM (#7751139) Homepage
    is the technology ready for end users?

    I really dont get that question. How can a technology be ready or not ready? It is being shipped and it apparently performs to specs. Like you said it challenges P4 in terms of value, which might answer that question.

    A certain number of vendors are making motherboards for it. When you have one or possibly two companies making chipsets, you might have an issue, but with a large number of chipsets and drivers getting mature, you might have the right timing for it.

    One other benefit of buying a product early in its selling cycle is that youll have a current product for a longer period of time. Buy a P4 when its really cheap, and youll have a new chip from Intel in the next 6 months.

    I am curious about your applications though. What is it for which a P4 2.4GHz doesnt suffice? My P3 550 is giving me good service through games, video and 3d model editing...
    • > How can a technology be ready or not ready? It is being shipped and it apparently performs to specs.

      --Download and test Linux kernel 2.6.0 on a variety of hardware, and then see if you can still say that. (This is not a troll.) For that matter, see if you can find any SparQ drives on ebay and try booting and running an operating system on them for more than a month.

  • What most people forget is... (Score:5, Informative)

    by eWarz ( 610883 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @12:46AM (#7751273)
    What most people forget is, REGARDLESS of the 64 capabilities of the chip, the athlon64 is HANDS DOWN the FASTEST consumer processor money can buy. While i'd question you upgrading a p2 2.4 ghz, if you are just determined to have the fastest chip money can buy then the athlon64 is it. (get the FX51 if that's the case). However, if you are a gamer looking for more speed, upgrading your graphics card would do alot more, as a 2.4 ghz p4 is more then fast enough to handle today's games.
  • Well, that would depend on which end....

  • It's a great time... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by IM6100 ( 692796 ) <elben@mentar.org> on Thursday December 18, 2003 @01:25AM (#7751506)
    ...to get whatever is one or two steps down from 'top end' and it always is. I find it excellent when there's someone willing to pay top dollar and subsidize my lower-cost choices. I bought a Pentium III 450 when the 650s and what-not were 'current.'

    I have a number of 64 bit machines already, if I want to 'dabble' in 64-bitness. My Sun Ultra 1 boxes run NetBSD/Sparc64 and cost me $12.50 each at auction.

  • Like everyone else (Score:3, Insightful)

    by $exyNerdie ( 683214 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @01:35AM (#7751564) Homepage Journal
    Like everyone else here is saying, why would you pay top $$ for a most recent processor when you could rather upgrage your fast P4 2.4 GHz box with other items that really affect the performance like extra fast SCSI or Serial ATA hard drive, more and faster RAM, faster graphics card etc.... Unless you do something that is very CPU cycle intensive (like graphics editing/encoding etc)....

    Sig
    -- Compare war time president's military record (www.awolbush.com) [awolbush.com] with Wesley Clark's (Wesley Clark's Army Career) [clark04.com]

  • Beware of the Slot1/A Syndrome. (Score:5, Informative)

    by driftwood ( 161170 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @03:08AM (#7752000) Homepage

    Here is a quick summary of the AMD64 line. It comes directly from an AMD Engineer working on the AMD64 projects. His recommendation was to wait for the 2nd generation motherboard chipsets sporting the 939-pin sockets.

    Current parts
    The processor cores for Athlon64/AthlonFX/Opteron are currently all the same.

    • Opteron
      940-pin Socket
      Dual channel DDR registered/ECC required.
      84X series are 1/2/4/8 way system certified.
      24X series are 1/2 way system certified.
      14X series are 1 way system certified ( same as AthlonFX51).

    • Athlon FX
      940-pin Socket
      The FX is simply a relabeled Opteron chip. This chip has pinout for dual channel DDR (needs to be registered/ECC and I believe buffered, yuck)

    • Athlon64
      754-pin Socket
      Opteron 14X but with single channel DDR Athlon64 comes in the 754 pin package now but only supports single channel DDR but can use unbuffered standard DDR.

    Future parts
    939 package Athlon64/FX is a new pinout to support dual channel unbuffered DDR, allows for 4 layer PCB motherboards (cheaper to make boards) and a faster HyperTransport external link.

    • Drill Hammer
      512kB cache instead of the 1MB on current products. Packaging should be same as other chips (754/939).

    • Claw Hammer
      256kB cache instead of the 1MB on current products. Packaging should be same as other chips (754/939).

    • Beware of the Slot1/A Syndrome

      What is the Slot1/A Syndrome?

      I can understand that the second generation chips support unbuffered RAM, but why would that be important? Given that it's hard to find a FX chip in the first place, how long should we expect to wait for a second generation chip?

      I'm not trying to be a smart-ass here, but I am looking at purchasing about 32 FX-based machines (the big draw is future 64-bit compatability and >4GB RAM in our lab).

      • What is the Slot1/A Syndrome?

        Intel originally issued the Pentium2 in a cartridge style using the 'Slot 1' interface. Intel stated that they would not change back to sockets. The major reason for the change was to move the L2 cache off the main processor die to improve manufacturing yields. AMD followed suit and announced 'Slot A' which was physically, but not electrically the same. Both AMD and Intel found that the overall system costs were substantially more that socket based processors and change

        • Both AMD and Intel found that the overall system costs were substantially more that socket based processors and changed back to sockets within a few years.


          The real problem was that the cache had to be run at half the speed of the processor, and as the processors got faster, the cache speeds couldn't keep up. So you would end up with the processor running at 2.5X, 3X, etc times the speed of the cache. Not good.


          -MDL

    • I agree that dual channel, unbuf. DDR is worth waiting. It should be noted that that what really determines the speed of your system is how fast and how big of a pipe you have for memory. However, waiting a few months for processor models (e.g., Drill or Hammer) with less L2 cache is foolish, especially when you're gonna pay a premium for the brand-spanking new model. Always buy a chip with as much L2 cache as possible since that is what makes it fast.

      Consider this fatoid: 60% of chip area is occupied b
      • I think the idea behind the smaller cache size is that for 512kb cache, they can sell chips that have had one of the two 512kb caches fail when tested, which would otherwise have been dumped. (My understanding is that the 1mb cache is composed of 2x 512kb units on the die, feel free to correct me if i'm mistaken)
    • And one more difference: Athlon 64 and FX support DDR 400 memory, and Opteron supports "only" DDR333.
    • The Athlon 64 3000+ has been released, and the big difference from the 3200+ is 512kB cache. A real bargain buy if what you need is 64bit (That is, got an OS+app that benefits from it) rather than the 3000+ rating. Not bad otherwise either though, for that matter

      Kjella

  • I don't get it ... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Breakerofthings ( 321914 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @04:14AM (#7752212)
    What are you doing with your box?!

    I just built my system a couple of months ago:
    • KT400 mobo
    • 3ware raid, 2 120 GB ATA drives with 8mb cache, mirrored ... a MUST for my "important documents" ;)
    • 1 GB DDR
    • Nvidia 64MB AGP
    • Athlon XP 2200+
    • Running Gentoo, of course

    and as far as I am concerned, it Screams

    (note that I am not a hardcode gamer, nor doing and rendering; just surfing the web, watching dvds, using openoffice, and the occasional build)

    Why? $60 for the processor; I'll upgrade to a 3200 when they drop beloy $75 or so...

    I build the whole thing for < $700 ... which is damn competetive with the crapola specials you get from Dell, etc., and a whole lot more machine

  • I too am planning an AMD64 home system.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by trentfoley ( 226635 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @04:36AM (#7752279) Homepage Journal
    Price are from pricewatch (excluding companies operated by bzboyz) [foleyhome.com]

    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.

    • Re:I too am planning an AMD64 home system.. (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I hope you read this... If you plan on buying that system to run 64bit Linux, last I checked ATI still had not released 64bit drivers for Linux. I know that card is a great performer, but MAKE SURE, you check with ATI before you buy that card. If it isn't available, I'd recommend an FX5900 or some such variation. The latest firmware updates have fixed alot o the issues people are aware of, and there are 64bit drivers available for it, and every other FX card, under Linux.

      I think you'll be okay wit
      • If you plan on buying that system to run 64bit Linux, last I checked ATI still had not released 64bit drivers for Linux.

        While that's true, I believe the standard open-source radeon will work fine. They don't do 3D acceleration, but that's only an issue if you plan on playing 3D Linux games. Someone who would sink that kind of money into a gaming rig would probably be a mostly-Windows gamer, since there aren't too many visually demanding Linux games, and won't be until Doom3.

        • While that's true, I believe the standard open-source radeon will work fine. They don't do 3D acceleration...

          This being the second time I've heard this, would someone mind explaining to me about this?

          I've looked at the 2.4.2[23] kernel DRM sources, and there are clearly functions in the Radeon driver for pushing vertices and textures to the video card (radeon_cp_dispatch_* in linux-2.4.23/drivers/char/drm/radeon_state.c). Furthermore, glxinfo claims "OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI Radeon 20020611 AGP

          • Open-source Radeon drivers do 3D-accelleration for all Radeon cards except 9500 and greater. That means that everything from the original to the 9200 is fully supported by open-source drivers. To get 3D accelleration on the 9500, 9600, 9700, and 9800, you have to use ATI's binary drivers (although the open drivers still work fine if all you need is 2D).
      • Thanks for the headsup on the availability of 64bit drivers for ATI and SATA. I will definitely check out driver availability now that you have raised the issue.

        Although I feel it is time for me to check out ATI, my gut tells me that I will have more success with an nVidia FX5xxx card. However, the FX5900 is too pricey. My wife won't let me spend more than $3200 on the system (which is quite fair).

        Here's a good question: what is the best nVidia card I can get for = $200? Quietness counts.
      • well...my via chipset has 64bit drivers for SATA becasue...its a via chipset for the Athlon64 so it would sure make sense for them to have drivers.

    • Re:I too am planning an AMD64 home system.. (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Do your homework on the power supply...It must be the new SSI EPS ATX power supply for the 940 pin processors. A regular ATX 20 pin power supply will not work. The EPS ATX has a 24 pin power connector and an 8 pin power connector, and both are required to be plugged into the motherboard. These are $120.00 power supplies and the retail stores do not have them yet. I know because I just built two real nice boxes for work for a sql and application server. See this for an example...http://store.yahoo.com/e
    • You are wasting money on CPU (IMHO), because it will be obsolete in few months when new socket 939 comes out, you will have only one upgrade option (FX53?) and hard time selling it for even half of what you've paid.

      If you want good NVIDIA <200$ card, check new FX5700 models. But if you give so much money on CPU, it is a shame to be held back by mid-class video card. How will you explain to yor friends that your hot new 3200$ FX51 machine cannot play games in max resolution? :)
      • Thanks for the reply -- I was looking hard at the FX5700 when I realized that nothing less than the best available card would do.

        I've talked the wife in to letting me spend another couple hundred and I will get an FX5950 or a Radeon 9800XT. ALl things considered, why not, right?

        Your point about blowing money on the processor is well taken. However, in the past when I have replaced a processor, I have also replaced a motherboard, as well as memory -- so, I'm not too worried about socket compatibility.

        Th

  • It depends... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anita Coney ( 648748 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @12:29PM (#7754867) Homepage
    It partially depends on whether you'll use a 64-bit OS.

    For example, if you're waiting for a 64-bit version of XP, then you should not buy now. By the time XP-64 comes out, your current Athlon64 system will be underpowered compared against what will be available then. Thus the extra money you paid would have gone to waste.

    And even if you have a 64 bit OS, what about software?! Unless you just have to have the latest and greatest, I'd wait until we have lots of 64 bit software and drivers to fully support the hardware.

    However, if id releases a 64 bit version of Quake3 for Linux, I might have to change my opinion!

    • I meant Doom3.


    • For example, if you're waiting for a 64-bit version of XP, then you should not buy now. By the time XP-64 comes out, your current Athlon64 system will be underpowered compared against what will be available then. Thus the extra money you paid would have gone to waste.
      Given the way Microsoft bloats up its operating systems I'd be willing to bet that by the time XP-64 comes out your Athlon 64 will be underpowered compared to the hardware requirements for said OS.

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