Cheapest AMD 64 939 + PCI setup possible?

Phaser · 25 Apr 2006 at 10:50

Right, i've got a few old components and rather than upgrading them bit by bit i'm going to treat myself to a new setup.

I'd like it to last me as long as possible, but without costing the earth, hence me going for a 939 socket CPU and PCI Express graphics.

If possible, i'd like it in a Antec Aria case, or an SFF. If however it would work out a lot cheaper, a normal tower would be fine.

On board graphics would be fine, as long as i've got the option to install a PCI card in the future. I'm not an intense gamer, the machine would mainly be used for a bit of audio editing and web design.

I already have a monitor/keyboard/mouse and a HDD.

Cheers OCUK!

Admiral Huddy · 25 Apr 2006 at 11:19

you haven't mentioned your budget, but since you are video/audio editing you might want to consider a dual core CPU..

i know you said socket 939 but the the Pentium 4 805 and 830 are a steal at £93 and £117 respectively. Both capable of heavy encoding and a both great overclockers..

Looking at some a little more expensive, the Operons are a good buy too.

as for motherboards, look at either the ASUS PSWD2 (£117) or the ABIT AW8 which is on special offer this week for £76..

so a dual core Intel CPU and PCI-E motherboard for under £200 :eek:

I couldn't find any on-board cards that are on the LGA755 with the 955X chipset.. but you can buy a budget card for well under £100.

thor · 25 Apr 2006 at 11:48

I've been tempted by the Asus A8N-VM CSM mATX motherboard to put in an Antec Aria myself - I used to have this case and really liked it and would now like another one.
The Asus board looks the most suitable for your needs to me - it's mATX so will fit in the Aria, has reasonable onboard graphics (low end Geforce6), has PCI-E slot if you feel like upgrading the graphics at a later date, HD audio, and comes in at £58inc VAT right here on OcUK.
As for the CPU, it would really depend on your budget - a dual core such as an X2/Opteron would be more future proof, and if you do a lot of music editing/encoding this would be an ideal chip as it would allow you to use one core for something else while the first is encoding away.

pcoltrane · 25 Apr 2006 at 11:55

Those intel dual cores are cheap ... but are they cheap enough?

£169 for the Abit + 805 you mention.

£220 gets you a Biostar 6100-M9 with PCI-E and decent on board gfx with a X2 3800+ if you shop around

£50 is quite a big difference, but does the AW8 have on board gfx? If not you'll need to add £25 for a basic gfx card. Do you pay your own electric bill? If so then the extra power consumption of the intel chip could make it as expensive or more so than the AMD option in the long run.

Since you want to run this chip in the aria case personally I'd go for the AMD option even if it costs a little more just to make sure i can cool it quietly. (Incidentally the 92mm fab zalman flower cooler works well in that case)

Marc

pcoltrane · 25 Apr 2006 at 12:01

Thor - the asus A8N-VM CSM is a good board on paper but a lot of people have had trouble with USB etc on it. (I'm not sure if these issues are fixed on the later revision of the board)

Consider the MSI K8NGM2-FID instead. It has none of the issues of the asus, slightly better sound etc + comes with tv out, component out and surround sound brackets in the retail package - something you don't get with the asus. Check out the threads on the anandtech forums about these boards.
I just bought myself one and it is so far performing flawlessly. Hurry though - they were out of stock everywhere in the uk until recently but one large etailer recently got some stock. Hopefully they still have some.

Marc

Phaser · 25 Apr 2006 at 12:27

thor said:
The Asus board looks the most suitable for your needs to me - it's mATX so will fit in the Aria, has reasonable onboard graphics (low end Geforce6), has PCI-E slot if you feel like upgrading the graphics at a later date, HD audio, and comes in at £58inc VAT right here on OcUK.

Will have a look at that. Cheers.

marc mercer said:
£220 gets you a Biostar 6100-M9 with PCI-E and decent on board gfx with a X2 3800+ if you shop around
Marc

That seems good. Then i'd just need to add my RAM/HDD/Optical Drives yes?

james.miller · 25 Apr 2006 at 12:33

cheapest?

AMD ATHLON 64 3000+ 512KB SKT-939 RET AMD ATHLON 64 3000+ 512KB SKT-939 RET
£72.53

ASROCK SKT-939 939S56-M S/L 1000FSB ASROCK SKT-939 939S56-M S/L 1000FSB
£36.81

Sub-Total: £109.34
Sub-Total Inc Vat: £128.47

from a competitor. pretty damn cheap. no onboard video though.

AMD ATHLON 64 3000+ 512KB SKT-939 RET AMD ATHLON 64 3000+ 512KB SKT-939 RET
£72.53

ASROCK SKT-939 939NF4G-SATA2 S/V/L 1000FSB M-ATX ASROCK SKT-939 939NF4G-SATA2 S/V/L 1000FSB M-ATX
£40.61

Sub-Total: £113.14
Sub-Total Inc Vat: £132.94

That one has an on-board 6100. I wont lie, ocuk is not the best for low cost motherboards.

pcoltrane · 25 Apr 2006 at 13:09

To give you an idea of the difference in cost of running a 820d for a year vs a x2 3800+

820d idle 26.5W
X2 3800+ 5.6W

Difference = 20.9W

820D load 90.5W
X2 3800+ load 41.4W

Difference = 49.1W

Accounting for PSU efficiency of 70% at low load and 75% at high those differences become:

IDLE 20.9 / 0.7 = 29.9W
LOAD 49.1 / 0.75 = 65.5W

KWh per year assuming 3hrs full load per day, 19hrs idle:

19 x 0.0299 x 365 = 207.36 KWh
3 x 0.0655 x 365 = 71.72 KWh

Total: 279.08 KWh

Cost of electricity at approx 10p per KWh

279.08 x 0.1 = £27.91

That makes £27.91 per year more electricity used by the 820d chip alone based on the above usage pattern. If you're a bill payer thats a significant amount. Idle and Load power usage taken from SPCRs Desktop CPU power survey. If you overclock the difference is likely to get even more significant.

Marc

Admiral Huddy · 25 Apr 2006 at 14:29

^ You maybe right of course but sounds a bit extreme imo. It's like buying a new car but not using it because of the price of petrol..

If you can't afford the running costs then it maybe easier not to bother with a PC and opt for an Xbox 360.. you'll making a saving on the initial outlay and on the running costs, if you really are on a tight budget..

pcoltrane · 25 Apr 2006 at 14:59

I'm not sure I agree. When anyone buys a car fuel consumption/running costs are a factor unless you're buying a supercar. Since Phaser is after performance on a budget (and you are touting the 805/820 on price) then "fuel" costs are a sensible thing to consider, especially when it may make the 'faster' AMD system cheaper in the long run.

Of course it doesn't immediately make the AMD a contender on price - that entrely depends on your usage habits. A heavy user may well save a lot with the X2, but a light user not intending to keep the system long won't.

Incidentally - I don't think the Xbox 360 is particularly valid in this context as unless I'm mistaken, web design and video editing aren't all that easy to do on the Xbox

With gas and electric prices soaring and high end PC power usage going through the roof with 150W gfx cards etc,I think people are going to be considering power consumption far more in the near future. I've recently upgraded my HTPC. With decent performance (2ghz a64) it idles at under 60W total (including PSU loses) runs TV at around 70W and most the time uses less than 5W in S3 standby. Not only will the upgrade largely pay for itself, but it runs with a single 500rpm nexus fan and is seriously quiet!
Quite frankly I'm even dissapointed with how much this system uses though when my old p3 550 used less than 30W. Considering how many PCs there are on the planet now, it's about time we saw a different emphasis with PC component design - high peformance tied with low power use. Thankfully it's already started among the CPU manufacturers - Nvidia/ATi your turn next!

Marc

Admiral Huddy · 25 Apr 2006 at 15:02

fair points - can't argue with that