Socket 754

dandoubleo · 29 Jun 2006 at 08:56

Hi guys, at the moment my mean machine is a packing an AMD Sempron 2800 (1.6 Ghz). Im looking for something faster as at the moment its slowing down majorly when im doing some of my music production stuff. However iv had a quick browse and only found semprons with the same socket number. Soooo if i upghrade to a faster sempron, is it basically worth it? And is the motherboard only able to fit one socket? My motherboard is an Abit NV8.

Thanks for the help guys!

markysparky · 29 Jun 2006 at 09:09

Being someone who has previously had a semprom 3000+ i hope that i can help. The sempron 3100+ is meant to be a very good budget cpu. However if your motherboard supports 64 bit cpus then I would recommend an AMD 64. I upgraded from a sempron 3000+ to an AMD64 2800+ and the difference in performance was a big jump, plus the entry level AMD 64 cpu's are really cheap now. But if your motherboard does not support 64 bit cpu's then I would say that the upgrade would be worth it.

HeX · 29 Jun 2006 at 09:27

Have a look in BST for people selling 754 A64's.

I recently sold a 3400+ (2.4Ghz 512K 754), and i've seen others going in there.

They will give you a nice boost over the Sempron you have now.

Other option is move to 939/AM2 as all the A64 lines have lots of bargains on them atm with Conroe round the corner.

Gibbs · 29 Jun 2006 at 10:08

HeX said:
Have a look in BST for people selling 754 A64's.

I recently sold a 3400+ (2.4Ghz 512K 754), and i've seen others going in there.

They will give you a nice boost over the Sempron you have now.

Other option is move to 939/AM2 as all the A64 lines have lots of bargains on them atm with Conroe round the corner.

BST?

Minstadave · 29 Jun 2006 at 10:56

Gibbs said:
BST?

BST - Buy/sell/trade

By which he means OcUK's Members Market which you can't join until 250 posts iirc

dandoubleo · 29 Jun 2006 at 11:01

Time to get posting then!

How would i find out if my motherboard does support 63bit CPU's? As before the motherboard in question is a Abit NV8, so if anybody could kindly enlighten me.

Oh and well done on the promotion Minstadave.

Dureth · 29 Jun 2006 at 11:05

You will find 2nd hand Athlon 64's for socket 754. Go for a 3200, 3400 or 3700 depending on your price range. The 2800 and 3000 would not give you a huge boost over what you already have, not enough to warrant the cost anyway.

The other option is to upgrade your motherboard and CPU to a socket 939 system. Choosing 939 over the new AM2 or Conroe means that you can re-use your RAM to save on expense.

You can get a 3700 Athlon 64 socket 939 for 93 in this week only. Pair that with a Gigabyte K8N51GMF-9 nForce 6100 Micro ATX (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-042-GI) for £49 and you have a good upgrade. This platform gives you the chance to upgrade to a dual core CPU in the future. It also has semi-decent built in graphics so if your currently on an AGP card it will do you until you can sell that and buy a PCI-E card. Although if your not a gamer then the onboard should be more than enough.

Your current board is a scoket 754 system so it will support Athlon 64's. All 754 systems do.

Minstadave · 29 Jun 2006 at 11:05

dandoubleo said:
Time to get posting then!

How would i find out if my motherboard does support 63bit CPU's? As before the motherboard in question is a Abit NV8, so if anybody could kindly enlighten me.

Oh and well done on the promotion Minstadave.

All S754 and S939 boards support 64bit CPUs, its the CPU itself that determines whether a machine is 64 bit compatible. A few odd S754 CPUs didn't support 64bit instructions, but all the current ones do.

Dureth · 29 Jun 2006 at 11:08

Right after looking up your board its nForce 4 based so will definately support 64bit CPU's.

As your already on PCI-E then you have the choice of going with a 2nd hand Athlon 64 socket 754 (3200, 3400, 3700) or a new Athlon 64 socket 939 3700 and a new motherboard.

Your choices basically depend on if you can find a 2nd hand Athlon 64 socket 754 for a reasonable price. It may work out cheaper to buy a new 939 CPU if the socket 754 ones have gone up in price due to being rare these days.

Minstadave · 29 Jun 2006 at 11:22

Dureth said:
Right after looking up your board its nForce 4 based so will definately support 64bit CPU's.

As your already on PCI-E then you have the choice of going with a 2nd hand Athlon 64 socket 754 (3200, 3400, 3700) or a new Athlon 64 socket 939 3700 and a new motherboard.

Your choices basically depend on if you can find a 2nd hand Athlon 64 socket 754 for a reasonable price. It may work out cheaper to buy a new 939 CPU if the socket 754 ones have gone up in price due to being rare these days.

With S939 prices falling fast, and the availability of dual core chips on S939 that'd be the better upgrade path

Gibbs · 29 Jun 2006 at 11:25

Minstadave said:
BST - Buy/sell/trade

By which he means OcUK's Members Market which you can't join until 250 posts iirc

i know it was something like that

/me puts down his pint untill brain clears

Minstadave · 29 Jun 2006 at 11:28

Edit that out, best not have any references to illegal substances.

Edit:

Thank you

dandoubleo · 29 Jun 2006 at 11:32

Ah right so its either a second hand 64 or an upgrade. So im right in saying that a AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) will not fit in my motherboard?
Sorry for the questions guys, new to all this socket stuff!

Minstadave · 29 Jun 2006 at 11:33

dandoubleo said:
Ah right so its either a second hand 64 or an upgrade. So im right in saying that a AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) will not fit in my motherboard?
Sorry for the questions guys, new to all this socket stuff!

Yeah that won't fit unfortunately, thats a Socket 939 CPU and you're board is Socket 754

There are good S754 CPU upgrades around, but usually you pay extra due to them being pretty rare, you'll find Socket 754 3700s and Venice's second hand, but upgrading to S939 and a cheap NF4 board will bring better results for not a lot more money.

markysparky · 29 Jun 2006 at 11:35

i recommend getting an amd64, if you look around on the net you should be able to get hold of a socket 754 amd64, get one of those and some extra memory and you'll be laughing.

Minstadave · 29 Jun 2006 at 11:36

markysparky said:
i recommend getting an amd64, if you look around on the net you should be able to get hold of a socket 754 amd64, get one of those and some extra memory and you'll be laughing.

Thats a fair point too, it'd be simpler than changing the motherboard.

dandoubleo · 29 Jun 2006 at 11:39

Minstadave said:
Thats a fair point too, it'd be simpler than changing the motherboard.

Ah ok cheers, didnt really want to change the motherboard as its only been in a month or two as it is. Will have to have a look around see what i can see along the lines of 64's.

Dureth · 29 Jun 2006 at 16:33

I just thought it might not be the CPU holding your music work back. How much memory do you have?

Arthalen · 29 Jun 2006 at 16:42

I would not bother upgrading for another Sempron, and Skt 754 Athlon64's are hard to come by now.

Save your cash, overclock the Sempron as far as it can go (I have a 2800+ reliably doing 2.2Ghz) and upgrade to a new chip type when you can.

Music Production ? you may want to upgrade to dual core.

Darkwave · 29 Jun 2006 at 16:55

I am pretty much in the same position as you, and at the moment I am considering switching to Socket 939 and getting an X2 3800+ or X2 4400+ when Conroe is release as AMD are going to be slashing prices like crazy around then. Rumour is the 3800+ might be ~£100 and the 4400+ might be ~£160.