Upgrade from 754...

[HeX]

I'll be selling my 754 rig that has lasted me a long time and moving onto something new. Now the problem is I havn't got a huge budget to play around with. I'll have about £250 to get cpu, mobo, and mem.

I've had a bit of a look round and these seem to be my best options:

Intel P4 805 Smithfield 2.66Ghz
ASUS P5ND2 nForce4 SLi
1Gb Geil PC5300 DDR2
Zalman CNPS 9500-AT (775)


OR


AMD A64 3000+ (1.8Ghz) AM2
MSI K9N 570 SLi // ASUS M2N-SLi
1Gb Geil PC5300 DD2


Both work out about the same price (the intel a little cheeper even with 3rd party cooler). Now i'll be getting one of these with the intention of overclocking it to a decent level.

3000+'s are pretty much guarrenteed to hit around the 2.5Ghz mark on air (though i've not seen any reviews of the AM2 one but i'd guess its about the same). And the 805 as everyone knows is a beast of an overclocker and should hit ~3.8Ghz on air without much problems.

Question is... which will be the faster system... which ever one I choose will be powering 2 x 7800GT's in SLi and I have a 680W Tt PSU. I assume the 805 will be a good deal hotter than the 3000+ overclocked and will use a fair bit more power...

So which would you buy? or would you get something else?

 

[Global_Inferno]

I personally would go for the 3000+ AM2 system and OC the **** out of it!

 

[nbkpsycho]

I personally would go for the 3000+ AM2 system and OC the **** out of it!

2nd that (its not much of an upgrade tho is it ?)

 

[HeX]

2nd that (its not much of an upgrade tho is it ?)

Not really, its just more to give me some space to manuver in the future and I want something new to play with

 

[pastymuncher]

Stick with what you have and wait and see what Conroe is really like on launch.

You need to change the last line in your siggy now.

 

[HeX]

It'll be a sad day when I leave 754, its been a grand setup...

Oh the dilema!

 

[SinaiSound]

What's the reason for upgrading?

What about a new 754 PCI-E with a suitable graphics card?

 

[HeX]

What's the reason for upgrading?

What about a new 754 PCI-E with a suitable graphics card?

I have a 8NPA-SLi atm with 2 x 7800GT's

Reason i'm changing is because with AM2 out now 754 is going to rapidly dissapear entirely so i'm wanting to change while its still worth something

Don't get me wrong my current setup is fast, I get over 5800 in 3Dmark06, I just fancy getting something new and something that gives me some upgrade room (if I go AM2 I plan to get an X2 4000+ when they drop in price around xmas time).

 

[pastymuncher]

Hex, 939 is going before 754.

939 is getting phased out from Q4 06 and 754 from Q4 07.

AM2 seems like a waste of time until the 65nm cpu's arrive. Conroe looks interesting but i shall wait to see what the real independent reviews are like when it is actually released.

In the meantime 754 Cpu's are going through the roof on a certain auction site. In the past couple of weeks the 3700+ has gone twice for over £180. It was only xmas that you could buy them from retailers for £110.

 

[HeX]

Hmmm... I may reconsider then... i'm just getting that upgrade itch...

Might get rid of my 1Gb and get 2Gb and a nice new cooler...

Gah!!! Now I have a 3rd choice...

 

[Lanz]

Get rid of your 754 when it gets slow, no point upgrading just for the fun of it, cpu matters very little in most of todays top games, its all about GPU, and you're fine in that dept.

Dont worry about resale value on 754 A64's, as so long as there are Sempron 754 systems being sold, there will be a healthy interest in A64s 754's.

 

[RobK]

I recently upgraded my socket 754 A64 3200+ to an Opteron 170 with 2GB ram and a 7900GT. Apart from being a bit smoother in WoW I could hardly tell the difference, so I sold it off again and went back to the 754!

 

[Lanz]

I'll get rid of mine when dual core games and stuff become the norm. I dont see the point of moving from a decent 754/PCIe to the same'ish single core A64 on AM2.