Decided to upgrade my 939 Amd rather than replace. Which 939 cpu would you go with.

johnplayerblue

After some sound advice from a couple of the lads here and a few weeks thinking about it i've decided to upgrade and build around my MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum 939, AGP 8x.

Club3D Radeon HD 3850 512MB GDDR3, AGP,

Antec Performance One P180 Miditower,

Corsair Powersupply 750W Black, ATX/EPS,

Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA2, x2

The case and psu will do for my next build and i have 4gigs of corsair pc3200 running under xp x64.

The only thing i have to get now is the dual core 939 to replace my 3800 San Diego. At the moment im bidding on a Athlon 64 X2 2.4 GHz 4800+ Toledo core with Arctic Freezer64 Cooler.

The Opetron is still a little over priced but worth conserding. The system will be used for gaming and video encoding. As it stands my bid is at 175e, is this two much or would i be better off with a 4200 which is give or take 70/100e in difference.

With the 4800 i would have spent about 550.

ytareh

EDIT Oh Dear God Ive just read you may be paying 175 euro for a skt939 cpu...I PRAY you dont 'win'.I paid less for an Opteron 146 3 or 4 years ago.

EDIT2 I assumed you had all this stuff for years ...you should not be pumping so much into an OLD system .Hopefully you will be able to sell it all and start again on Intel Core 2 Duo.AMD was best 3 or 4 years ago .Thats a lifetime in PC time .



"A hundred euro BETWEEN " the price you are going to pay for two socket 939 cpus???!!!
Im not sure what advice youve been getting but surely it makes more sense in every way including financially to go Core2Duo.Even neglecting the price you will get reselling your admittedly sought after skt 939 (your motherboard will always be worth min 25/30 euro)/AGP stuff what about these ?All prices for used or heavily discounted items :

MINIMUM BUDGET:

cpu e2140/e2160/e2180/e2200/e4400/e4600/e6300 etc etc etc 50 euro
motherboard 50 euro
graphics X1900/X1950 XT or XTX or Pro Versions 50 euro
RAM Practically Free!!! 20 euro for 2gig ???
170 euro total

There are people who sell FULL COMPUTERS with this sort of spec for under 350 even 300 sometimes on Adverts .You could probably get 200 for yours if you were a bit lucky...

GENEROUS BUDGETS

cpu e8400/e8600 120-160 euro
motherboard 70-140 euro
graphics -8800-4870 90-190euro
RAM 20-50 euro

Totals 300-540 euro less 100-200 for sale of your stuff
Result you may be in a Core2Duo setup for less than you dreamed
You know it makes sense !

ytareh

Even your motherboard is an NForce 3 chipset which wont be the best for overclocking ....Please stop with the 939 and go C2Duo!!!And dual core AMDs will do zero for your gaming...You just need to sell motherboard ,graphics and RAM...They should be snapped up.

PogMoThoin

Forget about 939, buy an upgrade kit or better still buy a new pc. That pc isn't worth much

uberpixie

johnplayerblue wrote: »

The Opetron is still a little over priced but worth conserding. The system will be used for gaming and video encoding

Then why the fcuk are you crippling yourself by doing this on a socket 939?
Seriously, core2duos are MUCH MUCH faster at video encoding and games that a socket 939.
Take the lads advice, go core2duo.

Mobos are cheap, 4gig of ddr2 pc6400 can be gotten for €60, CPUs for as little as €50, the cheap intel pentiums (core2duos with less cache...) would still pwn a socket 939 in video encoding.
€175 gets you a quadcore 2.4ghz or a 3.0ghz dualcore Vs an old opteron!

Going socket 939 for you intended tasks is just plain moronic: you will end up spending the same or slightly less money for significantly less CPU performance Vs just buying a socket 775 cpu + mobo + ram.

Cost/value ratio is well in favour of core2duo. You are already looking at getting a new case,pcu etc... you are essentially building new any way, go the whole hog.

TerrorFirmer

175 would get you:

A reliable board with stable overclocking
An Intel Dual Core
4Gb Ram

Not to mention opterons and S939 dual core CPU's sell for 30-40 euro on adverts whenever they pop up.

Worst upgrade thread of the year.

AlmightyCushion

Just posting to say I can't agree more with the lads above. You'd be throwing away money sticking with socket 939.

Slutmonkey57b

Why on earth would you think spending 175+ on an ancient processor is a "good deal"??
Unless you're running some ancient server that requires hardware compatibility, there's no reason whatsoever not to junk your old mobo/cpu.

And for Video encoding work?? You're not going to go for a wolfdale Core2? You're mad.

zAbbo

If someone was to upgrade a s939 system, what's the most you can get.

I have a sff with a 939 board running a Opteron 144 atm.

PogMoThoin

zAbbo wrote: »

If someone was to upgrade a s939 system, what's the most you can get.

I have a sff with a 939 board running a Opteron 144 atm.

Forget bout it, 939 is dead, pointless upgrage when Core2duo's are so much more powerful and for peanuts

ricka05

http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=407607 - 124
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=407611 -214
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=407561 -250 euro

zAbbo

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Forget bout it, 939 is dead, pointless upgrage when Core2duo's are so much more powerful and for peanuts

As stated, I've a SFF setup, the cost of a new one of these would be considerably more than a CPU upgrade

PogMoThoin

zAbbo wrote: »

As stated, I've a SFF setup, the cost of a new one of these would be considerably more than a CPU upgrade

Forget it, 939 was killed off in 2006 therefore you'd pay way more than its worth for little more speed

uberpixie

zAbbo wrote: »

As stated, I've a SFF setup, the cost of a new one of these would be considerably more than a CPU upgrade

I would advise going a M-atx route if size is the issue.

Socket 939 is dead, build a bridge and get over it. Now you might be able to scrounge up a late 4200X2 in socket 939, and assuming your SFF build will accept it, you can drag a little longer out of your SFF rig on low resolution gaming.

I would start planing a fresh build at some stage though...

def look into a small micro M-atx case: m-atx boards are cheap and you can make a m-atx build for a bit cheaper than a new SFF build and have the advantage of a full sized replacable PSU.

johnplayerblue

Well i did it, i bought a 64 x2 4200 2.2 for 70e + the Club3D Radeon HD 3850 512MB GDDR3 and a few other bits and bobs which apart from case and psu has set me back 200 bills.

This time 3 weeks ago i was about to go all out and buy an i7 and build from the ground up for a cost of about 1500e but this admitidley outdated upgrade wiil get me to a point in time when ddr3 and an x85 come way down in price and the case and psu will do for that build or i could stay with Amd and upgrade proper to a phenom II which is what i'd prefer. (Not a fanboy)

I know that agp and 939 are well and truly past there use by date but the 939 are a dam fine chip and even my current 3800 is running at 2.55 and never an issues and since building it 3+ yrs ago i could count on one hand the amount of times its locked up or needed a reboot, i know this is not soley down to hardware but i still can't fault it.

The current case, psu and x800xt will be used for an old 478 3.4Gh chip/mobo that i haven't used for a long time so the way i look at it im geting a decent media server(478 chip) and my main pc for 200e with a watchfull eye on the phenom II.

Out of intrest, can anyone tell me why these old 939's are still commanding such high prices? the 4800+ that i was bidding on ended going for 200 bills with 20 bids and give or take that seems to be whats been paid, theres an FS60 939 with a day to go with 28 bids at 250e all without p+p. Thats a lot of money for new/used chips, when i decided to upgrade i thought id get an Opteron 180 for 60/70e but instead there going for close to 200. What gives....

witnessmenow

Let me know if your selling the 3800 x2. I have its single cored bretheren (3800 64) so i could really do with an upgrade .

TerrorFirmer

It's an old outdated socket, and represents the best possible upgrade for a complete system. Same reason why Pentium D commands prices way out of sync with it's actual performance. There's also a certain amount of nostalgia/collectors status attached to Opteron and FX cpu's.

TheDoc

This is a very interesting thread for me.

I'm too running an AMD 3700 socket 939.

I too was looknig for an upgrade but i decided to hold off, cause i didnt want to invest in old technology.

My mahcine is mainly for gaming. Is pentium the new top dog?

I'm basically looking to get into the dual core market...anyone got advice for some good upgrade kits.

I'm currently running a gigabyte k8n sli mobo..with 2gb of ram. And the 3700+ mobo,

Advice on a nice upgrade, not too pricey but good performance would be sweet.

And something id get definite upgrade performance from

EDIT:

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=1928

Thats the link to my motherboard there, does that mobo mean i can upgrade to 64x2 straight away? I assume this means its dual core compaitable motherboard, but id be interested to know form you experts wether the upgrade would be worthwhile, and which cpu would be good.

Or is the X2 available to me, is in 939 socket, which is just crap.

witnessmenow

AFAIK all 939 boards can support up to a 4400 X2

TheDoc

Is that a worthwhile upgrade though

witnessmenow

Well its higher clock speed than your processor, it also has two cores, so i'd imagine its a decent improvement, value for money though... i dunno?

TerrorFirmer

Depends what you pay for it - 20-40 euro, then yeah sure, saves you having to build from scratch and gives your system a bit of a shot. Long term there's not much in it, but if you've survived this long with a 3700+ then it'd keep you tided over for quite some time.

Don't pay more then 20-40 for it though, which is the going rate here and occasionally on places like Guru3d Forums. EBay demands crazy prices, for which you'd often actually buy an Intel board, core 2 based cpu and ram!

TheDoc

i know my dad picked up a nice intel core duo, mobo, 2gb of decent ram for 120 euro, which is making his games like rome total war breeze

I also see maplin are doing a similar kit for 160.

I'm so outa touch with cpu's these days, because the 3700 performed so well.

But basically, im looking for more kick outa world of warcraft performance. And figure a little upgrade couldnt hurt.

If theres decent dual core bundles around for sub 200 id be interested, but anything over that, my machine isnt begging for much at the moment and playing my type of games perfect.

TerrorFirmer

You'd get the guts of a system brand new for that money, 2nd hand would cost even less.

I don't know what Maplins are offering but it's usually crap i.e stick of ultra cheap 1gb/2gb ram, cheap board, and usually dual core Celeron rather then Pentium/Core 2 - which are poor for games, even when heavily overclocked.

Check out Komplett, 200 would easily get you

E5200
4Gb Ram
Cheap but decent board

Even without overclocking that'd be 3 or 4x faster then a 3700+ and 2-2.5x faster then an old X2.

TerrorFirmer

Or do it on the cheap:

Board
CPU
Ram

Still much faster then the proposed X2 without any overclocking and total of 130 euro, small bit of overclocking would see it perform like a beast.

witnessmenow

stop trying to temp me terror!!

TheDoc

one thing i never did was overclocking, because i just enver looked into it.

AS regards dual cores, what one should i be looking at, the one you linked?

Im so outa touch these days.

Perhaps you guys might be able to give me a dig out regarding some options and opinions.

Say I go with the E5200.

I currently have 2gb of ram, will doubling it to 4gb be worthwhile?

And what motherboard is decent, considering i have an 8800gt(something) and two 500GB hard drives in SATA.

What can you guys cook up for me, say below the 200 mark.

Greatly appreciated. I love upgrading the old pc

Slutmonkey57b

[DM]-TheDOC- wrote: »

one thing i never did was overclocking, because i just enver looked into it.

AS regards dual cores, what one should i be looking at, the one you linked?

Im so outa touch these days.

Perhaps you guys might be able to give me a dig out regarding some options and opinions.

Say I go with the E5200.

Very High performing chips are so cheap at the moment that the low end of the market is *really* confusing. Intel have a whole load of chips they don't have markets for because the "midrange" parts perform like monsters, leaving the cheap parts with nowhere to go, while AMD have a whole load of broken hot slow chips they can't sell for love or money until Phenom II arrives, and even then they're only just about catching up with the previous generation of Core 2's. You've got Celeron->Pentium in a narrow band of ~30-40 quid, then a ~30 quid jump to the low end e7000 core 2's, then another ~30 quid jump where you've got latest gen 45nm e8000 core2's mixed in with the low end quads q6600 and q8300.

Basically the main difference between all the cheap intels at the moment is cache size. They all overclock like monsters and if you've got a 45nm one you've got the latest version of SSE which makes a huge difference for video encoding. If you're planning on doing anything taxing (WoW is definitely not) then look at the cache size first.

I currently have 2gb of ram, will doubling it to 4gb be worthwhile?

Yes if you have 64bit vista/xp. If not, don't bother because you'll end up not able to use it all. On the other hand, it's dirt cheap so why not?

And what motherboard is decent, considering i have an 8800gt(something) and two 500GB hard drives in SATA.

Are you running two cards? If not, you don't need SLI. If you're not overclocking, then buy a nice cheap intel board (p31/p35/p43). Nothing you're planning on doing is going to stress one of those boards out. AVOID anything with nvidia integrated graphics, as the chipsets for those are horribly broken.

What can you guys cook up for me, say below the 200 mark.

Greatly appreciated. I love upgrading the old pc

Asrock p43 mobo
E5200
4GB DDR2 Ram

The Asrock is fine if you're not going to overclock, but you'd need 2 ATI cards for crossfire.
e5200 should fill your needs nicely.
4GB ram because it's cheap and leaves you space to slap in another 4gb later down the road.
180 + delivery.

TerrorFirmer

Really any Core 2 based cpu is excellent value for money right down to the slowest Pentium Dual Cores, because even limited overclocking brings them up to par with faster Core 2 Duo's in games. Sound advice above though. The only Intel CPU to outright avoid for games is the Celeron Dual Cores. Overclocking doesn't save them much.

I'd probably just go with Komplett for small orders seeing as delivery is so expensive on HWV plus the extra effort required to make an order there. Like this, about 200 including delivery.

The 3700+, board and 2gb of ram you currently have should net you about 60-70 euro, the ram alone is worth about half that.

TheDoc

Thanks for the replies guys.

I'm running xp, 32 bit and I do not plan to upgrade anytime soon, unless theres some update out that upgrades xp to 64bit. I really dont know, like said have not bothered with hardware in some time.

I might look heavily into overclocking, it seems like its a well worthwhile investment.

I'd be looking for a board that accepts nvidia graphics cards..I'm a bit of a loyal servant of theirs

I've done a little scowering of the net, and for those upgrade prices, its scary, really scary...how faster and more powerful the recommended pieces there are going to beef my pc.


EDIT

Went ahed and purchased the unit terrorformer put up there, thanks a million for the help im well looking foward to giving it a craic, might be back to look up overclocking

And if anyone wants my spare parts, you know where to find me

And on a final note,I'm assuming that ram isnt for vista only, i know its daft and of course it will work with xp, but just want to check