[phatosealpha]

I'm not sure if that's the case of dual channel capable P4s, but it certainly is on A64s.  4 sticks always requires slower 2T Ram timings, and on older A64s, bumps you down to DDR333 too.

[Grey Wolf]

Originally posted by CP5670

By the way, I suppose you have heard all the talk of "extreme" pipes. What exactly does that mean?

It's marketing speak. Ignore it.

[Turnsky]

ignore the word "extreme" in any kind of form, it's marketing speak designed to draw people in.. look at the numbers, do your research, and make your judgement based on a broad view.

[ZmaN]

Originally posted by CP5670


The card sounds ten times better the onboard ALC850 crap to me and has much lower CPU utilization, one of the best purchases I have made, but I think you need headphones or high end speakers to really tell the difference.

Yea i got some Logitech X-230's

[ZmaN]

well.... Ive nly worked with Intel boards, and this crappy company called albatron..... suckiest company!!!  anyway, I have little experience with specific brand names.  I've used Biostar, Albatron, Intel, Asus, and MAYBE a few others, but I'm goin on memory right now.  Im gunna go with what other people think is the best performence board for gaming, so start yellin it to me already!!!!

[ZmaN]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon
While we're on the subject, can someone explain what exactly "dual core" is? Is it like having two CPUs as the same speed as the listed speed? (eg an AMD64 X2 3500 would be like having a dual-processor AMD64 3500)

Also, is it a good idea to invest to pay more for dual-core processors, and what is the benefit over dual processor support?

The only benefit from dual copre is yes... what sumn1 else said it only provides speed when you run multiple programs at once, no affect on gaming..

[ZmaN]

OKAY  heres my spec sheet so far

Processor: AMD Athlon 3700+ Socket 939, San diego core
Hard Drives: Any good SATA II Drive
Sound Card:  Either my old Sound Blaster Live!, or a New Audigy 2 Value card
RAM: 768 MB of DDR (from my old PC, Speed is PC-2700 casue of one lousy RAM Stick)
Video Card: My Powercolor Radeon X800GT
Cooling:  I'll settle for stock until I get some extra cash

Not Sure yet:
Motherboard Brand
Power Supply Brand and wattage
DVD Burner brand
Case (for design and performance(e.g. cooling, space, wireing room, etc)

Okay so now recommend to me what is in the "Not Sure" list

Thanks so much, ZmaN

P.S. The Motherboard Chipset MUST BE A NVIDIA NFORCE 4 ULTRA!!!  PLEASE REMEMBER THAT.

[Grey Wolf]

San Diego is basically pointless. Winchester 3200+  if you want to overclock, and either the Winchester 3500+ or Manchester 3800+ if you don't.

Case: Don't go for silly looking cases. Go for a nice solid case with big fans. You'll be happier in the long run.
PSU: Antec is dependable, and I've heard fairly good things about Cooler Master and Fortron.

[ZmaN]

lemme ask u guys suttin, I was looking into crossfire technology, but in order to have crossfire, I need to have a radeon xpress 200 chipset thats crossfire ready.  2 ?'s

1. Can I do crossfire without an Xpress chipset (as in just on a board with 2 pci-e x16 slots on it)

2. Whats a better chipset, Nvidia Nforce4 Ultra or the Ati Radeon Xpress 200P?


ALSO!!!

check this link Explanation of AMD Cores

San Diego is Identical to Venice, the only difference is the cache, which is bigger so its better, and its the high end core for gamers...

[Grey Wolf]

The extra 512kb of cache does basically nothing except cost more (this has been backed by benchmarks).

The nForce 4 is better, even though I prefer VIA myself.

Don't use Crossfire, as it's still an immature technology, even worse off than SLI. ATi basically panicked when nVidia came out with SLI, and Crossfire is their half-baked solution.

[Descenterace]

WTF...

Which benchmarks? Which applications? What other equipment?

Not that it matters, since benchmarks don't actually mean anything anyway.

With slower RAM, that extra cache is VERY valuable.

[CP5670]

One thing that impressed me to no end about the Gigabyte motherboard I have at work is that the integrated sound card ports were monitored by a sensor of some sort. Whenever you plug or unplug something, a dialog box would pop up showing all the audio ports, indicating which one you just plugged something into, and providing you with a pull-down menu where you could choose what you wanted that port to be: front L/R, rear L/R, sub+center, etc. Really nifty.

I have that feature too on this A8V board. It's not very useful since the onboard sound sucks anyway.

My friend has a dual-channel Gigabyte motherboard, and found that 1x512 chip and 2x256 sticks wouldn't work; he only saw 768 MB of memory, no matter what he did.

The old nforce2 boards supported 3 sticks and they even worked perfectly in dual channel as long as both channels had the same amount of memory. But it seems that all the A64 boards only work with 1, 2 or 4 sticks.

ignore the word "extreme" in any kind of form, it's marketing speak designed to draw people in.. look at the numbers, do your research, and make your judgement based on a broad view.

That was my impression too. Every extreme product I have seen has been anything but. But a lot of people on hardware forums are throwing around "extreme pipes" like it's an official term and is somehow fundamentally different from normal pipes.

Which benchmarks? Which applications? What other equipment?

Not that it matters, since benchmarks don't actually mean anything anyway.

With slower RAM, that extra cache is VERY valuable.

The difference in price can be used to get a 1GB PC3200 memory pack though, which will be a much better buy.

I have seen basically one program, Mathematica, that gets major (15%) boosts with the extra cache, but the gains everything else are quite small on an A64.

[ZmaN]

Originally posted by Grey Wolf
The extra 512kb of cache does basically nothing except cost more (this has been backed by benchmarks).

The nForce 4 is better, even though I prefer VIA myself.

Don't use Crossfire, as it's still an immature technology, even worse off than SLI. ATi basically panicked when nVidia came out with SLI, and Crossfire is their half-baked solution.

Yea right, like ill buy that, check this: Crossfire vs. SLI

Also, check the rest of that review, and you'll see PERFECTLY that Crossfire is WAYYYY better than SLI... SLI is gay!!  You can also do a google search Crossfire Versus SLI and thats what ull get.

EDIT: ALSO!!! Check this out: Nvidia Vs. ATI, who'll be next?
That explains why ATI is having trouble with the PC Market right now, DID ANYONE REMEMBER ABOUT THE XBOX 360????  according to that link above, ATI's chips are being used in Xbox 360's, PS3 is going to be using Geforce 7 Series chips.......  Now do you get my picture, why ATI isnt a sucky company??

[ZmaN]

And nobody answered my question: Can I use Crossfire without an Xpress 200 motherboard?

[Descenter]

Abit makes very good motherboards, that are designed to handel over-clocking of cpu.  An Abit with an Athalon Processor, I think are a good mix for a seroius gamer.

[Grey Wolf]

Originally posted by ZmaN



Yea right, like ill buy that, check this: Crossfire vs. SLI

Also, check the rest of that review, and you'll see PERFECTLY that Crossfire is WAYYYY better than SLI... SLI is gay!!  You can also do a google search Crossfire Versus SLI and thats what ull get.

EDIT: ALSO!!! Check this out: Nvidia Vs. ATI, who'll be next?
That explains why ATI is having trouble with the PC Market right now, DID ANYONE REMEMBER ABOUT THE XBOX 360????  according to that link above, ATI's chips are being used in Xbox 360's, PS3 is going to be using Geforce 7 Series chips.......  Now do you get my picture, why ATI isnt a sucky company??

It's not performance. It's the very design. ATi, with their R4xx cores and the R5xx cores, requires a fairly rare card to successfully pull off Crossfire. Specifically, a Master Card, with a normal card functioning as a Slave. If you can find a Master Card, more power to you. Good luck with that though.

As for the Xbox360 and the PS3, I honestly don't care about consoles that much, as they're not very good measures of the actual power of the parts.

Finally, I never accused ATi of being a "sucky company". What I did claim to be was decently informed on the current status of the computer industry. Hell, my major in college is the manufacturing of microchips. I hope you appreciate the hazardous chemicals manufacturing your processor involves, including hydroflouric acid. Also, use proper grammar. Typing in all capital letters weakens your point, and destroys any point you might have had.

[phatosealpha]

X360 ISN'T affecting ATi in any way other then paying them royalities.  MS bought the design, and are producing it.  ATi isn't responsible for actually making the ATi processors.

While there is speculation that ATi may at some point enable crossfire on nForce 4 boards, as it stands it's gonna require an ATi mobo.

[CP5670]

Speaking of ATI, here are some more R520 pictures and info:

http://www.techpowerup.com/index.php?5127

[phatosealpha]

How trustworthy is that site?  there's plenty of rumours going around.

[CP5670]

Who knows? But it has the first actual R520 pictures that I know of.