Computer Processor

I realize this isn't tech central or anything, but a lot of you know what your talking about when it comes to processors and such. Well for Christmas, I am hoping to get a new processor, so what would be a good one to buy, I'm looking at it costing less then $500 dollars if that is all possible.

I hear all of this talk of Semprons, Athlons, and Durons. I just wish I knew what that all meant. I know AMD processors are generally better then Intel processors. But from there, I don't really know what I am getting myself into. *** Edited 11/29/2004 3:57:32 AM UTC by Kyle Fobe***

If you, or someone you know can build a machine, you can pick up a mobile Athlon XP, motherboard and memory for under $250. I say go for the mobile (and the over-clockable motherboards) because you can get more performance for less money. No, it won't be as fast as the Athlon 64's, but I'm quite happy with what I have and it didn't break the bank.

So, I won't need a 64 bit processor in the immediate future?

Also, how much more memory would I need?

The 64-bit version of Windows XP, and 64-bit applications, don't even exist in final retail form yet, so I wouldn't get that excited about it yet. 512 MB of memory is adequate for everything I've found except really big Photoshop files.

I'm going with the AMD Sempron 2800+ just because thats what they have in stock and its relativly cheaper, lol!

I once again will pimp the anandtech.com website. They have an entire section dedicated to CPUs and their price/performance ratios so you'll have a good idea of what you get for each additional dollar you spend. You'll also want to check out their graphics card guides. If this comp is to be used for gaming, then you dont want to skimp too much on the vid card.

BTW: If you want a second opinion, I'd additionally suggest reading the reviews on tom's hardware guide. They are just as good as AnandTech, just from a slightly different perspective.

That being said, I'd suggest re-using your current monitor, hard drive, keyboard, mouse, windows OS and buying:

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 2800+ $127

Motherboard: Chaintech VNF3-250 $72

Memory: Muskin 512MB DDR400 ~$70

Vid Card: XFX Nvidia 6600GT $240 (if you want to play Doom 3 w/ highest quality). Or, Sapphire ATI Radeon 9600 XT $136 (if RCT3 is more the gaming you'll do)

Case & Power Supply: ENERMAX Blue Aluminum w/ 400W power supply $58

And if for some reason you dont yet have a DVD-ROM/burner: NEC 16X DVD+/- RW $68

So that will run you between $463 and $635 with the bulk being the vid card. But if you dont plan on playing the latest and greatest PC games and only really use this as an office computer, you can downgrade all the way to a Radeon 9200SE for a mere pittance of 45 bucks, but if you like to game, I dont recommend it.

But the real question is, what type of comp are you starting with?

No way.

LG burners are the stuff.

$82 for a drive that burns every CD & DVD format (including dual layer DVD's) at 40x for CD's and 16x for DVD is insane.

I have the older 8x version and haven't made a single coaster yet. It handles everything without a problem and even took a firmware upgrade effortlessly.

I'm also a fan of Epox MoBo's, but that's probably just a personal preference. :)

Well this is a computer from 2001 with a few upgrades....

Dell Computer

P4 1.5 GHZ

384 mb DDR RAM

NVIDIA GeForce FX5500 256 MB Video Card

17 inch CRT Monitor

Window's XP

Just CD-ROM and 3 1/2 drives.

20 gig hard drive, with hardly any space. *** Edited 11/29/2004 9:52:08 PM UTC by Kyle Fobe***

Oh yeah, that comp is going to need most of it updated. I'd keep the monitor, keyboard, mouse and dump about everything else. On second thought, hold on to that 5500 Nvidia card for about 6-8 months till the AGP version of the 6600GT drops under $200.

Also, you know you need a new hard drive so I'd go for either a Seagate or Western Digital Special Edition hard drive of I'd say at least 80 gigs (by all means get more if you want) and 7200RPM (when loading games you will be thankful for this).

LG: I dont know if you're partial to LG just because of the name ;), but from what I've read, the NEC performs as good a anything out there. Personally, I've had good experience with MSI and Lite-On so I dont think there is a bad one in that bunch.

lata, jeremy

--feeling really 'nerdy' lately (a good thing)

I don't have any brand loyalty when it comes to hard drives, but I've had three Western Digitals die on me in the last five or six years. All of my Maxtor drives still work.

If you're looking for a performance system, investigate the CHIPSET and the motherboard thoroughly. A bad chipset can make your fast CPU really slow by limiting the memory access times and so on.

I'm a personal believer in Intel Chipsets with Intel CPU's, and so on. The guys who built the CPU know how to make it run and get it to interface properly with everything else.

Drop extra coin on a good motherboard, rather than the extra 0.2 to 0.4 Ghz on the CPU. A great motherboard with an average CPU is going to beat the hell out of an average motherboard with a great CPU.

Check for the Front Side Bus Speed (800Mhz if you can get it), and also check that you can run the memory in Dual Mode. These are things that in my experience the sales guys at Best Buy and CompUSA don't know about at all - you need to get hold of a competent techie.

FWIW I'm running an ASUS-P4C800-E Motherboard with an Intel 875P Chipset, and a 2.8Ghz P4 with 512mB RAM. I've got an NVIDIA GeForce 5700 graphics card, and I can sustain 60 fps on No Limits. The Demo of RCT3 ran nicely for me, but I wasn't so impressed with the list of bugs, so I didn't buy it.

I have an ASUS A7V8X-X with a 1800 Duron (1.8Ghz), 256 MB DDR Ram, 64 MB Radeon 7000, standard onboard sound, LG CD-ROM, 3 1/2 floppy, but I'm looking to invest in the Sempron with p333 RAM because of the Semprons 333 Mhz FSB. Most games run fine except high end games over 1 GB (command and conquer)

Yeah, after looking at how cheap some of this stuff is, I am definitely planning on burning my birthday money/christmas money on all of this.

DC: I wouldnt do that if I were you. If you were going for the socket 754 3100+ Semp, I'd cheer you on. But there is no point in you getting the 2800+ Sempron when you could get the Athlon XP 2700+ for cheaper. The XP 2700+ is better in every way: Faster, More Cache, Cheaper. All around, I think you'll be happier with the XP 2700+. And there is no overclocking needed :)

lata, jeremy

Thats all thats available around me that my comp supports, plus all the stores around me, AMD has stopped shipping their Athalon XP processors, they are trying to get the Sempron to sell, and for what it is really my motherboard can't support anything better than a sempron for now. the motherboard is capable of the proccessor witht the right RAM, i checked out mobile athalon like Jeff said, but all they carry is sempron, the major differance for me is the speed, it has better cache then the duron and a faster FSB so here, things look pretty good, considering.