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General discussion

PCI-E or AGP?

May 3, 2005 11:49PM PDT

Alongside of needing a little advice on a few things for my new system that I'm trying to build, I would like a good, definitive opinion on PCI-E versus AGP. I see good video cards all over the place, and some of them are for AGP, while some are for PCI-E. Some are for both, it seems, and there are so many different permutations of the same series card, it's sort of difficult to keep together. Having stated that, here is the setup I'm currently considering:

ASUS A8V-E Deluxe Socket 939 VIA K8T890 ATX AMD Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ ClawHammer/Hammer 1GHz FSB Socket 939 Processor Model ADA3500ASBOX
2x Maxtor 120 GB SATA drives comprising one RAID 0 array
Maxtor 160 GB UltraATA/133 IDE hard drive
Antec TruePower 430W PSU
Windows XP Home SP2
NETGEAR 108Mbps wireless adapter

I think that's everything I've settled on. The gaps I'm trying to fill so far are the video card and the memory. The video card is the toughest because it will determine what mobo I will purchase, too. I just chose the one above after having read a review of 9 PCI-E mobosm, and I have been happy with ASUS motherboards thus far. I also initiall chose PCI-E for the sake of future upgradability. However, I'm still a bit torn on the PCI-E vs. AGP issue--is it worth switching to PCI-E now, and what sort of performance gains would you see in two similarly matched cards, one on a PCI-E bus and the other on an AGP 8x bus? I'm only running one video card, so I'm not worrying about SLI operation just yet. However, also taking that into consideration, should I even bother with an SLI board? Should I perhaps get just a single PCI-E board? So many questions, I apologize. I hope someone can help. Happy

Discussion is locked

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In a nutshell. AGP at end of development. PCI-E just
May 4, 2005 12:14AM PDT

PCI-E speeds are just starting up. If this is a new box with an eye on video performance (games, not video editing), then the nod is to PCI-E.

Bob

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On to memory...
May 4, 2005 1:53AM PDT

Thanks for the tip, I'll stick with the mobo in the above list, then. As for memory, I know ASUS usually has a QVL for each board, but any brands that have given people an easy time with use and whatnot?

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RAM
May 4, 2005 4:10AM PDT

I'm using 2 512 meg Kingston value ram with my Asus A8V and no problems. ZipZoomFly has two sticks for $85. Crucial makes very good memory, also.

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PCI-E or AGP
May 4, 2005 9:12AM PDT

Hi Zion,

In line with what Bob says..the PCI Express, a next-generation bus technology providing a high-speed interconnect, is designed to meet the increasing bandwidth demands of such emerging next-generation applications as 3D games with the PCI Express x16 slot, professional 3D content creation, high-definition video editing, and more with the x1 and x4 PCI Express slots.

From the ASUS site:

"PCI Express is the latest I/O interconnect technology that will replace the existing PCI. With a bus bandwidth 4 times higher than that of AGP 8X interface, PCI Express x16 bus performs much better than AGP 8X in applications such as 3D gaming. PCI Express x1 also outperforms PCI interface with its exceptional high bandwidth up to 500MB/s. The high speed PCI Express interface creates new usages on desktop PCs e.g., Gigabit LAN, 1394b, and high-speed RAID systems."

Your selected motherboard is $145 at Newegg and has:
1 - PCI-E x16
2 - PCI-E x1
3 - PCI Regular slots

The A8N - SLI Deluxe motherboard that can handle one or two video cards is $34 more. If you plan on going to two cards later, then this is the one to get.

There is also the new Dual Core processors out now by Intel, with AMD to have theirs out pretty soon. The Dual Core processors perform like two processors in one when you are running multiple games and applications at once. Myself, I would like this better than the SLI two video card capability.

The Intel processor is Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 840, with HT, 3.2GHz, dual core, and can be tuned to 3.6, 3.8, or 4.0 GHz. The motherboard, Intel D955X BKLKR, 955X chipset with DDR2, PCI Express. Newegg does not have it yet.
It appears to be quite expensive now, but will probably get cheaper as time goes on.

The Intel Dual core computers are now being sold by Alienware, Dell, and Velocity Micro.

I have not seen any comparison with this Intel dual core to AMD in gaming, but it appears to be extremely powerful in a one video card setup with Velocity Micro, to handle any games to come down the pike, and also handle other computer tasks like video editing very well in a dual compacity.

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Socket 939 compatible with soon-to-come AMD Dual-cores?
May 4, 2005 5:56PM PDT

That's a question that's been lingering in my head--will the new AMD dual-core processors be able to be used with the socket 939 boards coming out now? Or are they introducing a new architecture entirely for them?

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AMD Dual cores will be Socket 939 compatible (w/BIOS update)
May 5, 2005 3:09AM PDT

(NT)

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RE:
May 8, 2005 9:29AM PDT

Well, it'll only be compatible with the first dual-cores. Later dual-cores with a new core probably with support for DDR2,i hope will be in a new socket called M2. So at current, pretty much no motherboard will withstand the impact of the dual-cores to come. Unless, intel sticks with its modified socket 775...
Roger

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Yep, it will....
May 5, 2005 4:02AM PDT

AMD is currently shipping samples of the AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core processors to leading OEMs worldwide and will officially launch in June 2005.

AMD plans to bring client dual-core AMD64 processors, based on the existing 939-pin socket, to the market in the second half of 2005.

AMD has already announced immediate availability of the Dual-Core AMD Opteron 800 Series processor for four- to eight-way servers. The 200 Series processors for two-way servers and workstations will be available late this month.

A broad portfolio of these multi-tasking processors will join the AMD64 family and includes models 4800+, 4600+, 4400+ and 4200+ with the price based on performance at $1001, $803, $581 and $537, respectively, in 1,000-unit quantities.

The Intel Dual processor is supposed to to be around $1050 with the chipset.

AMD plans to introduce a dual-core version of the AMD Athlon 64 FX processor when multithreaded software games are available to take advantage of its benefits.

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PCI-E or AGP? PCI-E for expandability
May 6, 2005 3:29AM PDT

Lets see...AGP v PCI-E
As of now, the PCI-E technology is becoming more prevalent in the computer world. The Computer you are building looks like a gaming computer, no?
The main benefits of PCI-E is that information runs two ways instead of one on AGP, this theoretically makes the PCI-E faster. However, some AGP cards are still up there with some of the PCI-E cards such as the 6800GT and the X800 Pro. If you are building a computer for future expandability, i'd say that you should get a PCI-E video card. Notwithstanding, that means your motherboard needs to be changed as well. Some nice boards are the ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe or the DFI Lanparty UT nF4 SLI-DR.
Most PCI-E motherboards still use DDR memory. Some have DDR2 memory. Pricewise i'd say choose one with DDR. DDR 400 at latency 2-2-2-5 is still pretty fast. For memory i'd suggest Kingston HyperX, Corsair XMS, OCZ, or Patriot. If you can, find memory that uses Samsung TCCD chips. They're pretty fast and offer some overclockability. If not, any low latency memory will do.
SLI is a very nice option. You dont probably need it right now, but imagine this. If you get an SLI equipped motherboard and an SLI capable card, in the future, you could buy another SLI card (same model) and use the bridge to get even faster speeds. If I were to buy a new motherboard right now, i'd basically do that...get the SLI option and upgrade in the future when I have more money.
Now for your choice of CPU. Id suggest getting the Winchester version of the AMD 64 3500+. It's based of a 90 nm core and tends to run much cooler than the CLawhammer at 130 nm. If you plan to overclock, then the fact that the 90nm chip is cooler will help you out. That and I think AMD has some extra goodies with the chip...but i'm no expert. Hope this helped.

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Thanks!
May 6, 2005 6:06PM PDT

Yes, all of your suggestions helped out immensely, thanks everyone for all of your help. It seems like the video card race is so close, it's hard to choose which one you want. But I'm thinking of trying an NVIDIA card this time around. Which brings me to my next question--what is the actual (if any) performance gain of using an NVIDIA card with an NVIDIA motherboard controller? Would it be barely noticable if I were to use an ATI video card? What I have now is a Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB on an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe, and not having used a comparable NVIDIA card, I'm not really sure what the added advantage is.

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Clarification
May 8, 2005 9:14AM PDT

You stated:
Now for your choice of CPU. Id suggest getting the Winchester version of the AMD 64 3500+. It's based of a 90 nm core and tends to run much cooler than the CLawhammer at 130 nm. If you plan to overclock, then the fact that the 90nm chip is cooler will help you out. That and I think AMD has some extra goodies with the chip...but i'm no expert. Hope this helped.

I think you might be confusing Clawhammer with Sledghammer.

Here's why: For Socket 939, which was created as the successor to Socket 940 in the desktop range, there are four different CPU versions. The Newcastle is based on a 130-nm process and has a 512-kB L2 cache, while the Athlon64 3400+ is the only one to work with 200-MHz hyper transport. All other processors can fall back on the faster interface with 250 MHz, making a data transfer rate of 4 GB/s possible. Available only recently is the Winchester core, which is also equipped with a 512-kB L2 cache, but is manufactured in an 90-nm process. Mainly due to the Cool-and-Quiet feature, the Athlon achieves a minimum heat loss of a sensational 3 watts - the maximum performance (full capacity) of 33 watts is also astonishingly low.

The fourth variation is the Athlon64 FX in the classic Clawhammer core. This is sold for Socket 939 90nm with 2.4 GHz and 2.6 GHz as FX-53 and FX-55. These very expensive CPUs have a larger L2 cache with 1 MB. The Sledgehammer has a 130nm core.

The Athlon64 4000+, which is identical to the FX-53, causes some confusion. The only difference is that the FX CPUs have a multiplier that is freely adjustable upwards and downwards, while the Athlon64 class can only be adjusted freely downwards. A significant basis for very high performance is the dual-channel DDR400 memory interface without registered protocol, which is common to all CPUs. AMD plans to expand the 90-nm technology further and to introduce dual-core CPUs sometime in 2005.

As for the PCIe vs AGP. The above info as well as a wealth of other info can be found at Tom's Hardware Guide. It could provide some very good reading on all your questions before building your next system. http://www.tomshardware.com/index.html.

Have fun.