Ready for the Athlon 64?

[Avid6eek]

NewEgg already has 5 Socket 754 (Athlon 64) motherboards for sale. Four from Gigabyte, and 1 from Asus. Anyone else know of any other hardware part sites that have these as well?

[ari4324]

nope but I saw the one from ASUS and it has an attractive price

[dantheman]

I saw a website the other day that had Athlon 64's that you could preorder for $600 some dollars. I don't remember what the address was though...

[digitalme]

Will you all "jump" on Athlon 64 on September 23th ?Will you all wait some benchmarks or Athlon 64 is your messiah ? <BR><BR> For myself, I simply hope this will start a price drop for AMD XP or Intel P4

[TranceJunkieXL]

Well, preliminary benchmarks already show it to outperform the P4 3.06GHz by as much as 30%.<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif" border="0"> Myself, I am going to wait until motherboards come out with PCI-X and DDRII before I upgrade. Would rather have it all at once than have to replace 1/2 of it less than a year later.

[Avid6eek]

I have to agree with rithemking on this one. My current system is very well rounded and fast as hell (at least in my opinion). As long as nothing on it goes bad, I'm going to keep it the way it is for quite a while. During the winter months it is very cool so as we get further into winter I can overclock higher and higher. I most likely won't be doing any major upgrades until spring (March)....and that all depends on how much my spring break costs me <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0"> By then I expect to be looking for a system sorta like this.....<BR><BR>Athlon 64 or FX....PR rating around 3800<BR>1024MB DDRII 667-800Mhz<BR>Motherboard - PCI-Express/SATA150<BR>VC - Probably ATI's best, or second best...PCI-Express card<BR>HD - WD Raptor 10k 72GB HD (coming out next month) or higher.<BR><BR>Other than that I think I'm going to keep everything else. A new PS is also probably likely. Normally I sell my old stuff on eBay, but this time I may keep what I have just so I can have an extra system. That of course all depends on my money situation.

[ElrichMeister]

geez that future system looks nice, is that the rated speeds DDR2 is gonna have?, that future rig makes everything look obsolete. looks awesome shiz, im gonna upgrade next summer, by then theyll have evrything worked out or maybe even something new but who knows, till we find out.

[Avid6eek]

I'm pretty sure DDR gets it's speed rating because it is quad pumped. <BR><BR>133FSB/Memory Bus = 266DDR = 532DDRII<BR>166FSB/Memory Bus = 333DDR = 667DDRII<BR>200FSB/Memory Bus = 400DDR = 800DDRII

[Assimilator87]

Will doubling the "pumpage" of memory lead to problems in the future or will it just go on forever? I remember reading somewhere that parallel solutions won't last forever and that's why Rambus DRAM was a good solution.

[Avid6eek]

Eventually, everything will make a switch to serial technology. As for DDR making this switch....probably not 5 years. Why do I think this...well, here is a paragraph describing the future of DDR. <BR><BR>"Next year DDR-II SDRAM modules will be available in 400 and 533MHz speeds. Given that Intel will possibly not offer 1066MHz Quad Pumped Bus until very late 2004, the widely adopted DDR-II memory will be 400MHz version. 533MHz memory will gain popularity in 2005, I believe, and do not share Samsung’s optimism in regards 75% of its DDR-II shipments in the second half next year to be 533MHz chips. Already in 2006 there will be DDR-II chips at 667 and 800MHz offering even more performance, whereas in the year 2007, Intel and its DRAM friends will begin transition to DDR-III memory at 800, 1066 and 1333MHz frequencies and everything will start once again." ~xBitLabs

[Assimilator87]

DDR SDRAM is like a bacteria. It just keeps doubling and it's scary<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-shocked.gif" border="0"> I think DDRII should run on 4 channels. It would be quad pumped SDRAM modules running on a quad channel solution giving it 4 times the bandwith of D-C DDR instead of just 2. This reminds me. I wrote a letter to Rambus asking how they are making sure that RDRAM will be the performance leader against DDR since DDR is growing so rapidly. They didn't even reply. Bastards<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-mad.gif" border="0">

[Avid6eek]

What's wrong with a memory standard that can rapidly grow and change with computer needs. I think DDR is great. Rambus needs to drop off the face of this planet.

[Ginsu543]

Talking about memory, has any of you heard of MRAM (Magnetic RAM)? I just read an article about it in one of the computer magazines (can't remember which at the moment), and it sounds pretty amazing. MRAM is supposed to use magnetism to store information, instead of electricity. It does use electricity to write/erase information to RAM, but doesn't need it to store it. That means that MRAM can keep information in memory even if the power is shut off. That means that computers will no longer need to boot up. As soon as you turn on the computer, you should be right back to where you left off. The article was also saying that MRAM can be manufactured at similar capacities, speeds, and prices as DDR. Sounds too good to be true...

[Avid6eek]

I've read about that. It's really awsome. But think about it.....How long can you trust Windows to run w/o ever erasing the RAM? It does sound pretty kewl, and I'd use it if it were available, but I don't see it being adopted anytime soon. It would be nice if it were though.

[Avid6eek]

It would be nice if they sold it in like 1GB PCI cards to use as a small HD. It would be extremely fast, and permanent. You could install your fav. games on it and it would load instantly.

[TranceJunkieXL]

That's a really neat idea. But why bother with a PCI socket? Just use them like those USB flash pens. With a game installed on that it gives new meaning to plug-and-play!<img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif" border="0">

[Avid6eek]

Well, by the time this came out, it would be a PCI-express card. I'm not a fan of USB, so I wouldn't encorporate that into my idea. Maybe they could sell games on USB devices using that? The games could just auto-update when patches were available. I think we're really onto something here!

[ElrichMeister]

you guys should patent this, its sounds like an awesome idea

[Avid6eek]

It would cost too much. The game would cost about $40, and the USB device to put it on would cost around $400. Are you willing to play $450 for a game? Probably not <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif" border="0">