My old AMD 1900XP has performed admirably over the years and so has my older dual P3 850, but the ol' 850 is finally starting to show its age and programs are starting to run slower and slower. I can't even watch "hi-res" movie trailers sometimes because it's just too big (and no, it's not a vid card issue).

So, the dual 850 is probably going to be retired and my AMD is going to become my new IM/IRC/Email/General/24-7 machine. So, that leaves me able to upgrade my gaming rig.

My vid card is the BFG 6800GT OC, and believe it or not, I'm actually regretting buying this card. I really should have waited for the PCI-E version instead of the AGP which I have now. It was a Best Buy purchase (Stormy got gift cards for Christmas!) and I contacted BFGTech and they said that BB does not plan on carrying the PCI-E version any time soon :(

So... that leaves me with finding a buyer for a card with no box (yeah, threw that away already.... I know, I know...), returning it to Best Buy for a -15% credit, buying the PCI-E card outright (for $500.. ow), or upgrading around the AGP card... err... anyone want to buy a slightly used bare vid card for $375+sh? :P

I've been out of the loop other than PCI-E, so I'm taking a look at the prices on NewEgg trying to hash out what I want.

Here's what I'm looking at so far:
Proc: Intel LGA775 Pentium 4 550 3.4 GHz, 800MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache, Hyper Threading Technology
Mobo: ASUS "P5P800" 865PE

Or...
Proc 1: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 0.13micron
Proc 2: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 90nm
Mobo 1: MSI "K8N Neo2 Platinum" NVIDIA nForce3 ULTRA
Mobo 2: ASUS "A8V Deluxe" VIA K8T800

Also, an aesthetic thing, the one splurge I think I'm going to make is to purchase the CoolerMaster Wave - What do you guys think? <a href="http://www.circotech.com/comacowama.html">Silver, black, blue or yellow</a>? :P

I require comments and suggestions!

Oh, the two choices of mobo's on the AMD side is for VIA vs NForce chipsets... I've had bad luck with VIA in the past, but I love Asus... but then again that MSI has had great reviews (but it's no Asus!)

Thanks in advance!

Fight the Power! GO AMD!

I just built a computer with AMD 64 3200+ and the MSI "K8N Neo Platinum" in November. It screams!

Athlon 64 simply smokes when it comes to gaming, compared to comparably-priced Intel. Get a nice 939 platform (MSI K8N Neo2 is good and reasonably priced) and a new 90nm process Athlon 64 chip and you'll be good to go.

I still use a 754-based MSI K8N Neo Platinum (original) and a 6800GT, and can run games very smoothly at 1920x1200, including EQ.

I'm running an AMD 3500+, Abit AV8(VIA) and a LeadTech GF6800 GT.

These days, AMD is the way to go for most things. Intel multitasks and does some encoding better, but, not by huge margins. AMD dominates Intel on gaming.

http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2330&p=2

The ONLY intel chip to beat the lowly AMD 3000+ in HL2 was the not readily available Top end intel 3.8 Ghz chip.

I personally would go with the AMD 64 3500+ 90mn which is slightly faster than the older 3500+ .13 Micron that I have. It's worth noting that the 3500+ and better have the memory controller on the chip now, memory bandwidth isn't held back by the FSB. The 3200+ doesn't have this feature.

As for Chipsets, the NForce is a tiny bit faster than the VIA, but, the VIA is vey solid.

I have the A-bit (it was the only one I could get when I got it last summer)and I have had no problems at all with it. It Uses the VIA chipset. ASUS has gone downhill over recent times. MSI is still top notch. From a practical standpoint, All Socket 939's are considered High end, so no board is going to be a bad selection at this point.

Yup, AMD64 is the only real way to go these days, the P4's just cant cut it. The only issue is memory bandwidth, where the P4's are still superior especially when paired with DDR2 memory, but that just doesnt translate into real world performance. (Do the new AMD 3500+'s have DDR2 support now?)

The NForce4 chipset seems to be getting great reviews, if you can find one. NForce3 is good too. I'd go that way.

And as I've had some recent issues, I'd double check how the mobo makers handle warranty issues 8) I've never had a problem with any of my old Asus boards (besides age), and I like them for that. I believe ABit is the only one with a proper North American warranty program though.

Black!

And send me your old video card, I'll work here for 10 years! 8P

AMD had a rocky start making some of the worst processors ever, I can't believe people actually bought them. (K6 *cringe*) It sounds like they have ironed out their problems and make some decent chips now.

I think that MSI is terriable, have you ever tried error recovery on one of those? Especially without a 3.5" drive.

I haven't really found a 3500+ with the 90nm.... usually they stop at the 3200 or jump right to the FX lines (which is way too much for me). Anyone have links to good online dealers with anything higher than the 3200?

Yup, AMD64 is the only real way to go these days, the P4's just cant cut it. The only issue is memory bandwidth, where the P4's are still superior especially when paired with DDR2 memory, but that just doesnt translate into real world performance. (Do the new AMD 3500+'s have DDR2 support now?)


The current crop of AMD's kills intel on memory performance. Like I said,t he memory controller is on chip now so isn't limited by the FSB like intels are. On memory intensive apps AMD really shines as a result. And yes, DDR2 has been supported for a while now.

AMD had a rocky start making some of the worst processors ever, I can't believe people actually bought them. (K6 *cringe*) It sounds like they have ironed out their problems and make some decent chips now.

AMD had been making great processors since 286 days. My AMD 486/100 actually outperformed pentium 60's. When Intel came out with the first Pentiums they didn't license the technology to AMD so they had to come up with their own design. The K6's were definately poor. Intel was definately the way to go during the early Pentium days. Once the T-Birds came out things turned around again for them.

I haven't really found a 3500+ with the 90nm.... usually they stop at the 3200 or jump right to the FX lines (which is way too much for me). Anyone have links to good online dealers with anything higher than the 3200?

Newegg sells the 90mn 3500+. but it's more expensive than I realized and out of stock until tomorrow.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-498&depa=1

The .13 Micron version is about $70 cheaper. It's probably worth going for it instead since the performance difference is very small.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-463&depa=1

Proc 1: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 0.13micron
Proc 2: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 90nm
Mobo 1: MSI "K8N Neo2 Platinum" NVIDIA nForce3 ULTRA
Mobo 2: ASUS "A8V Deluxe" VIA K8T800

Proc1 and mobo 1 would be my best bet. I am currently running similar to that and everything runs perfect, even with a GeForce4 (had a 6600GT PCI-E, but mobo doesnt support PCI-E :frown: )

The .13 Micron version is about $70 cheaper. It's probably worth going for it instead since the performance difference is very small.The difference to the user between .13 and .09 isn't performance, but rather heat and overclock ability. The smaller core can run at lower voltage, which often means less heat, and greater overclocking headroom when you crank that voltage back up. It also makes a difference to the chip maker, as a smaller core can bring them a greater yield, reducing the cost -- however, this is only a benefit you see after some time as many factors can impact the CPU price.

If you're just going to run at stock speeds, you need not be overly concerned with the core size. [Edit] Note: when a new core comes out, retailers frequently jack up the prices as smaller cores are highly desirable to overclockers. If you want it and you notice the price is out of whack, just wait a few weeks until it becomes mainstream.

The difference to the user between .13 and .09 isn't performance, but rather heat and overclock ability. The smaller core can run at lower voltage, which often means less heat, and greater overclocking headroom when you crank that voltage back up. It also makes a difference to the chip maker, as a smaller core can bring them a greater yield, reducing the cost -- however, this is only a benefit you see after some time as many factors can impact the CPU price.

If you're just going to run at stock speeds, you need not be overly concerned with the core size. [Edit] Note: when a new core comes out, retailers frequently jack up the prices as smaller cores are highly desirable to overclockers. If you want it and you notice the price is out of whack, just wait a few weeks until it becomes mainstream.

There is also a slight performance difference, but, they are also cooler, not that the .13 was overly hot. And the 90nm's do OC better, but, I personally don't OC.

Even the "hotter" .13's are much cooler than intel at the moment. None of the AMD64's have had cooling issues.

I usually do run at stock speeds. I had actually considered the whole water cooling at some point, but since this machine gets turned off, noise was no longer a real concern.

I think the chip itself will come down to cost. I'd like to get the smaller core because I had actually heard that it does eek out a bit more performance than its .13 cousin, but I don't think I'm ready to shell out $300+ for the CPU (yet I own a $400+ vid card... I know, I know...)

So you guys are siding with the MSI with the NForce chipset over the Asus with the VIA?

The MSI board seems to run well but, I did have some trouble setting it up in the first place. On the box they said that there was a way to get a Beta version of windows for the 64 Bit chip from them. However there was nothing on the site about it. I searched the microsoft site and eventually found a way to downloaded there. I loaded this version of windows but, when I went to load the MSI Motherboard Drivers it told me that it wasn't supported. This was a big problem because the K8N has the Network Card on the board. Without the drivers I could not register windows and, get the opperating system to work. It was a mini nightmare. Eventually I worked things out by getting my brother to purchase a student version of windows pro for $10 at his school. Even then I had a little trouble as the lack of drivers made windows bypass registration the first time I installed it. The second time I was able to get windows to install the drivers during set up. I don't know if this makes any sense. I'm not the greatest computer expert. Atleast I know enough to plug the pieces of hardware together and end up with a working system.

Well I won't be running XP-64 anytime soon. I've had too many people on the inside tell me that it's still driver hell. 32-bit OS for me for a while I think.

If your choices are MSI vs ASUS, go MSI. Not because it's VIA vs NForce, but because MSI is better over all.

WindowsXP 64-Bit edition is currently at Release Candidate 1 stage. There are a ton of drivers already, but, there need to be more. Expect that to change in the next couple of months.

Currently, there are 64-bit drivers for NForce and Via, including the onboard NIC/Sound/RAID drivers. There are also drivers on the disk for most common hardware componants. But, there are few WiFi drivers available yet.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=34&threadid=1503749&enterthread=y

That link is a great resource for driver issues.

Personally, I don't think there is a compelling reason to move to win64 yet. Primarily because it's not even released yet. I'll be taking a look at it again in about 3 months to see If I'll be switching to it.

Well one reason I tried it out was it was free. As it stands I was able to get a steal on windows at $10 anyway thanks to my brother. The computer is partially his anyway.

LMAO, just found out from a friend. He picked up an AMD64 3000+ (90nm). Apparently it was bad so he called AMD tech support to RMA it. They told him that the chip was out of stock and asked if he would accept a .13 micron 3800+ as a replacement, free of charge.

Hmmm. Gee tough choice!

Time to buy a AMD64 3000+ (90nm)!!

Oh, and to answer the most important question: Blue.

I like the bluuuuuue too :D

And I'd try out Teaaeaeaeae's RMA, but I'd be the "Oh, we just got those back in stock" person.

So you guys are siding with the MSI with the NForce chipset over the Asus with the VIA?The VIA is actually a little faster than the Nforce 3 in the 3D benchmarks I've seen. But I would pick the features and historical stability of Nforce over VIA, plus I'm not certain whether the VIA has the critical AGP/PCI lock.

The VIA is actually a little faster than the Nforce 3 in the 3D benchmarks I've seen. But I would pick the features and historical stability of Nforce over VIA, plus I'm not certain whether the VIA has the critical AGP/PCI lock.

A-Bit is VIA and they are the single most flexible board for overclocking, including the AGP lock.

And just to add another useful link:

http://www.amdmb.com

Their forums are very helpful.

A friend of mine used to always say "There are 2 colors. Black and everything else." I would go for Black myself. Second choice would be blue.

That reminds me of one of my favourite quotes. Henry Ford, when asked about customers who wanted different color Model-T's, replied, "They can have any color they want, so long as it's black."

Ok, I just wanted to give a quick update for anyone who was interested.

I got the MSI Neo2 Platinum (Newegg was out of stock for like a month) and the AMD64 3000+ 90nm (it was the best price breakpoint).

Nothing.
But.
Problems.

When I first started out with the board, I plugged everything in and started the puppy up. It made the <i>loudest</i> piercing beep I had ever heard. Ok, my fault - I forgot to plug in the additional 4-prong connector into the motherboard (the newer boards require a separate power plug for the CPU). Plugged that in, board started up, no problem. Loaded WinXP, SP2, and the army of other hotfixes. Started noticing some weird "pixilation snow" around the edges of the windows. This grew progressively worse to the point where the contents of a window were illegible - it was almost as if the monitor wasn't getting the correct feedback from the video card of what colors to put where. So I had random pixels that were R/G or B all over the screen.

I checked the <a href="http://forum.msi.com.tw/">MSI User forums</a> and did a few searches - apparently there are quite a few problems with the NForce board and the NVidia 6800 graphic cards. Weird, eh? Do a search on the "AMD64 nVidia Based board" for "6800" to see what I mean. I learned <b>a lot</b> about video BIOS flashing, timing, side addressing, fast write, etc. Nothing worked.

New power supply arrived the day after, <i>that</i> fixed the problem. Had to move from a 400wt to a 535wt power supply.

So.... I thought ok, power supply is something that can happen. XP ran fine for the rest of that day.

Day four-ish. The machine decides to black screen. Doesn't power off, all the components are still powered up, it just semi-shuts down. XP does an ungraceful shutdown and the machine doesn't respond to anything other than a hard power off / power on. My friend says that sounds like a heat issue. I check the system temp and it claims 80 in the case, 102 for the CPU. Sounds pretty normal to me, but I say, what the heck. I had an extra Thermaltake XP90 so I put that on instead of the stock fan. Machine's been off for quite a few minutes, I boot it up, and same thing - XP goes "bye bye" after about 30 seconds and all I get is one long beep every three seconds (beep codes are not documented by MSI, by the way). I also note that the 80/102 seems to be the default temp reading, because that's what BIOS says after a cold boot.

I do the normal troubleshooting thing - I unplug everything, bit by bit. I replace the RAM with another, slower, PC2100 chip I had lying around (which I knew to be good) - nothing. One CD, 128M of RAM, one HD, or one CD, one DVD+/-R, two HDs, one Sound card, didn't matter. Same result.

I don't give up easily, but after about five solid days of troubleshooting this thing, I officially gave up today. I requested an RMA from Newegg. I think I'm going to try out the Asus VIA board. :P

Maybe you have a bad board or video card? Have you actually contacted the company to see what they can do?

The MSI is a good board, don't give up yet. You're certainly not guaranteed a trouble-free life with a VIA board.

It could still be a power problem. What brand of power supply are you using? Did you make sure the molex plug to the 6800 is secure? Some cheaper power supplies regulate the voltage poorly or can't supply enough current, which leads to insufficient power to the 6800, which can lead to the visual artifacts you describe.

Also put your finger on the chipset (not CPU) heat sink after the computer has been running for 15-20 minutes. It should not feel burning hot. The back side of the chip (on the other side of the board) should also not be hot -- if it is, it could be a sign a poorly mounted heat sink, with heat not flowing out properly.

Finally, check out some of the newer MSI BIOSes (available on the forum -- http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?board=28.0). They have made some serious improvements since the initial versions.

[Edit] Oh, and as always, be sure to run Memtest86+ (http://www.memtest.org/) to test out your memory and Prime95 (http://www.mersenne.org/) for several hours to test out the CPU/memory stability.

I had an extra Thermaltake XP90 so I put that on instead of the stock fan. Machine's been off for quite a few minutes, I boot it up, and same thing - XP goes "bye bye" after about 30 seconds and all I get is one long beep every three seconds (beep codes are not documented by MSI, by the way). I also note that the 80/102 seems to be the default temp reading, because that's what BIOS says after a cold boot.

Here are the beep codes for MSI http://www.msicomputer.com/support/sup_tshoot.asp#1_4



No Post - Diagnostic codes

Verify POST beep codes
Continues beeps or 1long 2short beeps = possible memory error
• Try re-seating memory or test with different memory
1long 2short or 8short beeps = possible video card problem
• Try re-seating video card, test system with known good video card
High/Low tone (siren sound)= CPU is overheating.
• Verify that CPU heatsink is properly installed and power connected

Check diagnostic LED codes from D-Bracket
Motherboards equipped with D-Bracket may provide useful diagnostic codes for common problems on the diagnostic LEDS.
• Listing of diagnostic LED codes can be located in manual for your motherboard .

AMI Beep Code
Deep Code Description
1 short DRAMS refresh failure
2 short Parity circuit failure
3 short Base 64k RAM failure
4 short System timer failure
5 short Process failure
6 short Keyboard controller Gate A20 error
7 short Virtual mode exception error
8 short Display memory Read/Write test failure
9 short ROM BIOS checksum failure
10 short CMOS shutdown Read/Write error
11 short Cache Memory error
1 long, 3 short Conventional/Extended memory failure
1 long, 8 short Display/Retrace test failed


AWARD Beep Code
Deep Code Description
1 Long, 2 Short A video error has occurred and the BIOS cannot intialize the video screen to display any additional information
Any other beep(s) RAM problem



Don't know which bios you have so cant offer any suggestions on fixing.

Follun -
I contacted BFG (which I must say has great tech support - 24/7) but unfortunately they were as clueless as I was. He had me turn off things like fastwrites and the ATI/NV Speedup that's in the BIOS, but other than that, nothing. I should also mention that this card worked flawlessly in my older Asus VIA / AMD1900 combo.

Tuda -
It's an Enermax 535 with a separate 12V rail specifically for PCI-E and other large power consumption devices. The vid card is running on its own separate power "strip" (it's not shared between the IDE drives or CDs). And while I'd love to run anything for hours, the system currently won't stay up that long.

JToast - Thanks, but none of the listed codes seem to coincide to what I was hearing. It was one beep for 1s, 3s of silence, repeat. I literally tried every single RAM timing setting in the BIOS, including failsafe and "underclocking". Plus, I've already tested other RAM sticks, and verified that the RAM sticks work in other machines (these are Crucial 3200 / 512x4 sticks, if anyone's curious).

Tuda and JToast - it's running the Award BIOS v1.5 as per:
http://www.msicomputer.com/support/bios_result.asp
It's also running the latest NForce and NVidia drivers (installed back when Windows would boot to let me install it :D)

And while I'd love to run anything for hours, the system currently won't stay up that long.At leave give Memtest a run, it only takes 20 minutes or so for a complete loop, and it's done outside of the OS. Beeping when you try to boot up is usually a RAM or video problem. Some memory just does not work well in these boards (there's a sticky on the forum I linked with a list). Also try different slots.

Per my link anthing Award code not listed is a RAM problem. I agree with tuda.

Also, make sure you have the ram in the right slot.

Here is another link.

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/mainboard/mbd/pro_mbd_detail.php?UID=607

Per MSI make sure you load all the green slots first before putting a stick into the purple.

Here's the sequence of events -
Boot up / WinXP Logo with the swirly bottom / You're a bad person because you didn't shutdown properly, and diskcheck needs to run / Full XP GUI / Mouse Icon / "shutdown"

Literally +/- 20s after WinXP boots.

Occasionally, and it's very rare comparatively but it has happened, it will "blackscreen" before XP boots.

To define blackscreen, the monitor loses signal, everything in the case is still "spinning" and powered, Caps Lock/NumLock does not respond on the keyboard, C-A-D does not work, Windows does not seem to be responding either as a WinKey/U/U/Enter does not shutdown the GUI.

<i>*Edit - I have 512x4 - that's all four slots, hard not to put the RAM in the right slot :) Plus, like I said, I've already tried a separate stick of PC2100 in each of the primary slots (same result each time). I believe the PC2100 was a Kingston stick, not Crucial.

*Edit 2 - I'll look at Memtest when I get home Tuda.</i>

1) Disconnect everything except cpu, video card, monitor, power supplyand one stick of memory to make sure it will post successfully. If not you have narrowed your problem down to 5 components(mem, vid card, cpu, ps, board)

2) If successful post then connect primary hard drive to see if it will boot and be stable. If not then it could be a problem with the hard drive or the controller itself. Also check your jumpers(not likely but possible)

3) Continue to add components one at a time until it crashes than you have found yoru problem. Had a machine that wouldnt boot that I finally traced to a bad floppy drive. Took me forever to diagnose because it just never occured to me it might be the problem.

Just on a lark, have you tried booting windows in safe mode, then after its up, shutting it down, then booting back up in full windows mode?

My computer has, occasionally, had issues like that (sans any beeping from my mobo), and that is essentially what I have to to do to make windows happy again. Its a work around and won't actually help you figure out why your puter is being unhappy like that, but it might, at least let you get it functional, so you can try and figure out what caused the initial problem.

Granted, I suspect you've already done that hehe

Hehehehehehehehe, ironically enough, I just got done helping my friend trouble shoot his MSI board. No matter what we tried even following the exact instructions on their website the board still wouldn't work. This is the 3rd time I have personally had problems recovering an MSI board.

MSI makes complete junk, I'm sorry you had to find this out the hard way. RMA and get the Asus.

I rebuilt my system recently and I bought the following from Newegg:
MB ASUS P4C800-E DELUXE CANTERWOOD
VGA ALBATRON PC5750Q PCX5760 256MB
CPU P4/3.2EGHz 800M 478P/1MB HT RT
DDRAM512|CORSAR64X64 VS512MB400 R (2 STICKS)
HD 200GB|MAXTOR L01P200 7200 8MB RT
CASE FAN|ARTIC COOL ARTIC FAN 3


The other stuff I had. I overclock my pentium by 10% and get 3.4Ghz without the overheat detection shutting down the board.

The VGA board I ordered happend to be PCI but the mobo is not PCI capable... Newegg was great about exchanging it.

When I mounted the processor, the plastic handling on the fan broke and I sent that back for a replacement to newegg.

Other than that, my system was easy to setup and use...

I quit the MSI build. Gave up, Kapui.
I was going to upgrade my other box with a Asus A7N8X-X / AMD2800, but instead I put that into my old gaming rig.

Worked. Out of the box. Same exact components that the MSI board was throwing up on.

I love my new computer. I thought about building one like I always did, though in the end I got lazy and just ordered one from dell.

Pentium® 4 Processor 650 with HT Technology (3.40GHz, 800 FSB)
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz (2x512M)
320GB Performance RAID 0 (2 x 160GB SATA HDDs w/ Native Command Queuing)
16x DVD-ROM
16x DVD+/-RW w/dbl layer write
19 in 1905FP Dell Ultrasharp™ Digital Flat Panel
256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) nVidia GeForce 6800
Sound Blaster Audigy™2 ZS (D) Card w/Dolby 5.1, and IEEE 1394

It scored a avg of just over 3700 on 3DMark05.

I was going to upgrade my other box with a Asus A7N8X-X / AMD2800, but instead I put that into my old gaming rig.
Worked. Out of the box. Same exact components that the MSI board was throwing up on.The A7N8X is a great board, but it's positively ancient, and you will be seriously hurting your gaming performance.

Can already run WoW @ 1920x1200 with everything set on "high" and "full". That's all I really wanted or needed.