Preparing for Vista, FSX

[Gary R.]

This summer when I don't have to pay most of my livelyhood to evil opec and their oil company and investor accomplices I plan on trading up my current stuff (see below) to the entry level of the 64 bit community.  I am a poor guy but my current board, processor, and 6600 GT will give me about $200 trade in credit at the shop I do business with.  I plan on getting a 64 bit 3400 XP, and a good but affordable 64 bit mobo with PCI-E to hold that processor, and a 6800 256meg, up from my current 6600 GT, AGP.  I also plan on adding at 512 meg more ram over what I currently have.   Any suggestions on a really affordable 64 bit board that is also a decent performer?  Also, will the PC-3200 DDR I currently have work with many 64 bit compatible mobos?  Thanks.




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[congo]

There is 64bit and there is 64bit, all are not equal.

It depends on socket type and you are looking at socket 754 technology and not the powerful socket 939 compatible hardware.

Also, without any further details of your planned graphics expansion to a 256mb 6800 (details unknown), you may well find that your current 6600GT will outperform it or at least not be far off the new card, an absolute waste of money for someone who doesn't have much cash.

You plan on a 3400+ cpu, these are the AMD socket 754 CPU's with the highest clock multiplier and they are the most expensive, I believe. A lesser cpu can be purchased and clocked up to the same speed.

Your ram will work on a socket 754 mainboard but if you decide to get a socket 939 board, you'll need 2 very similar sticks of ram to get the advantages of dual channel ram that the socket 939 systems support. This is a major difference between socket 754 and socket 939 systems, that is, the onboard memory controller that the socket 939 cpu's have which supports dual channel ram configuration, whereas the socket 754 cpu's do not.

Socket 939 supports 20% faster FSB* speeds as well.

(or more correctly HTT speed ?)

You'll want to get into a PCIe graphics slot of course regardless of the chipset you choose. I would not consider any graphics card under a 7800GT for your intended upgrade, FSX and Win Vista will require at least that spec I would imagine, for any decent display.

My advice, save your money for as long as you can, in the meantime, prices will drop on some of the better hardware items. Future proofing a PC is a fool's notion. When you have the money, buy the best possible rig for your current or currently released software based on it's requirements.

Your "entry level 64 bit rig" is quite frankly, old hat and possibly the end of a computing era. Socket 754 was designed as an interim and mainstream chipset (cheapy for the masses) while work was underway on more advanced systems.

Look at suppliers websites and watch the prices of nForce4 socket 939 mainboards (look at no-nonsense full-featured boards with no gimmicks), 3700+ (single core), 4400+ (dual core) cpu's. Also watch the prices of 7800GT's, when the cheaper brands start discounting their cards, the quality manufacturers will soon follow with price drops.

The processors I specified for a reason, they are both the best value for money in their category. They are also the most suitable for your intentions (future software).

Beware purchasing a video card based on ram amount, it's insignificant as far as performance is concerned, the GPU genre is the determining factor, then the ram quality, clock rates, manufacturer and finally the ram amount.

Good Luck.

[richardd43]

Good answer Congo. My guess is by 2007 nothing less than a +4400 will be close to required specs for new programs. For day to day work all of the current graphics cards will work, but gamers are going to have to upgrade their current cards again... sigh.