Upgrading!

[Fibbles]

Well, last night I went searching for possible upgrade paths, and I know know exactly what I will do.

Step 0: This is now. I know what I want, but I'll have to hold out and wait for it! AAARRGGHH!!!

Step one: In 3- 4 months, when I do upgrade, Nvidia will have released its Nforce 4 chipset. That bugger will have support for socket 754, 939, and 940 on the same board, or so i hear. I'm not sure about the RAM support though, because with 940's and Opterons registered RAM is required, so maybe you'll need it if you'll use one and not if you use 754 and 939. The boards will be available in singles, duals, quads and double quads (up to 8 CPU's on a single board - for Opterons only it seems.) It will also be PCI-E, with, one x16 slot for the main video card, 1 8x slot for the SLI'd card (I will have an SLI setup - still have my SLI'd voodoo 2's). Of course it'll have all the other pCI-E slots for the complete experience.

Step 2: This is the hard part. I'll need to buy a board with the specs I want. Then I'll need a high-end level CPU, plus 2 of the same video cards, and since I want a super intense experience, that means 2 GT level cards. At least I'll be able to skip the soundcard because these boards will have Soundstorm 2 audio, and most Nvidia owners say Soundstorm is quality - the ones I know anyway. This all means I'm looking at $700-900 for the video cards, $600-800 for the CPU (single solution here) and another $100-200 for the water cooling solutions for the cards (envision 1 AC 6800 cooler and one Innovatek cooler - I'm such a Fanboy - of both!)

Step 3: This is the time when I second guess myself for buying such insanely high prices items, and wonder why i just didn't go for dual Opterons instead, I mean, another $600 is small change after I've spent this much, right?

[Starbuck3733T]

You sooo crazy :)

[Edd]

Soundstorm does indeed rock.

I had it on my Socket A board and it was great. Unfortunately nVidia didn't put it on any of their nForce 3 boards, and my new K8N NEO uses a Realtek chip (I believe). The sound is a bit better but that's to be expected because it's newer. Unfortunately the user interface and number of options available are somewhat limited compared to the Soundstorm control panel :(

[Da_Rude_Baboon]

If you've got it, flaunt it Fibbles! :D

Thats going to be one monster of a machine!

[Fibbles]

If you've got it, flaunt it Fibbles! :D

Thats going to be one monster of a machine!
hehe, sure... :wacko:

Hopefully it will last a while, and I'll be able to use it for a year with no problems before I even THINK about anything new. The keyword is: Longevity <- if it's spelled right at least. :unsure: If I can get myself into a new 2-3 year upgrade path, I'd be better off, but if the tech moves faster than I can upgrade, it's gonna be an expensive hobby!

[Fibbles]

My current idea is to wait until mid December and then, buy an AMD FX55 (2.6GHz @ $830), an MSI/Abit/Asus motherboard and a single video card in PCI-E flavor. I'm not too sure which one right now. Supposedly, the HL2 Source engine runs much better on ATI hardware than on Nvidia. I'd love to keep the computer as long as possible and the Source engine is powering another game I really want (Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines), ATI is looking very appealing. I suppose SLI might negate any power the ATI card offers, but that will set me back monetarily and I now oly want to use SLI later on when my current performance degrades. ATI also has some sort of "trick" up their sleeves. They did have the Rage Fury Maxx long ago, and that featured 2 graphics chips on a single board, another trick 3DFX had and now Nvidia has... Exciting eh?

Question time! I have only used Asus, Abit and MSI motherboards before. There's a Soltek board I like (and the black PCB with purple slots is freakin beautiful), but does anyone have any experience with them? Are there any brands besides my top 3 that anyone here swears by? I'm sort of afraid to jump onto another board manufacturer, and I'm not sure why. It can't be a lack of customer service - the one time my Asus board (A7M266) broke, Asus had their heads up their buttskys and took nearly 4 months to get my RMA processed.

[herbert_goon]

I had a soltek NF2 board (SFRN72l or something) which was gold pcb and yellow slots. Looked awesome with GEIL golden dragon in it: http://gallery.pimprig.com/data/1/1845DSCF0090-med.JPG . The shipped bios was ropey as hell though, fixed with a quick flash of course. Average performer as far as NF2 goes though.

I also swear by amd boards by DFI (Mr Wu boards) as although they get slagged alot when you have the patience there is no other as far as O/C performance goes. Their P4 boards are a little average though.

I heard a rumour that the best S939 boards at the moment are gigabytes (check the orb) with later FX-53's (which you can now by as XP4000's) which apparently O/C like mobile bartons do B)

Good luck, and with all that kit i hope you are going to consider a dual PSU :eek:

[Fibbles]

My friend really likes Gigabytes, but I've never tried one so I guess I'll look into them. I had a DFI board before they were big in overclocking (in 98 or so) and it was so-so, plus it was a handout so it didn't matter much, and I quickly replaced it with an Abit BH6. Oh, dual PSU's eh? That's a reason I can't rush into SLI, I don't want a nasty surprise waiting for me and my 480 watt PSU. The PSU is an Antec, one reason I want to stay away from Abit and Asus: acc to users, there's a lot of issues with Antecs and those boards. :( I think I read something about AMD only wanting to keep a single FX chip around, if true would that mean the (AMD64)4000 is only the FX53 in disguise so that the only FX left will be the 55 until the 57 rolls out? I'll want my board in either the VIA K8T880 or the Nforce 4 chipsets.

Sorry for the lack of structure and jumbled-up-ness, I'm pretty tired but I don't want to sleep.

[herbert_goon]

I'm pretty tired but I don't want to sleep.
:lol:

With that kind of budget I would seriously consider a couple of 520w OCZ powerstreams - they supply real smooth power, and of course if you are going to O/C thats priority #1. I would definately run 2x6800 GT's on a separate line for the reasons of stable power - those things will vary their draw and if you are at the PSU limit you are going to be unstable.

Hope you thought of a big case!

[Psykotik]

Personally, I wouldn't rush into buying nForce 4 chipsets or PCI Express GPU's asap, as there's bound to be masses of problems in their initial forms (Rev 1 of the Asus A7N8X anyone?)

General concencus is that Asus are good for stability, Abit are mid range between stability and overclockability, and the DFI's are for overclock nutbars who do volt mods before breakfast and have the patience of a saint.

Let the early adopters go out and buy the fledgling technology, trash it to buggery and then you can buy the best of the bunch based on educated reasoning after you've seen what's doing what.

This is the reason I splashed out on a Mach II, an Intel rig (which clocks like buggery, had it to 4.6 Ghz so far) and a 6800 Ultra in the meantime, as those performance standards aren't going to be going to be eclipsed to majorly for a while yet.

[Fibbles]

If I can, I think I'm going to try to wait for AMD's 64 bit line to hit the 3.0 mark. By then, SLI and whatever ATI uses will be here and most kinks should be ironed out. The Intel side should also be clear, and I'm wondering what they're going to do now that they've decided to skip on the 4.0 P4. Speaking of kinks, does anyone remember the Pentium 4 1.3? That got recalled right after release due to the math co processor being fuggled up, I think. If I am going to wait that long though (3.0 is expected in Q2 of 05) I'm probably going to buy a 6800GT or an ATI x800pro now for a little performance increase. The funny part is that I've been obsessing about this since Sunday night and every 10 minutes or so I change my mind, pull out the windows calculator and add up upgrade paths. :rant:

[herbert_goon]

If I can, I think I'm going to try to wait for AMD's 64 bit line to hit the 3.0 mark
I think most FX-53's hit 3.0+ on watercooling these days, undestand you waiting though. I would love to have a crack with a DFI UT and an A643700 DTR, which is unlocked.

Anyone care to sponsor that :blink: :D

[Fibbles]

I think most FX-53's hit 3.0+ on watercooling these days, undestand you waiting though. I would love to have a crack with a DFI UT and an A643700 DTR, which is unlocked.

Anyone care to sponsor that :blink: :D
Sure, I'll spon... Nevermind -_-

I'm not exactly waiting for 3.0 to come so that I can buy one, I think I want everything else to be out and have been out for a while before I jump. I've got my P4 watercooled now, so pushing anything shouldn't be an issue, as long as I get some faster RAM (Lvl 1 PC 3500 Mushkin now). I think what's hitting me is that I've had my GPU for a year now, and that feels old to me :(

[herbert_goon]

Fib

Lvl 1 PC 3500 Mushkin now
Isn't that BH-5? Should fly baby :huh: !

[Fibbles]

Fib


Isn't that BH-5? Should fly baby :huh: !
Mine sure doesn't, my P4 also doesnt like to move, but I can't say I've agressively tried. I haven't actually bothered much with since the days of P3's and Voodoo 2's. I'm more or less watering for silence now.

[Psykotik]

Get an OCZ DDR Booster on that BH5, my BH6 doesn't start flying until I put 3.2 volts through it (had it at 260 Mhz 2.2.2.6!)

Also, for a cheap overclock, check out the Winchester cored 3200, they seem to be getting some stupid overclocks.

[Fibbles]

Will do, probably needs juice. :)

I have now decided my upgrade plan. I'm waiting for Nforce 4 to come, probably in November. When it does I'll make sure there are no kinks and then i'll jump onto it. I'll probably buy an SLI ready or a board with a single x16 slot right away, and then a single PCI-E GPU, along with an AMD64 in socket 939 flavor (probably a 3800). That will future proof everything for at least a year, as that's when AMD is looking to step into DDR2, and even then they'll probably still use DDR for a while. When my performance begins to decline, I can either upgrade to an SLI board or add another card depending on what I chose.

I'm sure I'll need this setup to play STALKER or FEAR.

[Fibbles]

Check this out: http://www.nforcershq.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2080

Lots of board and pics of those boards. There's no Soundstorm 2 though, that's the one bad thing, so far.

Check out these Tyans, esp the middle one! http://my.so-net.net.tw/brandon640410/NF41/004.JPG

[cools]

:wub: Tyans

[Fibbles]

I scrapped my plans for a high end AMD64 setup. I'm not going to bother with SLI ands PCI-E this year, mostly because I don't want to spend a fortune, then more to buy (what will be) scarce PCI-E parts. I just bought a Gigabyte 6800GT and the heatsink has a pair of heatpipes and a fan on the backside. Next up is the top end of the 478 P4 spectrum, the 3.4. I'll probably pick up the Northwood for under $300 OEM. Maybe another gig of RAM. I will probably keep the NexXxos XP Bold for the AMD64 I ordered from AlphaCool until I need it. I want to use this computer until late spring/early summer and now need any boosts. I think when PCI-E, AMD64 and the next wave of video cards comes out, I'll jump into that stuff.

Right now I'm running on air cooling at 45° (CPU) and I can't stand how loud the GT cooler is!

[Psykotik]

I'm back running my 3.4 Northwood now, as I burninated my Prescott (sob) and now have to go looking for another D0 stepping beastie. (ARSE!)

I was very tempted to remortage my sanity earlier though, after seeing what the NF4 boards are looking like, and the loverly NEC 20" TFT I've been promising myself for aaaaages for £100 cheaper than retail, but I managed (just) to keep my hands in my wallet (albeit with my inner gimp crying like a big jessie)

Methinks I'll have to "accidently" incorporate a phase change cooled Athlon FX based SLI setup with dual 6800 Ultras into my next project :D

[TheGreatSatan]

Methinks I'll have to "accidently" incorporate a phase change cooled Athlon FX based SLI setup with dual 6800 Ultras into my next project :D
$$$$:eek:

[Nexxo]

I'm upgrading Metaversa before it was even finished... didn't even have the OS installed on it yet. Must be the fastest hardware upgrade ever. :p

Dual Opteron 250s coming my way... Yeah, baby! B)

[cools]

You'll love em :)

[Nexxo]

I'm sure I will! What mobo are you using, cools? Got any pimpage?

[cools]

Tiger K8W. Bought originally because I wanted to squeeze a fully w/c dual CPU system into a CM101, and didn't need the aggro of an EATX board. The main advantage now as I'm still working on the system is that I've got a nice clean spot of case between the drives and board where cables etc can be routed.

[Nexxo]

Nice one. I find that even in a standard AXT case there is some space for that, which I exploited with the aid of self-adhesive cable clips.

[FastRedPonyCar]

Wait till DFI or ABIT comes out with their Nforce4 board then (if it'll fit) get a gig of ram and an Athlon 64 with the Winchester core (provided the chipset is 939 compatible) and overclock the dog crap out of it.

As far as video goes, if nvidia has the 6800GT in pciE than get that, if not, get the X800.

[Greeny]

I'm coming round to that idea myself. Reckon I'll wait and see what these NForce 4 boards are like rather than spending now on what will likely be a pointless upgrade. I'm keen on SLI as I like the idea of getting a single card to start with and bumping in another later as the price drops and I need more performance. The first NF4 boards should be here before christmas from ASUS and MSI so we'll get a good taster of performance soon.

[Fibbles]

I'm going with Asus or MSI early next year on a 3800 or higher and a single GT to start. Everything that's currently in this box will move over and this P4 will get the SFF treatment.

Anyone know what Intel chipset will support SLI? Is it the one called Tumwater or Turnwater?

[Psykotik]

Tis indeedly Tumwater, although I'm holding back from it for a long while due to:

A.) Fledgling technology, not a good longterm investment

B.) It's stupidly expensive for no apparent speed benefit (CPU wise)

C.) Am skint after above uber rig