A New Pc

[bigdawgfoxx]

3.2Ghz P4 beats the 3200Athlon. I said you might want to get an intel since you got so much money. You said you dont want to spend it all though so I would go AMD.

[Mad Cat]

Looking at some other tests the 3200+ beats the 3.06 many times.

I'll be fine with the 3200+ I think.

[DWk]

its not a friggin matter of the benchies' scores...its about WHERE they score.... AMD is WAY much better for gaming, whereas p4 is better for "high-end" apps (such as video production)

[Mad Cat]

Yes, in UT2003 and Quake 3 benchmarks the Intel P4 3.0 killed the AMD, whereas in Sandra 2003 tests the 3200+ gained sufficient ground.

I've been hearing stuff about 3200+ needing PC3200 DDR400 ram to work, since the increase in FSB speed.

I don't think that PC2700 will do so I'm wondering if the price difference in these would make a difference:

Corsair 512MB DDR XMS3200LLPT Low Latency Platinum CAS2 (MY-014-CS)
Corsair XMS3200LL Low Latency uses exactly the same memory chips as Corsair XMS3500 with a special SPD - pre-set to aggressive memory timings of CAS2-2-2-5-1T - for those who'd rather not experiment with BIOS settings.


Full Specification

Price: £83.50 (£98.11 Including VAT at 17.5%)



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Corsair 512MB DDR XMS3200LLPT TwinX (2x256MB) Platinum CAS2 (MY-017-CS)
A matched pair of 256MB XMS3200LL Low Latency memory modules - 512MB total - ideal for dual DDR motherboards.


Full Specification

Price: £90.50 (£106.34 Including VAT at 17.5%)



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Corsair 1GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x512MB) CAS2 (MY-030-CS)
A matched pair of 512MB XMS3200C2 memory modules - 1GB total - ideal for dual DDR motherboards.


Full Specification

Price: £139.00 (£163.33 Including VAT at 17.5%)

[Mad Cat]

So does anyone think this is worth it/can anyone answer my RAM question above?

[clocker]

I'm not sure what your question is.
You seem to be building a pretty high-end machine- go for the best RAM you can afford.

I would also recommend that you hold off on a DVD burner for 6 months or so.
Prices are dropping, speeds are increasing and, with any luck this stupid dual format war may shake out and we can settle on one type of media.
I was seriously looking into getting one but decided to hold off and see what happens. Mostly I was interested as a means to backup my files, and CD is so much cheaper ( although more time consuming) that it just doesn't make sense to spend the money yet.
DVD-ROMs are useful though.

[Lamsey]

Originally posted by clocker@27 December 2003 - 15:50
You seem to be building a pretty high-end machine- go for the best RAM you can afford.

I assume by that you mean "Get a good amount of RAM at speeds matching your CPU's FSB, as that is the most efficient combination".

[Mad Cat]

Well the RAM RGX suggested was PC2700 and while I've been reading around I heard that the Barton 3200+ only supports DDR400 PC3200 RAM, since AMD increased the FSB speed to 200 mhz. Is this true?

I'm quite a noob at this.

I also wanted to know if I would see performance differences between the 3 different RAMs posted above. They're all PC3200 and they're all corsair, but I want to know if spending more would yield a performance increase that would matter.

[Lamsey]

Originally posted by Mad Cat@27 December 2003 - 16:00
Well the RAM RGX suggested was PC2700 and while I've been reading around I heard that the Barton 3200+ only supports DDR400 PC3200 RAM, since AMD increased the FSB speed to 200 mhz. Is this true?

I'm quite a noob at this.

I also wanted to know if I would see performance differences between the 3 different RAMs posted above. They're all PC3200 and they're all corsair, but I want to know if spending more would yield a performance increase that would matter.

The Barton 3200+ should be able to use PC2700, depending on motherboard support. However it would be a lot more efficient to use DDR400 (PC3200).

Aggressively-timed RAM makes little difference over standard RAM, even in benchmark tests. If you're wanting a very high-end system I'd go with 2x512MB (1GB), simply to improve the upgradeability.

[Mad Cat]

Oh crap I feel like an idiot. I didn't look properly at those three RAMs. I thought they were all 1gb. Crap

Thanks Lamsey!

I think I'll take clocker's advice and lay off a burner for now. I was just gonna get one because its there really. A CD-rw and a DVD will do for it for now.

Will that cooling be enough?