I'm looking to buy a new system soon... I am rather upset about the fact that I bought a system that was supposed to be cutting edge about 4 years ago and now it's garbage because it uses RDRAM and is basically not very upgradable...and my intent was to buy an upgradable system. So on that note, what do you guys think about the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ or AMD FX 62 Dual Core, Socket 939 processors vs. say the P965 EE Dual Core or PD 960, socket 775 processors?

In essence you could say, what do you think about the most powerful Dell XPS 700 system vs the most powerful Alienware Aurora ALX system? (Although I want to build a customized system)

There seems to be a tradeoff on both. For instance, it seems socket 775 can support more RAM with up to 8 gigs, but that RAM is slower speed than the DDR2 RAM the Socket 939 can support....It also appears that the processing clock speed of the Intel processors is higher with more cache than the AMDs, yet the AMDs have far superior FSB speed.

I'm a little confused as to which route I would like to go. I don't want to create the ultimate gaming rig that is obsolete in a year...I want as powerful of a system as I can get but I want it to be upgradable and have good longevity. I will probably be using it for more multimedia purposes and intensive computer work/multitasking, as opposed to hardcore gaming, although I want it to be able to handle the most intensive games to come.

If you guys could provide some insight into the AMD vs. Intel debate that'd be fantastic.

Furthermore, I've never purchased my own case so I was wondering what brands/models you guys would recommend looking into for a very expandable system...

and one final question...what do you guys think about the AGEIA PhysX unit? Is anything currently even utilizing that technology? Is it the next big gimmick that will never catch on?

AMD is better for gaming and certain other multimedia, while Intel is better for outside of games and multimedia.

Alienware Aurora ALX is much better for gaming, but the XPS can be cheaper. Of course, any Dell is a rip-off.

Socket 939 motherboards do support half the RAM that 775 does, but 4GB of RAM is way too much in the first place, unless you're gonna use it as a 24/7 5000 player Counter-Strike Source server.

Building your own computer is definately cheaper, but very time consuming. Buying a pre-built PC is much better for those unfamiliar with PC technology, though not as smart if you plan on gaming.

As for cases, it's really just preference. For gaming cases, i'd recommend xoxide.com, as they have about 100 high-quality cases specifically designed for gaming.

Last answer: I've never heard of AGEIA, I guess i'll look into it.

I'm afraid you've managed to mix up a few things. I'll do my best to clear at least some things up. First of all, don't buy anything until the end of July at the earliest. There is a lot going on in the market at the moment. Sadly, any system will be pretty crap after 4 years. First of all: the FX-62 can only be had on the AM2 socket which uses DDR2, which socket 939 doesn't. The FX-62 performs better than the Pentium 965EE in most benchmarks.

Secondly: AMD doesn't have a FSB at all so it is a moot point, but AMD's HyperTransport technology is superior to Intel's competing solutions.

Thirdly: Without a 64-bit operating system supporting more than 4GB of RAM is pointless. To get 8GB of RAM you also need support from the memory controller and motherboard. Definitely sounds like dual-core is what you should get, and at the moment AMD's dual-cores are superior. The whole Pentium D line of dual-cores have repeatedly failed to impress me.

BUT, and that is a gigantic but at that, on July 23 Intel is launching the Core 2 processor (codename Conroe) and from everything see so far it will completely wipe the floor with everything on the market at the moment. It will be so far ahead of AMD's now leading dual-core's that it isn't even funny. Intel is also rumored to sell Conroe at very competitive prices.

But, and there are more buts still coming, Intel can't go from manufacturing Netburst to Conroe processors over night. So combined with all the hype and the fact that the large OEM's will be prioritized, there will most likely be a problem of availability. Which might cause the Conroe's price to skyrocket. There's more: Since AMD won't have anything capable of competing with Conroe in performance they will be dropping prices as much as 50%.

But - told you it was coming - Intel is, and will be for some time, producing Netburst processors, and rumour has it that they have a bunch of 'em in storage, with probably will lead to Intel being forced to practically give them away. Both to counter AMD's price-cuts and move inventory. I personally like Antec cases, but any case which is nice, big and sturdy, where you can have a few 120mm fans will do nicely. There are only a couple of games out at the moment which can utilize AGEIA's PPU, but Unreal Tournament 2007 is supposed to be able to use it and that might mean that every Unreal Engine 3.0 game might be able to use it, and the around 200 games in development using UE3.0 so we shall see.

AGEIA also claims that it won't be something that you'll have to upgrade every year to stay ahead, but will last you nicely for years. If what I've heard about its specs are true I don't think we will start to scratch the surface of what it can do for quite some time. It can with a minimum of effort calculate the physics for more objects than the fastest graphics card can render.

Thank you very much for clearing up my confusion, but I've got another question...

Why are the top end AMDs marketed as having a 2000MHz FSB?

Also, does ATI have anything in the works that can compete with Nvidia's Quad SLI video cards?


I definitely will wait...probably until shortly after Christmas...I'm taking this system out into the real world after graduation haha...I don't want it to be obsolete by the time I graduate

However, I've been out of the know on hardware since I got to college...so now that I need a new system it's time for me to get reducated on the wild hardware advances that I've literally ignored for the last 4 years...

Lets see... On Intel machines (used to be like this on AMD machines as well) the processor connects to the memory-controller which is in the Northbridge. The Northbridge is part of the motherboard chipset and thus is on the motherboard. The Northbridge then connects to the RAM memory and to the Southbridge which in turns connects to the PCI slots, USB ports, IDE ports and so on.

Now on AMD's K8 processors the memory-controller is built into the processor itself, so there is no need for a FSB to connect to it. AMD then uses a HyperTransport connection to connect to the RAM memory and to what's left of the Northbridge (or directly to the Southbridge).

So on a Intel system the Processor communicates with the rest of the system trough the FSB. On an AMD system the processor uses the HyperTransport instead, so it sort of serves as a FSB, but since it doesn't connect to the memory-controller it technically isn't. I haven't heard about any Quad-Crossfire or similar, but competing with Quad-SLI shuldn't be so hard considering Quad-SLI is so buggy you'll spend half the time looking at BSOD.