Athlon64 and a free motherboard!?
 

I must not like money or something, because every time I get it I immediately start looking for ways to get rid of it. That being said, I was looking at Newegg's CPU section when I noticed a little link to a deal where you can buy an AMD Athlon64 3400 and you get a free motherboard with it. Now I'm looking at these mobos and I'm not sure if they're any good:

• BIOSTAR NF325-A7 Socket 754 NVIDIA nForce3 250 ATX
• PC CHIPS M861G V1.6 Socket 754 VIA K8M800 Micro ATX AMD
• Gigabyte GA-K8VM800M Socket 754 VIA K8M800 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

The Biostar doesn't seem too bad and most of the comments for it are favorable. It really seems like a good upgrade board for me since, as far as I can tell, it supports the rest of my hardware.

I'm wary of the PC-Chips board. I bought one from a guy who built my first PC after I failed to do it myself, and although it worked I couldn't get my graphics card to work with the drivers installed. Of course I wasn't as technically proficient back then, but overall the board just seemed wonky. Also, I don't know very much about chipsets, but I recall reading bad things about VIA.

Can't say much about the last one either. Reviews still seem mostly positive, but I'm concerned about the one I read which says it didn't handle gaming very well. I've never used this brand either so I don't have any personal experience to go off of. Otherwise, it seems alright.

And of course I'm wondering about the processor itself. 2.4 Ghz is a nice upgrade for me since I've been stuck below the 2.0 mark. I don't see any mention of a Front-Side Bus so I guess Athlon64 has something else. Either way, it should be a good improvement over my notoverclockedbecausei'mtooparanoidtodoit Duron, and if I go with this deal I can upgrade just the CPU without changing anything else.

Any thoughts on this? I figured some people on here might be interested in knowing about this.

The bundle deal is gonna be a pretty good upgrade for you. Durons are not a good 'vintage' chip. :P

Keep in mind that the chip and motherboard are old technology, even though it's all AMD64 stuff. Socket 754 chips and motherboards are discontinued. Every board in that list is AGP which seriously limits the amount of video cards to choose and upgrade.

You will most likely have to upgrade your RAM to DDR if your current motherboard is using SDRAM.

As for a choice from the list, I would consider the Biostar because of the nForce3 chipset. I'm not really familiar with build quality from that company, although I do frequently see them pushing out high-end features on cheaper motherboards. Gigabyte is a well-respected company, and I have a few of their cheaper boards and have never had a problem. The only real difference between the two boards is the chipset and the form factor/amount of PCI slots.

Never heard of PC Chips, and I would instantly exclude them for that. They most likely have terrible driver support or a brutal manual. :/

The Biostar will be faster for games and such and has more PCI slots. I would pick it.

nForce3 chipset *was* a great chipset.

I highly recommended NOT doing this upgrade since it is sooooo slight and sooooo behind the times. It's just not a good idea. Unless you are on such a budget that you can barely afford internet access. (in which case, just use the PC you have)

I advise for the budget concious looking into AM2 socket processors and MoBo's. Over the next 6 months, they are gonna be VERY good bang-for-your-buck performance/cost wise.

You can get an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800 for $149!! Or if that is too much an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ is only $89. And at least getting these AM2 processors gets you into current gen hardware that could be upgraded a few years from now.

The only processor I saw explicitly listed to work with this deal was an OEM processor, which doesn't sound like a good idea in the first place. I'd think hard about the quality of the parts they're trying to sell you before jumping in on it.

Personally I'd go for anything nforce over VIA, so I'd choose the Biostar with nforce 3, but of course as others have suggested if you wait a little, with the introduction of new CPU ranges by both AMD and Intel the price of some current and future gen processors should be set to fall so you should be able to nab even better hardware.

Personally I wouldn't advise upgrading your motherboard for another AGP one as well, if you save up a little extra cash go for one with PCI express with a 7600GT, which would be a good solid 'mid-level' upgrade.

It seems like most of my machine is living in the past. My graphics card is AGP and my hard drives are IDE (whatever's being phased out for SATA). While I'd like to overhaul the whole system, I don't believe I can afford to do that right now. I haven't yet started paying all of my own costs, but I'm out of College and trying to save up for when I inevitably will have to do that. Does that make this deal seem any more sensible?

Here's my current setup:
ASUS A7N8X-X motherboard (I realize replacing this with one of those is probably a step down)
AMD Duron 1.8 Ghz (says it can be overclocked to 3000 Mhz but I don't dare)
2 x 512MB Corsair 184-Pin DDR SDRAM 333 PC2700 (someone said I might need to upgrade to DDR from SDRAM, wtf is this then?)
2 x 80GB Maxtor something something (one installed)
200GB Maxtor something better (installed)
Nvidia GeForce 6800 AGPx8 (it's green)
PCI Soundblaster Audigy MP3+ (I keep thinking about replacing this)
Crappy wireless NIC that has trouble picking up Airport signals

No... I say wait. Save your money for a different day.

This deal sounds great, but with what you are getting, it is essentially no gain. It sounds like you have patience and little urgent need for an upgrade, you just don't want to miss a deal.

I would say this is not the one you are looking for ;).

I'll post this here too. Here's my current setup:
ASUS A7N8X-X motherboard (I realize replacing this with one of those is probably a step down)
AMD Duron 1.8 Ghz (says it can be overclocked to 3000 Mhz but I don't dare)
2 x 512MB Corsair 184-Pin DDR SDRAM 333 PC2700 (someone said I might need to upgrade to DDR from SDRAM, wtf is this then?)
2 x 80GB Maxtor something something (one installed)
200GB Maxtor something better (installed)
Nvidia GeForce 6800 AGPx8 (it's green)
PCI Soundblaster Audigy MP3+ (I keep thinking about replacing this)
Crappy wireless NIC that has trouble picking up Airport signals

You are pretty well off in general... If you wanted to CPU upgrade for just smoother performance, that's not a bad idea. I'd say screw the mobo and just get the processor if you really are fed up with your CPU performance. EBay hawk the mobo, or donate it to something.

Also, do note that the CPU is OEM, so you might need to buy a heatsink/fan & thermal compound to install this CPU (unless you can use your old heatsink, but you will need compound).

The main problem with me about the Biostar mobo is it only supports up to 2 gigs of DDR400. I'd love to run anything nForce though, right now I'm running a VIA K8T chipset. =/

He would pay more for anything Socket A than he would for this deal and get worse performance.

He has everything he needs to simply switch the motherboard and CPU. (except thermal goop)

There's SDRAM and DDR SDRAM. It's easy to get the two confused. Old boards used SDRAM (168 pin, split into three sections) while you have DDR SDRAM (184 pin, split into 2 sections). The only reason you'd need to upgrade is if you got a board that needed DDR2 SDRAM (240 pin) or RDRAM (which you generally don't see).

Why computer part manufacturers didn't just call it SDRAM and DDRAM is beyond me.



And Dayvon, there's a great AMD64 3700+ for $99. It has more L2 cache than that 3500+ you listed.

I actually think this is a pretty good deal...I'd be tempted to jump on it, except that I've pretty much burned out on building PC's. This combo should give you a very nice performance boost, and anything beyond it would probably be wasted without further hardware upgrades.

PC Chips boards are pretty awful, and the K8M800 chipset isn't as good as the nForce 3, so I'd strike that board right out. Between the Gigabyte and Biostar boards, I'd probably go for the Biostar. Gigabyte is, to my memory, a better manufacturer than Biostar, but Biostar isn't a bad company either, and the Biostar motherboard has a better, faster chipset for everything that I can think of.

Now that said, it's really too bad that Gigabyte didn't spend the extra couple of dollars to add a TV output to their board, or it would make a really good and very cheap media center box.

You are right about this processor being better, but I don't recommend upgrading to a Socket 939 system (as it is being phased out), and secondly I really only recommend the X2 line. It is pretty pointless to go with a single-core system as that will only hurt more down the road as applications become multi-threaded.

Ok, here's my final take on this whole issue. I think that if you are fed up with your current systems performance, and don't plan on upgrading your entire computer (CPU, mobo, RAM, Video card specifically) in the next 365 days, then buying the 3500 754 socket processor w/ free mobo isnt a bad idea. It will get you by a little longer with your aging AGP system, the $99 doesn't break the bank, and you will have an extra mobo hanging around (which is never a bad thing). You will need to purchase thermal paste as well (Arctic Silver w/ the Cleaning solutions), and pray that your current heatsink works well with the new processor. If you decide to put the new Biostar nForce3 board in, you WILL NEED to reinstall windows. Your other option is to keep the board that works now and you paid good cash for, and leave Windows alone and swap the processors.

If you don't mind your computers current performance too much, or you plan on upgrading your computer (CPU, mobo, RAM, Video card specifically) in the next year, DO NOT BUY. Save your $99 to get a better video card or more RAM on a new system.

I hope this helps.

Double Post:
What does socket A have anything to do with anything?

Do note I recommended Socket AM2 for a system upgrade, there is a difference.

Er...unless I'm mistaken, it has to do with me since a Duron is a Socket A chip and that's what I currently have, so how exactly would I upgrade to the Athlon64 without changing the motherboard as well?

And also, I do happen to have thermal paste and a heatsink/fan, but I couldn't get it to work. Of course, I was attending College at the time so I was a little distracted.

Oh, and I don't pay cash for computer parts since I order them online. :)

Duron is Socket A? Ouch.

Well, this is definitely your call. You would need to buy a new heatsink/fan for the different Socket 754 Type, paste equipment (sounds like), as well as the processor/mobo combo, bringing your total up to about $149+ shipped.

I don't know man. At that price, you could get a retail AM2 socket CPU ($149), find a good nForce500 $70-80 mobo, and You'd RAM upgrade to a 1GB DDR2 stick for about $80; which would bring a whole system upgrade to about $300 total; $150 more than you are looking at spending now. And such a system would be 5x higher performing for 2x the money spent.

The hardest part about upgrading the whole system is you'd have to replace your video card cause of moving to PCI-Express from AGP. Especially if you game, you will generally need to spend $200+ get the kind of graphic performance you want. If you don't game significantly any ole $30-50 card will do.

I hope this shows you what I'm talking about, how this is really not a good deal. I before was thinking your Duron was Socket 754, and that basically you were just processor upgrading. How much performance do you want versus money you are willing to spend? Spending $360 or so will get you a fully upgraded system (CPU, Mobo, 1GB RAM, and cheap vid card) that will be ready to take on the next 2-5 years, and you can get a great video card upgrade in time. Or you can spend $150 now and limp along for the next 1-2years, unable to upgrade anything unless you do an entire system overhaul. To me, the choice is clear. Either save your money for an AM2 system upgrade, or stretch your budget and buy an AM2 system right now. The hard drives and optical drives you have would transfer fine, as well as the Audigy card and the NIC wireless. So you are basically ready to go.

Actually, I've got one of these, and assuming it actually works I wouldn't need to buy heatsink/fan. Of course, the reason it's not currently installed is because I couldn't get it to work in the first place so....

Ooh, those Zalmans are really nice heatsinks! If you still have the original kit that came with it, you should be able to install it on any of those motherboards without too much trouble. They use a funny mounting technique, but it's not too hard to figure out, and it's less nerve-wracking than trying to jam a fiddly metal clip down onto the CPU socket, like with most Socket A coolers.

If you have the cheap thermal goop stuff that came with the heatsink too, then you should be set. If not, you can just buy some cheap stuff from your local computer store...it'd probably be cheaper than buying from Newegg after shipping charges.

Even if you need a completely new heatsink, $50 is a pretty pessimistic price. You can buy decent heatsinks for under $20 shipped...they should be fine, since you're not trying to use a really hot chip.

in my opinion you should just wait it out or just pick up a better processor for socket a, since it seems like your processor is the bottleneck on your system. I have for the most part the same configuration, same mobo, only my processor is an amd 2800+ (2.08ghz). it's socket A and it's still chugging.

I think I've still got some Arctic Silver from my last attempt at mounting this thing. Only problem is I couldn't get my PC to boot while it was installed, and I thought I'd killed my older (and faster) CPU.