Wana Upgrade from 754 to 939...

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[H]ard|Gawd
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Jun 6, 2004
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I currently have a 3200 ClawHammer and a Biostar K8VHA Pro but my motherboard has been giving me lots of troubles running 8xAGP so I decided I will upgrade earlier then planned. I was wondering if I would see a performance jump going from my current CPU to a 3500 939 90nm?

I originally planned to just upgrade at tax return time but the current MB issues are annoying.

So is it worth upgrading now and then again later or just suck it up and wait till tax time?
 
i would just buy a new motherboard, it would probably fix any problem you are having. I'd get a DFI Lanparty nforce3 250, overclock your 3200 now that you have a decent board, and save yourself some money. You probably wouldn't notice anything in going to s939 unless all you do is benchmark.
 
PureBooYah said:
i would just buy a new motherboard, it would probably fix any problem you are having. I'd get a DFI Lanparty nforce3 250, overclock your 3200 now that you have a decent board, and save yourself some money. You probably wouldn't notice anything in going to s939 unless all you do is benchmark.
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'nuff said.
 
Unless you were seriously planning on a new CPU by tax time, stick with Socket 754, unless you have an outlet to sell your current CPU. If I was buying new, I'd go S939, but having the CPU already as you do, I'd look for a good NForce3 250Gb S754 board like the MSI K8N Neo Platinum or DFI's LanParty model.
 
I would stick with 754 until 939 boards with PCI-E are commonly available in retail channels. Preferably I would wait until they are cheap and established technology.
 
The worst way to go would be to buy a new 754 board IMO. Waste of time, pure loss of money as mobos age quickly...

Depending on the severity of Biostar suckage, either wait for PCI-E boards (but then you also have to buy a new vc) or get a 3000+ combo which would run you like $250.

I myself would not put up with mobo problems and would not buy a new 754 board ATM, no matter what.
 
DFI's s754 lanparty board is a nice choice and is an ass-load cheaper than rushing out and blowing money on a 939 board. Biostar has always sucked, always will. Sorry you bought one. Learned my lesson long ago, learned the hard way.

As far as mobo's aging quickly? No. They don't. Unless you mean boards with friggen death caps. The only boards I've had that have "aged quickly" have been boards with bad caps.
I still have P5, P6, PII and SDR Socket A boards that run... FUD sucks, stop spreading it.
 
RS said:
The worst way to go would be to buy a new 754 board IMO. Waste of time, pure loss of money as mobos age quickly...

Depending on the severity of Biostar suckage, either wait for PCI-E boards (but then you also have to buy a new vc) or get a 3000+ combo which would run you like $250.

I myself would not put up with mobo problems and would not buy a new 754 board ATM, no matter what.
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By your logic we would upgrade motherboards, what every 3-6 months?
 
I'd have to agree. Its not really the boards that age it the CPU sockets. If they stop making speed increases or change sockets then the board gets old.

You'll always have better chipsets coming out but its a matter of being able to use the same sockets for years.
I mean I have a KT-133 board that has a XP-M @ 2.4ghz and it runs games and everything just fine.

I think that the 754 socket will be fine and should hold its age well. It will most like go like this:

939:future - PCI-E, Duel-channel, DDR2, Duel Core, etc. It will grow and be the main socket for AMD just like Socket A was for the last couple years

754:future- AGP 8x, DDR1, A64, Maybe some small refinements but nothing big. I could see them adding A64 speed increases until they decide to go all duel-core platforms. And by then they will have a new socket out anyways.
 
The real question is will they be able to do DDR2 boards with socket 939 chips?

Will the continue to enable DDR1 on newer revs of the A64?
 
obiwansotti said:
The real question is will they be able to do DDR2 boards with socket 939 chips?

Will the continue to enable DDR1 on newer revs of the A64?
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Right now the Athlon isn't bandwidth starved like the P4 if you changed to DDR2 (higher freqs) you may not gain a damn thing.
 
mwarps said:
only boards I've had that have "aged quickly" have been boards with bad caps.
I still have P5, P6, PII and SDR Socket A boards that run... FUD sucks, stop spreading it.
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:rolleyes:

When I say age quickly I mean technical obsolescence not them crapping out on you.
 
So is the main consensus that I should get a new 754 Board and wait on going 939 Socket? The issue with my current board is that If I run the AGP slot at 8x, games will begin to give my artifacts, If I lower it to 4x all is dandy.

I don't care for PCI-E really since I got a 6800GT AGP already and don't plan on going SLI since it's performance doesn't seem worth the extra money...
 
hell why not run a couple benchies between 8x and 4x agp, from what I understand it'll be a frame or two at most.

Why not save some cash wait on s939 and just run 4x?
 
Save your money, unless you have a lot anyway. You'll see some gain but not enough to justify $400.00+ bucks.
 
It all depends on how much cash you have to burn.

Personally, I'd set it to 4x and be happy - as mentioned previously 8x isn't that much better.

Looking to the future though... I can't see PCIe making it onto s754. So now might be a good time to move to s939. All you need now is the motherboard and chip. Further down the line, when you want a PCIe card you'll need chip, motherboard and graphics card simultaneously. (You *may* also need DDR3 ram and psu too at that time.) How good are you at saving? :D

Thinking about it, are you sure you've got a meaty enough psu?
 
I questioned selling my 754 to get 939 with smaller die size...but instead I'm going to get an XP-120 and push my wootabulous ValueRAM as hard as it'll go, then save up a few more bucks and get some nice memory and see around (i hope) 2.7GHz or more on this 3400+. The difference of dual-channel memory isn't enough for me to switch...once 4000+ becomes common-place @ the [H] and the FX-59 is out, then it's upgrade time...unles AMD decides another socket is in order...

My point is, if you have s754, you're better off overclocking what you have than rebuilding just for s939...just wait til whatever the next generation is.
 
Save your money! If you must, buy a new mobo -- you can get a decent 754 nf3-250 main board for cheap --way under $100. The speed diff between 754 and 939 is quite small -- read this article...three percent speed increase.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipset...aspx?i=2149&p=5

I am running a 3200+ on a chaintech vnf3-250 -- I have oc'ed this to 2.3Ghz and it simply screams...in conjunction with a 6800GT OC, there are no games which I can not run at hi-res/hi quality with good frame rates.

Cheers,
DJM
 
There is the option of the dual socketed motherboards for switching on the ultra-cheap (ECS released one a while ago and [H] currently has a PCStats link to an ASRock review on the front page). But the benefits wouldn't be worth it. If the ASRock came out just as 939 was starting out, it may have been worth it.

Also will dual-core require a new socket? Dual-core with DDR3 (presumably) probably will. It's a waiting game.
 
If you're gettgin artifacts at 8x and not at 4x, id test the card, or another 8x card on teh mobo, it may even be bad, it might be the vid card.
 
The price difference between 754 and 939 is very small. Like for a motherboard and cpu combo the price is like 40 bucks tops difference between a 754 combo and 939 combo.
 
pandora's box said:
The price difference between 754 and 939 is very small. Like for a motherboard and cpu combo the price is like 40 bucks tops difference between a 754 combo and 939 combo.
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Agreed. If I were buying a new system *today* I too would buy 939. However, that is not the topic of this thread. The question is: is it worth dumping your 754 mb/cpu to buy a 939 mb/cpu? My opinion is no, a 3% performance increase in not worth the investment in money or time.

Cheers,
DJM
 
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