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Gaming Buyer's Guide - November 2004

 by Jarred Walton on November 21, 2004 5:54 PM EST
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AMD Budget Gaming System, Part Two

We cut several corners in order to reduce the price as far as possible on the first AMD system, but if you can afford a few upgrades, we would suggest the following instead.

Budget AMD Athlon 64 939 System
Hardware Recommended Component Price
Processor AMD Athlon 64 3000+ 1.8 GHz (939) 90 nm 170
Motherboard Abit AV8 (939) 103
Memory 1x512MB Mushkin Basic 2.5-4-4 75
Video Card XFX GeForce 6600GT AGP 128 MB 229
Hard Drive Seagate Barracuda 80GB EIDE model 7200.7 59
Optical Drive NEC DVD+/-RW Drive Model 3500A 72
Case and Power Supply Athenatech A602 Black/Silver with 350W PSU 62
Display Samsung 793DF 17 Black/Silver CRT (1280x1024@75 Hz) 139
Speakers Logitech Z-640 5.1 52
Keyboard and Mouse Logitech Optical Desktop Combo 26
Bottom Line   987



Click to enlarge.
Abit's K8T800 Pro based AV8 motherboard has dropped about $20 in price since its release, and it still offers great features and performance. Coming with support for the socket 939 platform, it should have more longevity and will also provide more performance than comparable socket 754 systems. This is especially true in games, where the dual-channel RAM and other performance tweaks can add 5% to 15% to the overall speed. For the RAM, we recommend starting with one 512 MB DIMM and upgrading to a second DIMM and dual-channel when you can afford the extra $75. You could also just add in the RAM right now and push the price over $1000.

The recommended CPU is AMD's cheapest socket 939 chip, the 1.8 GHz 3000+. This chip uses the new 90 nm process and can overclock very well, but more importantly, it has dropped in price about $50 since it first launched. It seems that since the chips were in such high demand, many resellers bumped the price up quite a bit for the first few weeks. Our tests have shown the 90 nm parts to actually be slightly faster than the older 130 nm parts, although the precise details of what changes were made remain largely unknown. What's more impressive is that even the 2.2 GHz 3500+ 90 nm part requires less power and generates less heat than even the slowest 130 nm Athlon 64. If you want to try your hand at overclocking, these chips have shown a lot of potential, with some people reporting overclocks of up to 2.8 GHz. At that speed, performance is very close to that of the FX-55 chip that costs over four times as much. Talk about bang for the buck! You would certainly want better RAM for such an endeavor, though. For the extra $75, then, the socket 939 platform offers quite a few desirable upgrades.


Click to enlarge.
We also changed the graphics card for the 939 platform. Yes, you can use the more expensive card on the less expensive system, but we were really looking to cut costs as much as possible while still maintaining a decent level of performance. For $30 more, the GeForce 6600GT is now available, and performance ranges from being slightly faster than the 9800 Pro to being significantly faster. Doom 3, in particular, shows a huge advantage with the 6600GT. You might also wonder about the GeForce 6800 cards. While they have 12 pipelines, they are also clocked slower, so it ends up basically being a tie in many situations when compared to the 6600GT. At higher resolutions, however, the increased memory bandwidth of the 6800 almost always wins out - a 256-bit interface running at 700 MHz is still about 40% faster than a 128-bit interface running at 1000 MHz.

If you want to try your hand at overclocking, we would also go with the 6800. There have been many reports of success with using a utility like Riva Tuner to re-enable the last four pixel pipelines, and combined with an overclock to 400 MHz, it will definitely outperform the best that the 6600GT can put up. While the list price of the 6800 is $300, there are a few locations that have them for $250 (plus shipping and possibly tax). That's only $20 more than the current price of the 6600GT, so it's definitely worth considering. Once the price of the 6600GT drops - as we assume it will over the next month or two, judging by the price of the 6600GT PCIe parts - the 6800 becomes less attractive.

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  • JarredWalton - Sunday, November 21, 2004 - link

    Xsilver - We really don't know when AGP will be fully phased out. It could be mostly gone in a year, or it could stick around for four more years. With NVIDIA's HSI bridge chip, they should be able to continue to support AGP as long as it's a reasonable market, and with dramatically faster processors more or less on hold for a year or so, I would expect AGP to continue to get support for at least two years. It might come a little later than the latest PCIe cards, but that's better than nothing.

    Regarding the choice of motherboards, right now I would have to go with the Abit or ASUS boards over the Gigabyte. Some people like Gigabyte a lot, but I'm not really one of them. The boards always seem to have issues - my one Athlon XP system with a Gigabyte board has constant "overheating" problems, even though temps never actually break 60 C. The motherboard *thinks* the CPU is running too hot. I've never been seriously disappointed by Abit or ASUS, so that's what I would take.

    Moletus: the 6800LE is available, mostly in Europe, but short of unlocking the extra pipelines there's no real reason to go with it. The 6600GT is close in performance to the 6800, and the LE is going to have the same number of pipelines with a lower clockspeed. If you can't find the 6600GT, or if you want to take a chance on unlocking the extra pipelines, the 6800LE is worth a shot.

  • xsilver - Sunday, November 21, 2004 - link

    Also some news on WHEN Agp is going to be phased out would be good.... are the next gen nvidia/ati products still going to be availble with AGP? if not, it would make sense to switch now?

  • xsilver - Sunday, November 21, 2004 - link

    I am considering the second AMD option -- want to know more about the choice of motherboards
    Where I am, only the abit, asus a8v and gigabyte "Gigabyte GA-K8NS Ultra-939" are abailable which is nf3 based...
    I've heard good things about the nf3 but bad things about this particular gigabyte board.... is the abit still the way to go? the gigabyte is actually the cheapest though... marginally
    The MSI nf3 is also availble but is $45 more..

    Is the abit going to be the most stable with the best ability for good overclocks?

    And on stock cooling/voltage how much could be extracted out of the 3000+ / 939? is 2.4ghz guaranteed?

  • thebluesgnr - Sunday, November 21, 2004 - link

    This guide bothers to add an option for those who want an Intel processor because there are AT readers that prefer Intel platforms (processor+chipset), even knowing gaming performance is a little better on AMD.

    I'm not one of those readoers though ;)

  • Pollock - Sunday, November 21, 2004 - link

    I assume stock cooling for all processors...

    ...but what about the OEM 3000+? $140 at Monarch...

  • moletus - Sunday, November 21, 2004 - link

    You really cant blame Intel only machines for stability problems. (just finished playing hl2 with p3-800 and ati 8500, and no im not a masochist) And on the long run i think Intel boxes will outlive any Amd counterpart, and yes i would buy Amd too :)

  • MAME - Sunday, November 21, 2004 - link

    oh, the only thing I am curious about is why even bother putting the Intel counterparts in there in the first place? AMD has the clear advantage over Intel in gaming. Since Intel's offerings are more expensive and perform worse, I really don't see a reason to go that route.

  • moletus - Sunday, November 21, 2004 - link

    Hey where is 6800le ? i havent seen a single thing about it, even thou you can buy one.. atleast in europe, no benchies no nuttin :( i woulda bet that beats any price/performance ratio when you get those pixel pipes running (with luck:)

  • MAME - Sunday, November 21, 2004 - link

    prepare to be bombarded by everyone who thinks they can save $2 and build a much better rig

    anyway, looks pretty decent to me

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