To wait for the Athlon 64 or not to wait for the Athlon 64?

[HedsSpaz]

So, after my thread the other day asking about compatibility between the Barton 2500+ and the MSI 745 Ultra I got to thinking (always a bad sign). And I just spent some time specing some parts to do a possible upgrade and do a cost/benefit analysis on it from my perspective. Anyway, I came up with a new case, mobo, cpu, hs/fan, and RAM would run me just over 300$ USD + shipping. Whereas just a new cpu would be 86$ + shipping. Now, here's the problem (and where the title of the thread comes in as you probably could have guessed).

Is it worth doing an upgrade now or is it worth waiting for the Athlon 64? Or to make the question more applicable, if you had around 400$ that you could spare to upgrade would you do so or would you wait for the A64?

I definately think it would be awesome to get an A64, but the reasonable person in me says that there honestly won't be much use for a 64 bit CPU for at least a year (at least in the consumer segment). I mean, even supposing MS gets XP64 out the door in time for the A64's release, there won't be a great deal of software beyond windows itself to take advantage of the 64bitness of the A64. So, we'll add a poll to this just for fun. Wait for the A64 or upgrade now?

Ian

[Tjalfe]

If nothign else, waiting till the A64 hits the market will have the other parts drop in price a fair bit.
As for immediate benefits of the A64.. there are always bragging rights

[GT98]

I'm waiting till next spring to get a new system...and that keeps getting pushed back due to various shit in my life...oh well at least I'll have my own place to stick it

[Belwarrior]

I am playing the waiting game simply because i only upgrade when i find cant do something..(g400 to 9500pro to play games etc..)
AMDDuron1200MHz AsusA7V 512MB SDRAM ATi9500pro 60GB HDD ASUSDVD-ROM16x HPCDRW12w8rw32r(yeah i can write at 2X!!)

About the only applications that i use requiring highend hardware are games (nowadays i see minimum requirements at 800MHz 256MB RAM 32MBTnLVGACard for quite a few games) but most of the useful apps and work i do are running very smoothly now.. so i dont feel like upgrading for the sake of bragging rights

However, AMD64 is a very attractive upgrade for me as i need not change any software or OS until required.

[Marshmallowman]

My next main mobo/cpu upgrade will be an operon/athlon 64, probably late next year and my a7n8x will see one processor upgrade between now and then (barton) before teh Big change..

Mandrake linux is already available for for AMD 64, so I am set when I have the $$.

[Adis]

[K6-III]

Originally posted by Marshmallowman
Mandrake linux is already available for for AMD 64, so I am set when I have the $$.

Suse 8.2 beta for X86-64 was also released a few days back...

[bsdgeek]

Just in case anyone was curious, FreeBSD/AMD64 is not progressing very rapidly. NetBSD/AMD64 appears to be close to completion, and is currently operational however.

[Chrono_Wanderer]

Originally posted by adis

ohhh... we almost forgot its existance!

[Chrono_Wanderer]

NetBSD:

playstation2 mips SONY PlayStation 2 snap exper

I never know PS2 can do this!!??

[ZokesPro]

My system does EVERYTHING I need it to do and more, why upgrade? For now it's pointless. When Athlon64 comes out, hell, it'll be revolutionary, well maybe not but still. I've heard of the 64bit AMD/Intel CPU for a long time and I can't wait till they are released.

I will probably get one, for the sake of having one, then I'll exploit it like a schoolgirl trapped in a male prison for sex offenders.

I'll rub it's little processor real good, then I'll JACK IN my HARD drive into it and then we'll have some fun! On baby!! *licks tip of finger then rubs nipple in erotic fashion*

LOL, ok I'm done, sorry.

[Marshmallowman]

Put your *HARDWARE* away

[HedsSpaz]

ohhh... we almost forgot its existance!

Oh, I hadn't forgotten it's existance, I've just chosen to ignore it.

The day I go back to intel is the day AMD goes out of buisness.

Anyway, it looks like the 'minor upgrade' is the order of the day. From the massed wisdom of the MURC we have successfully made an indecision....

So, I think I at least will probably be picking up a new CPU (and possibly a new case, my current case is to big and heavy and doesn't have the best airflow). Or maybe I should just get a new case to improve airflow and try ocing my 1600+. Hmmm...

Ian

[Belwarrior]

Asus SK8N is listed on their website "Its Opteron Time"

http://www.asus.com/products/mb/socket940/sk8n/overview.htm

saw this on the spec page
Overclock Features
-ASUS JumperFree
-Memory, AGP voltage adjustable
-SFS(Stepless Frequency Selection) from 200 MHz up to 300MHz at 1MHz increment

however from this article ASUS seem to have another better Mboard in the works

http://www.amdzone.com/articleview.cfm?ArticleID=1313

so an interim upgrade is not too bad an idea as well for those who need a bit more power now...
AND then change to a mature opteron end next yr..

[UtwigMU]

IMO When Athlon64 comes out, it will not perform much better than high end AthlonsXP or Pentiums4.

It will also be pricier than vanilla Athlons.

If you're not planning to use more than 3GB of RAM (Most desktop motherboards won't have enough slots anyway) or running 64-bit apps (due to intel's lionshare, most consumer apps won't be 64-bit for a while), you're only benefit from Athlon64 will be faster CPU.


Since AMD and intel change chipsets, specs and cores about once or twice a year, forget getting 1st generation motherboard and dropping high end Athlon64 in it latter.

So just upgrade to nForce2/2500+ or Canterwood/2.4GHz P4C now.

If your box does what you want it to do, then wait.