I posted this in more then one group, but I did it in one group at a
time so I don't know if this constitutes cross posting or not, but if
so would someone please let me know. Preferably with a little tact
and deference.
( I'm sure the flamers will be zapping me!)

Any way, here is my request.


I was not paying a lot of attention to the price of CPUs lately,
other then the fact of planning to build a new system. I want an AMD
X2 4.4 Ghz (+) and I was wondering if the price reductions I have
seen brandied about the inter have trickled down to the end user?

I have never had any luck upgrading a CPU on the MB in the past. By
the time I was ready to upgrade the CPU I wanted wouldn't work on the
MB or some other reason would make it impractical to upgrade only the
CPU. With this in mind should I get the new AM2 ( I think that is the
name) MB/Chip set that is out or is the x2 939 ok? I will probably
use the 4.4 Hz + and whatever MB I get initially for the life of the
system and do not plan on upgrading the CPU at a later date.

Also, can SATA and IDE HD's both work on the same system?
Besides the Power Supply and physical space, what limits the number of
Hard Drives a person can have in there system?


Thank you.

eVe Gee

"eVe GiiDiiOn" <Eve (AT) hotmale (DOT) com> wrote

do some Googling and find out? But no, you won't get an AMD 4.4 Ghz CPU.

Yes, here in Finland the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ cost around 350euro two
weeks ago, now it'sdown to around 190



--
Tumppi
=================================
Most learned on these newsgroups
Helsinki, FINLAND
(translations from/to FI not always accurate
=================================




"eVe GiiDiiOn" <Eve (AT) hotmale (DOT) com> kirjoitti
viestissä:1n1pc29t4p5lq99lamhd14ruson8fponfr (AT) 4ax (DOT) com...

In article <1n1pc29t4p5lq99lamhd14ruson8fponfr (AT) 4ax (DOT) com>, eVe GiiDiiOn
<Eve (AT) hotmale (DOT) com> wrote:

When you repeat the same posting in a number of different
groups, that is called "multiposting". When you make a
large newsgroup list in the header of a single post, that
is "crossposting". Generally, the idea is to find the
correct group for the question, so you only post it once.
There are some people who crosspost everything they post,
presumably just to annoy.

As for your question about CPUs, getting the last penny of
value from a purchase is never an easy thing. Right now, there
are single core and dual core processors. Don't be fooled by
the "performance" number for a dual core, because your usage
pattern might not match how that number was arrived at.

(click "view all products")
http://www.amdcompare.com/us-en/desktop/

A S939 X2 4400+ runs each core at 2200Mhz and has 1MB L2 per core.
A S939 4000+ single core chip runs at 2400MHz and has 1MB L2.

Some Newegg prices:
4000+ S939 single core $139
3800+ S939 X2 dual core $154
4400+ S939 X2 dual core $250

Article on price cuts:
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3460

If the code I was running did not use dual cores simultaneously,
the single core will be slightly faster than the dual core (2400MHz
versus 2200MHz). But the dual core will give a smoother desktop,
with fewer hesitations when doing things. If the computer was used
for many of todays games, the 4000+ might be faster. In the future
that could change, as more code takes advantage of two cores.

As for AM2 versus S939, you would need some good RAM on the AM2
to get the same level of performance. I still have some CAS2
PC3200 sitting around, so I would get a S939 in the blink of
an eye. That would be cheaper for me, than finding some new
CAS4 DDR2-800 for the AM2.

If you don't plan on upgrading the CPU ever again, then it
doesn't matter which socket you buy. AM2 will be around, until
DDR3 requires another socket change.

The video card could be a major expense, compared to a bargain
CPU, so reuse or buy new is a consideration there as well.
AFAIK, AM2 socket is PCI Express video, and I don't know if you
can find any AGP motherboards or not. In theory, it should be
possible to make an AGP motherboard (as the old chipsets should
work with AM2), but I don't know if anyone will do that or not.
(There is an Asrock board that has an AM2 adapter as an option,
but that is an obscure way to get an AGP socket with AM2.)

For disks, you can use SATA and IDE at the same time. And you
can have a ton of disks in a computer. I've seen a picture of
a home brew server box with 18 disks stacked up in it. For
drive letters, you have all the letters of the alphabet, which
should give you a good deal of room to work with. Too many
drives would mean a noisy computer, and a need to get an
extra large power supply (to spin up all the drives at
the same time - 2 amps on 12V each - with 18 drives that would
be 36 amps). Having fewer, larger disk, is probably a better
way to do it. Disks are as large as 750GB now, at about $400 each.

HTH,
Paul

eVe GiiDiiOn <Eve (AT) hotmale (DOT) com> wrote:

Its actually the worst approach. If you crosspost to more than one group
it should be with all the groups in the newsgroups field. That way those
who read more than one of those groups will see it marked as read in
other than the first group they read it in with a decent news reader.

Yes, but not everywhere yet.

Worth considering the Intel Conroes too.

Yes.

Basically the number of hard drive controllers on the motherboard
except that you can add extra hard drive cards as well.

Can get a bit tricky cooling them properly if you get too many tho.

On Sun, 30 Jul 2006 11:03:57 GMT, "SteveH"
<steve.houghREMOVETHIS (AT) blueyonder (DOT) co.uk> wrote:

kindly pointed out.) I thought that the "+" signified "equivalent"
speed. If it is not a + what do I use to keep for sounding like a
total LuZeR?
But, what is googling going to do if I don't know what the old price
was? Unless there is a web site that shows price trends. Do you
happen to know if there are any? Other wiser I am just seeing a
snapshot of time, not what the price was and has been. And a few
sites that I have seen that have an up or down error still don't tell
you much. "THE PRICE IS LOWER!" Well how much lower? Was it $500 or
$1250?

Thank though.

eVe

In article <9j2rc2t9kgo2nt6staslhhofieuc0ir4dm (AT) 4ax (DOT) com>, eVe GiiDiiOn
<eVe (AT) hotmale (DOT) com> wrote:

Recent Intel pricelist:
http://www.intel.com/intel/finance/p..._final_web.pdf

Recent AMD pricelist (some products are missing from the list because
they are no longer being manufactured):

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/...l?redir=CPT301

Limited archived copies of older AMD pricelists. Nothing recent.

http://web.archive.org/*/http://www....l?redir=CPT301

AMD desktop processors - click "View All Products"
http://www.amdcompare.com/us-en/desktop/

An example price plot from the Anandtech "real time pricing engine"
Shows an AMD Toledo 4400+ has been a stable $450 since Jan06, with
a recent drop to $250.

http://labs.anandtech.com/img/plot/1768_182.png
http://labs.anandtech.com/ (enter product in search box)

There is plenty of (incomplete) info out there:

Paul