Latest generation AMD processors and PCI express.....

Coskesh · Post by **Coskesh** » Fri Nov 26, 2004 3:17 pm

I was thinking of possibly upgrading my rig (giving one of my old ones to a friend for Xmas).

What's the difference between the 939 pin AMD 64s vs the non-939 pin?

I'd like to get a motherboard that has onboard RAID, SATA, and PCI express support, and that will also take the new AMD 64 FX processors. AMDs site wasn't very helpful at all. Was planning on getting a AMD64 3200 or similar but I'd like to be able to drop an FX in there in the future.

Thanks!

EDIT: edited the title to reflect the post.

Greg Wak · Post by **Greg Wak** » Fri Nov 26, 2004 8:47 pm

939 pin supports dual channel unbuffered ram. Dual channel memory means if you use 2 identical ram sticks you get a slight performance boost. Not as much as intel because the memory controller is on the cpu with amd. 939 is amd's board for the future[next year or so] and 940 is being phased out. So along with a slight performance increase your upgrade path with 939 will be much easier.

Coskesh · Post by **Coskesh** » Sat Nov 27, 2004 7:32 am

Thanks Greg!

EDIT: Just checked a bunch of sites, and from what I can tell, Socket 939 boards with PCI Express are not available at the moment - is that correct?

Biyobi · Post by **Biyobi** » Sat Nov 27, 2004 2:23 pm

From what I've read you should be able to start finding PCI-e motherboards for AMD starting in December. I'm finally at the point where I can afford to upgrade so I've been following this too.

Greg Wak · Post by **Greg Wak** » Sat Nov 27, 2004 4:01 pm

939 boards with pci express should start to be available any day now and widely available 1qt 2005. You do know that pci express will not gain you anything now or in the near future, right? video bandwith is just nowhere near being a chokepoint now. I personaly think it might be a couple of years before the wider bandwith might start being used. Even then agp will be around for a long time.

Coskesh · Post by **Coskesh** » Sat Nov 27, 2004 4:43 pm

Thanks for the info Biyobi!

Greg, if I plan on having this computer for 2 years as my main gaming rig, you think it's still not worth it to get PCI-E? I was planning on getting the Nvidia 6600, so ironically, the AGP version will be avail about the same time the PCI-E boards will be availabe.

Thanks again.

Greg Wak · Post by **Greg Wak** » Sat Nov 27, 2004 6:12 pm

I'm sure not everyone has the same opinion but look how long it takes to develope a new game engine. more than 2 years for sure. Closer to 4 or 5 years. The 2 main engines now, HL2 and Doom 3 have zero benifit from pci-e. I really doubt the Stalker engine will benifit from it either as it has been in developement for a long time. So that leaves unreal 3 engine and Oblivion as new high end graphic engines. Who knows when they will be out and the trend has been to try and scale to the largest market. I just got my machine in October and I plan on keeping it for 4-5 years[my last one made four years and I was using a GF2 at the end!] and I decided not to wait for pci-e. I personaly don't think this tech generation will get much, if any use of it. It will be interesting to see how much more demanding game engines get now that cpu speeds have stalled anyway. Next year everything is going to dual cpu's which games can make just about zero use of. Look at your budget and the price difference and see if you think it's worth it. I don't need the fastest rig in the world, I just want to play my games at full detail with playable frame rates.