Hey guys, hope your holidays were great.....
OK, here is the deal, I am doing some research on some new gear.
Motherboard
CPU
Video
RAM
-- I have been looking at the AMD 64 3500+ [processors] with the 939 chipset. I like the looks of the Gigabyte GA-K8NS Ultra-939 with a Gig of DDR400 RAM. Video, I think I am going with the ATI 9800 Pro 256M.
QUESTIONS:
What is the main difference between the 754 (.13 micron) and 939 (90nm) sockets? Speed increase? Will the dual channel memory be better overall?
Will i see a sizeable increase going from the 128M video card to the 256M card or will the difference only be noticed on paper over 1600x1200 4xAA/8xAF.
Raedon ATI 9800 Pro. Why is the sapphire, powercooler and rosemill cards so much cheaper. Are they slower? Do they have different hardware than the true ATI cards?
X700 Pro 256M is much cheaper than the 9800 Pro. Why? Is it much slower? If you look at the architecture of the two. The X700 looks better. Anyone seen any benchmarks that compares the two?
What is the best board for the 939 socket. Will I notice a difference in speed from the 754 socket? Is it worth the extra money?
Is nForce3 250 dommed from the start? Nvidia disabled the HyperTranport feature on these chipsets. Should I stick with VIA and head down the K8T800 path?
PCI-Express? Better than AGP 8x?
OK - that is enough for now. As you can see, I am a very analitical person who wants the best bang for the buck. So...... calling all gaming/tech guru's - impress me........ Also please NOTE: Suggestions are welcome but please, stick to the topic and I have a ballpark price I want to stay under.....
Thanks for any information you can offer.