Something which I picked up in a friends place. He had this guide...With his permission I am posting it here:
CPU: Pentium 4 vs AMD
As we all know (most of us), the AMD FX has been out for almost 4 months now and it clearly shows us teh way for the future is indeeed 64 bit..but don't go buying a 64 bit processor just yet...if u wanna get a 64 bit wait till around september cuz AMd is coming out with a new socket to replace the current 939 socket... this is prolly a bad choice done by AMD since the FX and 64 series are fairly new and by introducing a new socket so fast will defeintely null their sales quite a bit since they WILL discontinue the current 939 series FX and 64's.
AMD XP: the great, the cheap, the fast
ahhh all of you all know that AMD is prolly the crown jewel of overclocking... for pros out there, get the AMD XP. All of the XP line has now been multiplier locked...meaning u wont be able to increase the mult, only the FSB therefore making your RAM the major bottleneck...
LUCKILY!!!! ALL the Athlon MP ar factory unlocked...in case you dont know what MP is, its the moblie version of the Athlon XP's. Its a about 15-20 bux more than its desktop counterpart but that is worth everypenny. the MP consume alot less power and run on a 1.35Vcore compared to the XP at 1.65Vcore...that means EXTREME POTENTIAL FOR OVERCLOCKING!!! whats best is that the MPs will fit perfectly on all AMD mobos that can use XP's!!!! Why does AMD do such a wierd thing u ask? its because the multiplier need to be unlocked to enable the feature on AMD laptops called "PowerNow!"
Pentium 4's are currently...a good buy since intel has released its 90nm chips...the 9nm process allows the intel prescott core to run at incredibile speeds! and also use alot less power since the vCore voltage is supposedly much
lower than the current cores.
RAM
Anything below DDR2700 is considered slow and icky...
for people that know what this means get some good DDR3200 or better yet get some DDR4000 or DDR4500!! but when buying RAM look at the chips..if its says BH-5 on it youre in MAJOR LUCK! these chips, originally made by winbond are now discontinued! so if u manage to see some BH-5 GRAB IT RIGHT AWAY! CH-5, CH-6 are also nice but not quite as good as the BH-5
If u have DDR3200 or higher try to check your latency on it... make sure it runs at, at least 2-3-3-8 or tighter.
Motherboards!!
Most of you think that Asus is the way to go..in fact, they are the most reliable and respected brand but NOT the best.
Abit, and DFI are lesser known mobo companies but they kick ass. Such as the DFI Lanparty *Ultra b*. known as the very BEST mobo out there for the AMD XP series. they have flashable bios Chips and there even custor bioses. most of them can be volt-moded easily to allow uber vcore and 12v, 5v and 3.3v to skyrocket or decrease to reduce heat and noise form fans, hard drives ect...
Another great mobo is the NF-7 from abit...just as good as the DFI Lanparty but a lot of the features are torn out such as SATA, Dualchannel DDR and gigabit ethernet. most of us private computer users dont really need dual channel since it hasnt really proven itself to be really much of an advantage (i've tested it myself)
New technologes are coming out in a few months such as PCI-X
its double the speed of the current AGP8x 2.0 meaning its basically APG16x...double the data rate of your videocards!!! HOLY!! anyway...do not buy a mobo in the next 4-5 months ore a videocard...also 64-bit sound cards are currently in developement...and from the rumours ive heard, it can turn a 4.1 sound system to like 8.1 or higher... also new speakers will now be 5.2.1
when talking about speakers the first number is the number of satellites. and the second number is the numer of subwoofers
so 5.1 speakers = 5 satellites, 1 subwoofer.
what is teh third number you say? its a tweeter. provides clear clear CLEAR high pitched sounds
Video Cards:
It seems that the new higher end cards hae finally revieled themselves.
Right now, i recommend everyone to go get a X800pro or XT. Theses cards are tried tested and proven. the use the R420 core which is an updated version of the 9800XT core. ITs a polished ruby. It will be exaclty what u want. The 6800 ultra however has new technologies and more powerful componesnts. BUT everything is still VERY wonky with these cards, they can encode or decode very well and in games they often artifact. (on my test rig anyway) wait a year for the 6800 ultra and then it will truly be pwnage.
Also, DO NOT GET a new vidcard until u get a new mobo, its will have pci-express meaning twice the speed of conventional 8x agp.
This is pretty good info so I thought I would share it.....
CPU: Pentium 4 vs AMD
As we all know (most of us), the AMD FX has been out for almost 4 months now and it clearly shows us teh way for the future is indeeed 64 bit..but don't go buying a 64 bit processor just yet...if u wanna get a 64 bit wait till around september cuz AMd is coming out with a new socket to replace the current 939 socket... this is prolly a bad choice done by AMD since the FX and 64 series are fairly new and by introducing a new socket so fast will defeintely null their sales quite a bit since they WILL discontinue the current 939 series FX and 64's.
AMD XP: the great, the cheap, the fast
ahhh all of you all know that AMD is prolly the crown jewel of overclocking... for pros out there, get the AMD XP. All of the XP line has now been multiplier locked...meaning u wont be able to increase the mult, only the FSB therefore making your RAM the major bottleneck...
LUCKILY!!!! ALL the Athlon MP ar factory unlocked...in case you dont know what MP is, its the moblie version of the Athlon XP's. Its a about 15-20 bux more than its desktop counterpart but that is worth everypenny. the MP consume alot less power and run on a 1.35Vcore compared to the XP at 1.65Vcore...that means EXTREME POTENTIAL FOR OVERCLOCKING!!! whats best is that the MPs will fit perfectly on all AMD mobos that can use XP's!!!! Why does AMD do such a wierd thing u ask? its because the multiplier need to be unlocked to enable the feature on AMD laptops called "PowerNow!"
Pentium 4's are currently...a good buy since intel has released its 90nm chips...the 9nm process allows the intel prescott core to run at incredibile speeds! and also use alot less power since the vCore voltage is supposedly much
lower than the current cores.
RAM
Anything below DDR2700 is considered slow and icky...
for people that know what this means get some good DDR3200 or better yet get some DDR4000 or DDR4500!! but when buying RAM look at the chips..if its says BH-5 on it youre in MAJOR LUCK! these chips, originally made by winbond are now discontinued! so if u manage to see some BH-5 GRAB IT RIGHT AWAY! CH-5, CH-6 are also nice but not quite as good as the BH-5
If u have DDR3200 or higher try to check your latency on it... make sure it runs at, at least 2-3-3-8 or tighter.
Motherboards!!
Most of you think that Asus is the way to go..in fact, they are the most reliable and respected brand but NOT the best.
Abit, and DFI are lesser known mobo companies but they kick ass. Such as the DFI Lanparty *Ultra b*. known as the very BEST mobo out there for the AMD XP series. they have flashable bios Chips and there even custor bioses. most of them can be volt-moded easily to allow uber vcore and 12v, 5v and 3.3v to skyrocket or decrease to reduce heat and noise form fans, hard drives ect...
Another great mobo is the NF-7 from abit...just as good as the DFI Lanparty but a lot of the features are torn out such as SATA, Dualchannel DDR and gigabit ethernet. most of us private computer users dont really need dual channel since it hasnt really proven itself to be really much of an advantage (i've tested it myself)
New technologes are coming out in a few months such as PCI-X
its double the speed of the current AGP8x 2.0 meaning its basically APG16x...double the data rate of your videocards!!! HOLY!! anyway...do not buy a mobo in the next 4-5 months ore a videocard...also 64-bit sound cards are currently in developement...and from the rumours ive heard, it can turn a 4.1 sound system to like 8.1 or higher... also new speakers will now be 5.2.1
when talking about speakers the first number is the number of satellites. and the second number is the numer of subwoofers
so 5.1 speakers = 5 satellites, 1 subwoofer.
what is teh third number you say? its a tweeter. provides clear clear CLEAR high pitched sounds
Video Cards:
It seems that the new higher end cards hae finally revieled themselves.
Right now, i recommend everyone to go get a X800pro or XT. Theses cards are tried tested and proven. the use the R420 core which is an updated version of the 9800XT core. ITs a polished ruby. It will be exaclty what u want. The 6800 ultra however has new technologies and more powerful componesnts. BUT everything is still VERY wonky with these cards, they can encode or decode very well and in games they often artifact. (on my test rig anyway) wait a year for the 6800 ultra and then it will truly be pwnage.
Also, DO NOT GET a new vidcard until u get a new mobo, its will have pci-express meaning twice the speed of conventional 8x agp.
This is pretty good info so I thought I would share it.....
