Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1405



Prices have been dropping for 32-bit hardware for quite some time and now it seems as if 64-bit counterparts are following suit. With deals popping up left and right for motherboards and processors we took a look at them and came up with our picks for this week.

As always, be sure to visit our RealTime Pricing Engine for the latest prices and deltas on the items featured in this guide, as well as many other products.

We have a few announcements for this week as well; the first being AMD's premature launch of Sempron. We were all anticipating the launch of Sempron to accord August 17, but it appears AMD has moved up the launch date (to what we can't say right now). Be sure to check out our early Sempron coverage from last month for more details.

Furthermore, to whet those with an expensive palate, Intel will start sampling 925XE motherboards next week, so get ready to start seeing processors with 1066FSB benchmarked! You can read our previous coverage on 925XE here and here.



Now that AMD has had a little more time to produce additional Athlon 64's is it finally time to bite the baited hook? Maybe. While Microsoft hasn't released a final edition of their 64-bit version of Windows XP, AMD's foresight can still make the A64 processor a viable option.

If you choose to go the MS Windows route, you won't necessarily be able to take full advantage of everything A64's have to offer, but you can still get some noticeable performance improvements in CPU-intensive tasks such as gaming and media encoding. If you were to feel up to the challenge, a 64-bit flavor of Linux could even let you run applications even more efficiently.

For the above reasons, and others, this week's top pick goes to AMD's Athlon 64 2800+. With recent price drops, the A64 2800+ gives you more crunching power to keep your system going for now, and for quite some time to come, while costing less than some 2.4GHz P4 processors. Additionally, the 2800+ will allow you take advantage of Windows XP 64-bit edition once it becomes available which further future-proofs your investment. On that note, be aware that socket 754 is already being phased out by AMD in favor of 939. While this may be a concern if you tend to swap out processors frequently while keeping the same motherboard for as long, it should not be a hindrance if you intend to keep this chip for a while. Additionally, AMD will be releasing up to the 3700+ mark for this socket, so not all hope is lost. Best of all, as AMD ramps up its socket 939 production and rollout, 754 will only become more affordable as the last few weeks have shown us.

Back on the 32-bit side of things this week's pick goes to the Athlon XP 2600+. This is a very small change from our previous recommendation of the 2500+ but is brought about by lowered prices to the point where the 2600+ is lower in cost. Just as good for overclocking as the 2500+ Barton, which has been known to reach the equivelant speeds of an XP 3200+, the 2600+ maintains AMD's hold on the value segment.



Back in Intel's camp, you may be seeing stars with the new processor naming conventions. Names such as "Intel Pentium 4 520" probably won't bring thoughts of a 2.8 GHz processor to mind, but that's exactly what it means. While some may question the use of this type of numbering system, it's here to stay, at least for now. So to help make things a little easier to digest, here's a quick rundown of processors we list that are already going by their new names.

Pentium Models
Model Number Clock FSB Cache
520 2.8GHz 800MHz 1MB
530 3.0GHz 800MHz 1MB
540 3.2GHz 800MHz 1MB
550 3.4GHz 800MHz 1MB
560 3.6GHz 800MHz 1MB

Keep in mind that the processors bearing the new numbering convention are the newer socket 775 instead of the 478 which has dominated the market so far.

Luckily for us, Intel did not jump around or go crazy when numbering these chips, so at least it's pretty easy to figure out which chip is which. The other good news is that most retailers do not show much, if any, price difference between, for example, a 3.0GHz Pentium 4 and a Model 530 Pentium 4.

Now for the important question; which processor is the best deal this week? With motherboards bearing socket 775 hardware starting at around the $140 mark, the best deals will be in socket 478 for now and for that we choose Intel's Pentium 4 2.8GHz 800MHz FSB chip.



NVIDIA's nForce3 250Gb chipset is currently about as good as it gets for those using 64-bit Athlons and has only VIA's K8T800 chipset to compete with. Chaintech holds our attention for the second time in a row for its low price and great performance. The Chaintech VNF3-250, paired up with the Athlon 64 2800+, provides a stable platform for computing that should last quite a long time in any home or office.

ABIT's NF7-S Revision 2 continues to be the top pick for socket A systems for its rock solid stability, overclockability and very reasonable price point.



VIA provides a very solid choice today when it comes to finding a place to park your shiny new Athlon 64 processor. AOpen's AK86-L is a shining example of how VIA's chipset can bring value and performance together in a single package. With support for gigabit LAN, firewire, 6-channel audio and SATA RAID, this board comes out as a feature-rich performer. It's no accident that this board earned Editor's Choice for its absolute value and performance.



Intel consumers should take a look at the Abit IC7-G 875P motherboard, especially if overclocking is a priority. Sporting optical audio output and input, SATA, Firewire, and the much touted Intel Pro1000 gigabit LAN adapter, the IC7 certainly provides for full featured computing. This board works quite well with 800MHz FSB processors as well, such as this week's recommended 2.8GHz Pentium 4 chip. The non 'G' version of this board can also be had for $20-$30 less if you are willing to sacrifice two of the SATA ports, downgrade to 10/100 LAN, and drop the ABIT Serillel adapter. In either case, you are still getting one of the best overclocking boards available for socket 478 processors.

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