ok i am new 2 the forums and unfortunatly a pc newbie in some sense i am building a new pc and am unsure about what to get i want an athlon 64 for definite and am getting a 6800 ultra but i do not know which processer to get and which ram to get with it. i was going to get a 3400 with 1 gig of ram but then i saw that i need single channel ram not dual channel ??? and also the fsb on the processer is 1600 so should i get a motherboard whci supports this or will 800 be fine any help/ links will be much appreciated. (off topic) does any one have any opinions on pci express and whether i should wait for that to get a pci card?? thanks again
Athlon 3400 64 sounds good to me, despite being a pentium person myself. The gig of ram is also good - but as for the channeling question, I got no idea. I believe getting a mobo that supports 800fsb would still work, but you'd get a lot better performance with 1600, so probably worth the extra cash.
You might wanna consider the Socket 939. It'll support upcoming cpus and has Dual Channel capabilities. I have the 3500+ with Corsair TWINX1024-3700PT and it works perfectly fine with my MSI K8N Neo22 Platinum. It's quite expensive but if you're getting the 6800 Ultra, I guess you're not on a budget.
ok thnks guys :chk: but what about the ram thing :sick: i am definatly gettin a 3400 so is single channell cheaper or worse or what? also what are the cl timings do they make lots of difference ie will 1 gig of pc 3200 low latency and expensive corsair or 1 gig pc 3200 cl 3 crucial any help would me much appreciated thnks guys :good:
The 3400+ is a Socket 754 part, which means it's a single channel solution. The 3500+ and Athlon FX parts are able to make use of dual-channel, and thus the motherboards for them have that capability. However, the larger the capacity, the harder it is to find RAM at higher speed ratings, so you may find yourself getting 2x 512MB instead. Latency does help, but the performance gains you get aren't quite as much as the hype goes. Yes, you will get better performance with a lower latency stick, but these low-latency chips aren't exactly cheap. You could go for some faster PC3500 that has a CAS 3 rating @ PC3500 speeds, but it could run CAS 2.5 or CAS 2 @ PC3200 speeds, and could be cheaper, depending on what brand you get. I have no doubt Corsair is good, but they are quite expensive, especially when you start getting into their low-latency stuff. Some cheaper alternatives would be either Mushkin's Level II or Geil's Ultra Platinum stuff, so unless you absolutely have to have Corsair, I highly advise looking at some other brands. RAM is important, but you don't need to sell a kidney to get some good stuff. PCIe (PCI Express) is really new, so while, yes, it is coming for A64, you need to remember that there is always something better on the horizon. You're building something that's a good box.
:good: nice 1 thanks for the help i will look out for those brands you mentioned as corsair is very expensive for ram
To add on to that, I heard about 'Buffalo' RAM, I heard some pretty good comments about it, all the products have a lifetime warranty, good priced too! If you're interested you could check those out!
