Ok time for an upgrade in computer
 

I have a decent working "close to a 5 year old " computer. :D
ITs about time for an upgrade or actually buying a new spanking computer.

I just have a quick question to you guys who are familiar with quadcore technology. I am planning to buy Phenom AMD quadcore. I am wondering would WinVista support or fully utilize all 4 cores? It would be a great waste if it didnt.

edit: also, would it be a 32 or 64bit?

Re: Ok time for an upgrade in computer
 

I recall hearing that it was designed for that very purpose, but I haven't looked into it recently so I could have that mixed up.

Re: Ok time for an upgrade in computer
 

Why AMD?
They certainly were the dark horse of the CPU market for a while, but Intel's chips can't be beaten in bang for buck ;)
In fact the bottom of the range Q6600 beats the three current Phenom chips in most benchmarks, plus the Motherboards available for Intel chips are generally better atm.

I'll allways be an AMD/ATI fan, but my current Intel/NvIdia system can't be beat by them!

Re: Ok time for an upgrade in computer
 

AMD indeed is faring rather poorly right now. At least on the CPU front. GPU-wise I think they are doing just fine. However if you are going to go with quad-cores, I'd suggest wait a month or so until Intel releases their 45nm quadcores.

If you want a good starting guide, I always refer people to this.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14225

Re: Ok time for an upgrade in computer
 

so is quadcore a 64 bit platform or 32?

Re: Ok time for an upgrade in computer
 

im leaning in terms of price at this time. Of course I did hear something about AMD releasing a better version end of the year. Im wondering if I can wait that long. Lol. I said Ill buy a new computer last year with dual core :P

Re: Ok time for an upgrade in computer
 

All CPU's at this point are designed for 64-bit computing. I'd personally recommend going with a 64-bit OS simply because it alleviates the problem of having a maximum of 4GB system RAM. (I'd recommend building your new rig with 4GB since memory is dirt cheap at this point).

As for the new AMD's... well there certainly are no quad-offerings at their price yes. But if you are going to go AMD, wait for the B3 Quad revisions. The newly released quads by AMD have some sort of TLB erratum bug, its been way overhyped but basically AMD BIOS patched all the quads and it severly hampers performance. So hold on the trigger of buying AMD until they release the new quads which are B3 Revised, meaning they aren't affected by the bug and you won't have to deal with the performance hit.

Also keep in mind that so far I've heard that the chipset/motherboard offerings for the new Phenom processors aren't the greatest, but again better offerings are expected in the near future.

And just how long can hold off on buying the system, just out of curiousity?

Re: Ok time for an upgrade in computer
 

from what i have been researching, that bios fix patch will hamper the performance by 10% which si quite significant. I believe I will have to wait for the next batch hopefully will come late this year. A couple more months? I suppose for better stability ( and I can save :D)

But if I should go for 64bit, would it affect playing old games and softwares?

Re: Ok time for an upgrade in computer
 

Well if you can wait a few months I think that would be the most optimal option. If memory serves, I believe the time frame for the newly revised B3 chips is around May sometime. But to be honest I don't know how that information will hold; AMD seems to be putting out nothing but bad news about delays on their CPU front nowadays :(

Although recent rumors suggest their 45nm parts will come out in 3rd Quarter of this year, so around July-September. However I'm taking these rumors with a grain of a salt, but only time will tell.

Certain softwares are affected with 64-bit. I honestly can't tell you which ones, you'd have to do some searching to see which have drivers and are compatible. But I'd suspec that if it is old software, it probably wouldn't run.

As for games, there have been issues with some games in 64 bit. And I'd venture to say the older the game the more problems there would be, but I don't know. I do know however that older games don't even run under Vista period. For instance I cannot get HoMMIII to run on this laptop, which has Vista.

Re: Ok time for an upgrade in computer
 

i suppose i will have to hunker down again and wait for the end of the year. I hope it better be worth it :P

Re: Ok time for an upgrade in computer
 

My rule of thumb is a computer that old is not worth updating, you will always have a weak point that chokes the system.

Buy new :)

Re: Ok time for an upgrade in computer
 

Well just don't get stuck in the philosophy of waiting for what is "around the corner". Because you'll always find something that might be worth holding off for and then in another few months you'll find another thing. But the end of this year does seem like an interesting time to build, as new CPU architectures should be released.

However right now if there was ever a time to upgrade a graphics card, it would be now. The plethora of killer cards being released in the sub $240 range is just incredible.

Re: Ok time for an upgrade in computer
 

It's unlikely that a 5 year old MB will take a quad-core chip, so your option is really to get a new CP.
Are you a gamer? If so, here is what you are looking at...a machine with,
> 250GB HD(or thereabouts)
> 4GB RAM (Vista will run noticeably slow unless you have
4GB)
> Quadcore chip of some variety
> Windows Vista 64bit(expensive!)
(a digression here. If you go with 64bit OS then be
prepared for a lot of software to NOT work with it)
> DirectX 10 compatible video card

All of the above will set you back some bucks. Also, when buying the multi-core chip, try to get as good a single core speed as you can, because if the application you are currently running doesn't take advantage of the multi-cores,,,,then it will run at the speed of a single core.
Hope this helps

Re: Ok time for an upgrade in computer
 

I think the starting question for a new build is: What is your budget?

There are some tremendous deals right now and as the newer processores, et.al., are released what is high-end now will drop in price in matter of months.

But as SecretMaster rightly points out if you are needing a new system you might as well jump in now because as soon as you do its old in a matter of weeks.

But, if you can hold off until the end of this year, the beginning of next, some nice releases should be avaliable.

Re: Ok time for an upgrade in computer
 

Well some news about AMD was released today. B3-Stepping Quads should appear out in Q2 of this year... so hopefully by June you'll be able to put together a system.

And just for clarification, I was under the assumption that we were talking a new computer from the get-go. I assumed you assumed that upgrading your current one at this point would be out of the question (a five year old compy is really old). However if you are intending to upgrade it, what are the specs of it just to see what we are looking at.

But in terms of buying a complete new system. Well I'm not quite sure as to what your budget is but nowadays $1000 alone in parts can make quite a powerful PC. Again I refer you to the guide I linked on the first page because I find that to be an excellent reference for starting a new build.

Re: Ok time for an upgrade in computer
 

QFT. It is amazing what you can build for that amount and that includes Windows OS and Office 2007.

Re: Ok time for an upgrade in computer
 

oh definitely im buying a new system ;) im not even thinking of upgrading my old computer anymore. it will just be there for surfing or just playing old games.
I have a 1000aud budget so thats roughly 900USD. Im more than happy to wait for Q2, if Secretmaster says AMD is releasing the new chipsets earlier than expected :) coolz.