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Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1307
Price Guides April 2004: CPU and Motherboards
by Kristopher Kubicki on April 27, 2004 6:59 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
AMD Processors
AMD has been putting a lot more of its time into the new Athlon 64 product line lately which has been helping to bring costs down on their Athlon XP chips. While the 64-bit market is finally beginning to take shape and work its way towards the average user, the best deals still reside in the 32-bit world.
The Athlon XP 2500+ Barton, with its 1.83GHz clock speed and relatively large chunk of cache, takes the cake for the best buy this week. Don't let the clock speed fool you as this chip has the horsepower needed to power through all of today's games and applications. Additionally, the 2500+ tends to have a good amount of room for overclocking as well, easily reaching clock speeds of 2.2 GHz (which happens to be the same clock speed as the stock Athlon XP 3200+ chips) in many cases and it does so without expensive cooling from water or peltiers. This chip can be had for as low as $75 shipped OEM, or for around $80 retail.
If ~400MHz isn't enough of a boost for your overclocking needs the Athlon XP 2400+ Mobile might fit the bill. This chip clocks in at 1.8GHz but has a lowered voltage and default FSB of 266 which gives you a lot of room to play with when trying to squeeze out more power. The unlocked multiplier certainly doesn't hinder your efforts either and the $78 price tag is great value. Overall, this chip has great potential to bring the cost/benefit ratio more into your favor, and to the favor of your wallet.
If 64-bit is your thing, the Athlon 64 3000+ is a solid buy as AMD tries to push the new product line. The 2.0GHz chip offers top performance for today's applications and games while helping to protect your investment by being ready for 64-bit-aware operating systems and applications. As expected, there is still a premium that must be paid for early-adoption, and in this case that price is $222 at the time of this guide .
Intel Processors
On the opposite side of the CPU battle Intel is holding onto their lead thanks to some recent price drops which bring their chips back into a range which is more reasonable for the average consumer on a budget. While the newer Prescott core chips have dropped in cost rather dramatically, the performance still lies in their Northwood cores. For this reason, we recommend picking up the Pentium 4 2.8c with 512K cache. Currently, there is no point in purchasing, for example, a P4 2.4GHz since the 2.8GHz costs nearly the same price. Don't be fooled into grabbing those 1MB L2 P4s just yet; Prescott doesn't shine yet at these clock speeds.
NVIDIA Motherboards
Ever since AMD started making its push into 64-bit, the market for Athlon XP motherboards has become more lethargic than we have seen in the last year. Just about everything has been seen on motherboard configurations that there is to be seen and manufacturers have to work hard to stand out from the crowd anymore. Two of those manufacturers, in particular, have our attention and interest right now.
The top pick motherboard for nForce chipsets would have to be the DFI nForce2 Ultra 400 NFII Ultra Infinity. With NVIDIA's SoundStorm (optical/digital outputs), and a plethora of bundled accessories such as a customizable front panel (audio, firewire, USB) this package delivers great value and all of the small touches you might look for an overclocking board like power and reset momentary switches right on the board. Our personal favorite, the motherboard also comes with an integrated SI3114 4-Port SATA controller. For added good measure, the board currently goes for less than $94, shipped.
The second favorite is an oldie but goodie. The Abit NF7-S Rev. 2 has been around for about a year in one form or another and still holds solid value for overclocking and stability. Paired with a Barton 2500+ or a Mobile Athlon you can't go wrong for a $90 motherboard. Not to mention it has just about every feature as the NFII Infinity and great design features (In fact the NFII Infinity and the NF7-S were designed by the same guy).
Both boards mentioned here are able to take advantage of the unlocked multiplier of the Mobile Bartons, boost core voltage, and tweak the FSB to get the most out of your chip so the decision really comes down to your personal preferences and wether or not a $3 difference is really a difference at all to you.
What everyone really wants to know is "do I wait for Socket 939 on June 1st?" Socket 939 will be a great performer, but with prices as cheap as they are now waiting another 5 weeks for first revision boards is probably not the best idea. If you feel you need the PCI Express option on a first generation 939 motherboard then the wait might be worth it. Just consider Radeon X800 and GeForce 6800 both have some life left in AGP for the time being.
Concerning nForce3 250: do not wait for it unless you feel you need the feature set (extra SATA, gigE PHY, PCI Lock). Wesley's preview of the latest nForce3 board from MSI was very favorable, but performance wise not much better than nForce3 150 (check out this week's price delta on the awesome Chaintech ZNF3-150!). Paying the premium for new technology does not make sense just yet.
VIA Motherboards:
While the PT800 chipset release has shown that VIA still has the value-oriented consumer in mind, it still falls short of the performance offered by its competition. Intel continues to provide the best value with their 875P chipset features and performance.
On the AMD side VIA struts its stuff when it comes to the Athlon 64 and Opterons. While the KT600 and its variants fail to compete with NVIDIA's nForce2 platform, the K8T800, continues to be the favorite chipset for AMD- powered 64-bit computing.
For our weekly VIA recommendation we would strongly suggest either the Soltek SL-K8AV2-RL or the AOpen AK86-L. Both boards are well under $100 and come with plenty of features. Combined with some decent ram and an Athlon 64 3000+ you can build yourself a real Athlon XP killer.
Intel Motherboards
As you might expect, Intel continues to provide the best available chipsets for any system using their processors. The 875P is certainly no exception to this rule. In this respect, DFI takes another top pick, this time for the Intel platform, with their DFI 875P LanParty Pro. Our own Evan Lieb took a look at this board a while back and did not appear the least bit dissatisfied with the performance, value, or package involved with this product. DFI includes their standard UV-reactive board design along with a HighPoint IDE RAID controller, onboard Intel GB LAN, C-Media audio, their FrontX front panel connection system and even a PC Transpo carrying harness and they do for less than $165. Coupled with the P4 2.8C recommended earlier, you can have yourself a great gaming/performance rig without having to break the bank and while still allowing room to do some decent overclocking and tweaking if that is your cup of tea.
Like with AMD motherboards, the question everyone is asking is whether or not to wait for the June 21st release of Socket 775. In our opinion, the answer is a little more clearcut; almost certainly not. i875P performance is very good right now, DDR1 memory has never performed better (although it has been priced cheaper), and again NV40/R420 will still both be AGP. The largest feature of i915P is the PCI-Express interfaces, but we probably still wont need them for at least another yet.