Upgrade from socket A to socket 939 worth it???

[Guest]

The title explains things well.

"Upgrade from socket A to socket 939 worth it???"

I was talking to my friend and it doesnt really seem worth it really, even if I upgraded my computer. I have the following

Barton 3200+ 2.2ghz
Nvidia 5600 AGP
2x256 mb PC3200 DDR400
IDE 7,200 RPM 80gig HDD
300 watt psu

the IDE HDD would slow it down, the CPU would be bottlenecked by everything... seems a better idea to just build an entirely new computer to me but I'm not 100% sure. Thanks for any help.


- Itachi

[Zypher]

You would get more performance by upgrading your Gfx and perhaps, adding some more memory instead.
And if you are deadset on on a cpu upgrade. Go for the new Amd "AM2 Socket" or Intels new Core 2 Duo(Conroe).

[Alcochaser]

With the higher clocked Barton cores, some 939cores might actually be a downgrade. And all but a few notebook Socket 754 WILL be a downgrade.

A high clocked Barton such as yours is STILL a good CPU.

To top a Barton nothing short of a San Diego single core, or Manchester/Toledo dual core clocked at a similar or higher core clockrate will top it.

939 does have one huge advantage over the Barton. Dual channel memory controler. This is a huge help.

Don't even bother with Intel......

You certainly NEED more RAM. 512MB is a choke point in your system. The problem is with many Socket A boards, they cannot work with more then 1.5GB of RAM. Another reason to go with a Socket 939 or AM2 board

Here is what I would do. Buy a barebones socket 939 system with an equivelent clockrate and AGP motherboard. Single San Diego core will do for most people and get 2GB of RAM in two 1GB sticks for your system, pick up a SATA Seagate drive while your at it. Don't use that 300W power supply on a 939 core. 450W to 500W is what you need now. Then take your AGP card and stick it in the new system.

Then take that Barton and ebay it off. Barton cores usually sell very well on ebay, you might even make back most of your upgrade outlay!

Here is a good barebones retailer.
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=M&Product_Code=80232&Category_Code=AMDBarebones

On the cheap though, replace that 300W supply with a 450 or 500W supply, and replace the ram with a single 1GB stick. SATA versus IDE drives is really a wash. What matters is the speed of the drive itself. 7200RPM is fine.