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Sharky Extreme : Monthly Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide |
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Monthly Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide |
November Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 2By Ryan "Speedy" Wissman November 17, 2004
Current Cost: $999 This month we are finally moving to one of the new Intel LGA775-based processors. While Intel seems to have hit a brick wall in terms of CPU frequency, there has been no hesitation in moving their high end CPUs to the new Land Grid Array packaging. However, aside from the new packaging and the continued transition to 0.09nm, there is not much difference between the Socket-478 and LGA775 models. A jump to this new package offers us the ability to move to higher-end chipsets such as the i925X or i915P which offer PCI Express and DDR2 support. The Pentium 4-3.4 GHz Extreme Edition CPU still is able to keep up with AMD's 939-pin Athlon 64 FX-55 in terms of media encoding performance, but does fall behind when it comes to games and memory performance. Priced at a staggering $999 this processor takes about one fourth of our entire budget, which means that we won't be seeing any Extreme Edition CPUs outside of the Extreme Guide anytime in the near future. Aside from the new LGA775 packaging, the Pentium 4-3.4 GHz EE maintains all of the same features as the standard Pentium 4 Extreme Edition. This includes an 800MHz FSB, 512K L2 cache, and Hyper-Threading technology, all on a core running at a full 3.4 GHz. At approximately $999, the retail version of the Pentium 4-3.4GHz Extreme Edition is extremely expensive, but our $4000 budget has enough room to accommodate this CPU, especially considering its enhanced gaming performance.
Current Cost: $835 For the past few months, new AMD CPUs have shipped in the long-awaited 939-pin configuration, which has unified the high-end AMD64 architecture under the DDR umbrella. Now, motherboards that use Socket 939 are compatible with both Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX CPUs, and provide an excellent upgrade path without ditching your current motherboard and memory. With the release of the Athlon 64 FX-55 AMD has surpassed Intel's 3.4GHz Extreme Edition CPU in all but media encoding performance, making this CPU the gamer's choice, all for about $150 less. With the latest Athlon 64 core dropping to 512K of onboard L2 cache, the Athlon 64 FX-55 is now the only active 939-pin chip that carries a full 1MB of L2 cache. The additional cache now gives the Athlon 64 FX a performance advantage over equally clocked Athlon 64 chips. The 939-pin Athlon 64 FX chips are now less expensive to implement as they no longer require expensive registered DDR memory, which brings the AMD64 side price parity with Intel in terms of DDR memory. On top of all the traditional features, the FX series also includes support for advanced instructions sets such as 3DNow! Professional and SSE2. The Athlon 64 FX-55 is clocked at 2.6GHz, which allows it to perform similarly to the Pentium 4-3.4GHz EE, and in most cases even surpass it. Priced at $835, it is also significantly less expensive than the Pentium 4-3.4GHz EE.
One of the man features of the Athlon 64 that set it ahead of Intel's offerings is support for both 32-bit and 64-bit instructions. Despite a lack of mainstream 64-bit applications at the moment, gamer's who upgrade to Windows XP 64-bit in the near future or hold out for Longhorn will be able to take advantage of a fully 64-bit environment where the Athlon 64 will soar. At the moment however, the 32-bit support capability of the Athlon FX-55 is phenomenal, and is more than enough to give Intel a run for their money.
Current Cost: $47
Current Cost: N/A
As processors continue to rise in clock speed, heat dissipation can become a real issue. There are generally two options that the enthusiast is presented with; air cooling or water cooling, the latter of which is a bit too complex and expensive, and beyond the scope of this guide. This month we are going to stick with the nice all-copper heatsink we have used for the past few editions of this guide, but only for the AMD side of the fence as it does not fit the new form factor we moved to for this month's Intel configuration. The Thermalright SLK-948U is among our favorite high end heatsinks as it is one of the most cost effective all-copper heatsinks around. The Thermalright SLK-948U is a large all-copper heatsink that is universally compatible with AMD Athlon XP, 64 and 64 FX CPUs, as well as Intel Pentium 4/Celeron Socket 478 processors. The heatsink can support a fan of up to 92mm in size, which offers the perfect balance between ambient noise and cooling capability. Opting for the quieter approach, we chose to go with the Vantec Stealth 92mm fan again this month. This fan can push approximately 28 CFM air while operating at only 20db. However, if you're looking to do some heavy duty overclocking (and don't mind wearing ear plugs), then the Delta FFB6912EHE 92mm fan as an ultra high-performance alternative. The heatsink plus Vantec Stealth fan can be found for about $47 online, an expensive but worthwhile investment. For the Pentium 4-3.4GHz Extreme Edition LGA775 processor, we are going to use the heatsink provided in the retail packaging. This is both for ease-of-use and budgetary concerns, as there are simply not a ton of enthusiast-level LGA775 coolers out there and the Intel hardware has already moved slightly past our allotted budget. Saving the extra $50 and going with the bundled retail cooler is the best option, as the retail premium is quite small compared to the OEM model. Thankfully, Intel has been including some relatively nice heatsinks in their retail packaging, and the one they include with the LGA775 P4 EE is certainly no exception.
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