Advice please.

[Silverdragon]

Hello... New here..:)

I would like a bit of advice please.
Am refurbing an old tower, so far, have the tower, PSU, sata and optical Drives, and most of the other bits, but am starting new with the Main Board...
Have grabed a Gigabyte i-DNA K8N5IPVM9-RH, which says it's optimized for AMD Athlon 64 processor family.
Am happy with Gigabyte and AMD athlon, 'cos that is what I am on now, albeit a 5yr old machine (Much upgraded) and the combo works well.

The NEW board, Its needing a socket 939 processor, I think?...:confused:
Any suggestions what would be good to slot in there?...
Dont want to break the bank, will NOT be installing (boil-in-the-bag) Vista, and will probably dual-boot XPHome and a Linux distro , will be used for some games, but mostly photography work, so have got a minimalist version of XP ready to roll[/SIZE] .

Any advice greatly recieved... and ignore spullings, as am on Firefox, and the spullchuckler is misbehaving (Its giving me USA spellings...grrr...)

[bouncyb]

firstly 939 is going to be difficult, its obsolete and not widely sold so im afraid you will be having a struggle to get a cpu. if your insistant on amd you will need to aim for a socket am2 board.

[Steve@Aria]

I would go intel, cpus are cheaper, faster and actually available (unlike 939) and memory is a LOT cheaper.

Intel, E2140, (dont be fooled by the Mhz this is a fast cpu)

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/CPUs+%2F+Processors/Intel/Core+2+Duo/Intel+Pentium+Dual+Core+E2140+1.6GHz+%28Retail+775 %29+?productId=27106 (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products?search=e2140&x=0&y=0)

motherboard

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Motherboards/Socket+775+%28Intel%29/Gigabyte+GA-73VM-S2%2C+GeForce+7050%2C+NF610i%2C+Socket+775+?produc tId=30340

2gb ram :)

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+products/Patriot+2GB+PC2-6400+C4+Extreme+Performance+%282x1GB%29+?productId =26802

[wonderlust]

If you wish to stay with Socket 939 you are going to find getting a good cpu difficult.

The 939 x2 dual cores are very rare in retail and demand a premium on auction sites.

As Steve said DDR2 is at an incredibly low price compared to DDR1

A good board can be had for about the £60 mark and if you are interested in overclocking some amazing gains can be had.

The intel chips seem to offer a minimum of 25% overclock with very little effort.

As I read somewhere overclocking is no longer for the advanced users it is part of the tweaking to set up a system for the optimum use.

[nft99]

going the intel route is the best choice these days, i am still using my 939, ddr1 setup but am planning an upgrade very soon the cost of which will be more than covered by selling of my x2 cpu, 2gb corsair on fleabay :D

[jonwoad]

I know where there are some 939 CPUs... they may be appearing on a certain IT Retailers website shortly... I cant say any more than that.

[bouncyb]

id agree with the e2140 advise but go for a e2180 if you go down this road and yes they do o/c well.

[marsey99]

the extra cache makes the world of difference with the conroes and i would say get a 4xxx if you can.

stick it in a 650ultra or a ds3 with some ddr1000 and with some slight adjustments in your bios you are going to get some monster performance.

if you must stay on s939/ddr1 then the opterons are the best pcos for that but they do demand a high price due to availabilty.

[Silverdragon]

Thanks for the advice so far, I already have the mainboard, so am going to have to find a CPU to fit it... I didn't know the things were going to be so difficult to get hold of, otherwise this board wouldn't have been such a "Bargain"... Ok, so I will read the bumf that came in the box, and see what else can go in there....

It says "Optimized for AMD Athlon 64 processor family"...

Now was my assumption that I had read "Socket 939" incorrect I wonder?...:confused:
Will ANY 64 bit processor (Athlon type) just slot in there?...

Haven't done a processor transplant on a mainboard before... 'bout the only thing I haven't done, so this is a "first"... I have done a cooler swap, so gluing that on is fine.

Please keep the advice coming...:)

The board cant be that old, as it has (boil in the bag)"Vista Ready" written on it...

The memory it suggests to use is DDR400.

[jonwoad]

If it has PC3200 (DDR 400) in there then it will be a 939 socket for AMD processors. AM2 processors wont fit. 939 chips are getting rarer but some pop up on ebay from time to time. I still use a 939 board :)

Jon

[coiler]

I'd sell the 939 board on ebay get your cash back that way