[Pc_Support] Re: Great, budget, 'Best Practices' box

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Thu, 2006-07-06 at 15:27 -0500, David Simmons wrote:
> SO...what you're saying is:
> 1) find a AM2 motherboard with the features you want/need
> 2) look for the version of Athlon64 x2 that has the AM2 socket
> (newegg has both - Socket AM2 and Socket 939)

Or just stick with Socket-939, _if_ you already have DDR memory, for
now.  It's not going to be as "future proof," but I'm still waiting on
some better MicroATX Socket-AM2 choices.

I'm seriously considering that eVGA Socket-939 board for now, especially
if the Socket-939 Athlon64 x2 3800+ comes down as much as the Socket-AM2
version.

> 3) Pray that you already have DDR ram....given that the best
> price/performance now is DDR2 - this doesn't seem like 'big news' for
> those wishing to purchase a system from the 'ground up'?

???

Understand Socket-939 uses DDR, Socket-AM2 uses DDR2.
There is _no_ "special issue" with Socket-AM2 and DDR2.

The _only_ issue is that some DDR2 800 (PC6400) does _not_ work on
non-Intel chipsets -- and that includes ATI, nVidia, SiS and other
chipsets for Intel Pentium 4/Core Duo processors too.  You have to "slow
it down" to DDR2 533 (PC4200) on those chipsets in many cases.

So when you buy DDR2 800 (PC6400) SDRAM, make sure it works on non-Intel
chipsets.  You have to do that _regardless_ if your processor is LGA-775
or Socket-AM2 for anything less than a _genuine_ Intel i965 chipset,
because they are Intel i965 _proprietary_ at DDR2 800 (PC6400).  They
only have a "compatibility" mode for older Intel DDR2 chipsets, as well
as non-Intel DDR2 chipsets.

> Am I missing something? - dave

I didn't get why you switched from S-AM2/DDR2 in #1/#2 to DDR in #3?

If you didn't know, DDR SDRAM is 184-pin, DDR2 SDRAM is 240-pin.
They are _physically_incompatible_, hence DDR for S-939, DDR2 for S-AM2.


-- 
Bryan J. Smith           Professional, technical annoyance
mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org     http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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