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Unread 09-24-2003, 01:12 PM   #10
airspirit
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Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Moscow, ID
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DDR-I memory is good with these 64 bit chips. The high end ones (read: FX and Opteron) have 128 bit wide memory buses that allow them a massive pipeline between the onboard memory controller and the memory. DDR-I has low latencies, where the lowest latency DDR-II can have is 3 cycles (CAS 3). They are expecting that you will need at least around DDR-II 666+ in order to overcome the latency slowdown. I wouldn't worry about that, especially since DDR-II will be prohibitively expensive until around Q1 2005.

As for PCI-Express and AGP, AGP cards will be made until around Q2 2005. Nothing is going to force you to change there, especially since there won't be a large performance increase (think AGP 4x->8x benefit). You will lose nothing to invest in the AGP platform now, especially since many boards will also have PCI-X for any cards necessitating it.

Those are going to be the two improvements above and beyond the standard speed increases. It IS true that FX and Opteron chips have unlocked multipliers, and there is a NF3 BIOS that is being passed around that allows you to change them. This may or may not change with the next generation chips. You will not be bad off to buy today. Further, there will be nothing that will necessitate a hardware change in the near future if you do so.

If it makes you feel better about it, I'm going to try to put together a dual opteron NForce3 250 setup here within the next two months.
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