Upgrading me computer. (1 Viewer)

[wageslave]

Hi folks,

I'm planning on either buying a new motherboard, cpu and memory or just going for a whole new machine.
Ya seem to be able to get a 2.6Ghz processor fairly cheap these days but whats the story with the 64 bit one? What sort of speed would you need in a processor to not need to upgrade for about 5 years?

 

[hanley]

Hi folks,

I'm planning on either buying a new motherboard, cpu and memory or just going for a whole new machine.
Ya seem to be able to get a 2.6Ghz processor fairly cheap these days but whats the story with the 64 bit one? What sort of speed would you need in a processor to not need to upgrade for about 5 years?

what do you use your computer for?

to be honest the only thing that i know about that needs 64bit processor action is the new version of windows.maybe some games.

 

[wageslave]

A bit of dtp, some video editing and dvd compiling and burning - my current processor is 850MHz so anything even vaguely new will obviously be a vast imrovement. Hmmm, if the new windows will be 64 bit then i might wait till after it comes out - I guess the 64 bit cpus should drop in price then

 

[Wayne]

Hi folks,

I'm planning on either buying a new motherboard, cpu and memory or just going for a whole new machine.
Ya seem to be able to get a 2.6Ghz processor fairly cheap these days but whats the story with the 64 bit one? What sort of speed would you need in a processor to not need to upgrade for about 5 years?

There's not that much software out there that supports 64 bit at the moment. 64 bit windows and 64 bit versions of most linux distros exist now. IF you bought a copy of XP you can download the 64bit version for free now. Most commercial software still only run in 32 bit mode, and I've had trouble with things like macromedia flash on a 64 bit machine, it just won't run on them. But that will all change in the next year or so.
Also, the AMD 64 bit processors still outperform the high end 32 bit intel ones when only running in 32 bit mode. Do a search on google for some of the benchmark tests that were done with AMD' s fx-55 processor. AMD are currently kicking Intel's arse in performance and price.

But that really only matters if you are looking to so some Intensive stuff such as gaming and media , plus don't forget if it's for gaming then your graphics card will play an important part as well. A lot of the new games coming out these days are recommending the more expensive cards (300 euros +).