hello all

[MadMike]

im new here, hoping to get (and maybe give) some advice, about 10 years ago i had a k6-3 that i had the clock pushed on, and it was ahead of its time stock, now its been awhile ive been away from it.

now i want to put together a 939 system, i know, thats old already, but i have a 64 bit processor sitting in a case (bad motherboard) and its driving me nuts, from what i understand the asus a8v deluxe is a good board, and even though i only have a athalon 64 3200+ to put in it now, i understand theres some better processors that i could then upgrade to

any comments, experience with this board, or any other recomendations on a stable, workable, 939 board would help me out.

also i guess i should add, a few of the things that got me thinking av8 deluxe are, agp port-that i could use my old graphics card, and that board has a optical audio output to interface with my stereo setup,

agp something im not too used to (been outta the game awhile) i understand the timing is backward compatable, it would just work at the slower speed,

signaling voltages-

theres a key-way for 3.3v, and one for 1.5v. but i guess theres newer boards that use .7 or .8 volts and have the same keyway as the 1.5.

i know i dont want to plug a 1.5v card into a .7-.8v slot or itll probally draw more current than it should and fry something up. if someone could explain this to me id be most grateful.

thanks, i look forward to talking with you all.

 

[premiumgfx]

Welcome to OC3D! Which AGP card do you have? I don't mean to discourage you from completing your build, but wouldn't it be cheaper to invest in newer technology like a socket 775 mobo and a PCI-E graphics card as older components can cost more (like AGP graphics cards)?

 

[Direheart66]

Welcome!

Yes he does have a point there. You might build the system you want slightly cheaper but in the long run with all the extra bits you might need it won't be worth it.

 

[MadMike]

i have a matrox g400 agp card (2x-4x) i know this is old technology, i just kinda like being able to tweak settings, i already found a asus av8 deluxe 939 mb on ebay. while i know its kinda shooting myself in the foot in the long run, buying the older stuff, ill build another one eventually but this should do for now, as i dont really play any high tech (high graphics) games, and this should be faster than my current socket a mb with a 32 bit athalon (1.66g) from what i understand (i could be, and theres a good chance i am, wrong) the processors have just about topped out in terms of clock speed and systems are now more limited by side bus speeds. i've never had a 64-bit cpu running yet and im hoping it makes a decent bit of difference, the main test for me will be to see how long it takes to encode a 1 hr dvd. takes a little over 2 hours with my current setup.

dont get me wrong here, i like the idea of having the latest and greatest, but at this time, im very limited financially. i remember when i got a amd k6-3 and man! at the time that thing (650mhz sock if i remember right) blew anyone i know away. of course this was when 133mhz processors were about the norm for most newer computers.

so in time this system im making, ill probally get 4g of good ram and clock it and all that and in time it may be retired (just kept because) along side the socket 7 system, as another "just about as good as you can get that system without going crazy" i even had a frankiln 8086/8088 till someone got rid of it on me. imagine when that was the better of the two, a whole 4.77mhz processor with 640k of ram!!!

now if only i could build a system to rival my commodre 64

more seriously though, i hope this setup will be relatively fast (i know it will compared to the one im using now) and will last me awhile, and all you people who were messing around with 939's a year or two ago, i will be asking many questions on tweaking and so forth as they come up. im very glad to have found this site and i hope (if i ever get up to date on my tech-knowledge) that someday i can help people by answering questions of theirs. (any questions on socket 7?)

thanks you all for reading - Mike

 

[MadMike]

maybe i did mess up getting a 939 mb. how many more recent platforms have theyre been since 939? seems like a lot. either there have been a LOT of advancements in the last few years, requiring different platforms, or theyve just been pulling platforms out of their @$$ to sell more stuff. i guess a little of each idk.

 

[Diablo]

939 is pretty old, but its not totally obsolete. If you can find a 4000+ processor kicking about (I found one about 9 months ago brand new from microdirect for £20) they can be clocked to 3ghz. Above that try ebay.

The fastest agp card is the 3850 radeon which is about £100 from memory. The problem is that the memory for these motherboards is ddr, which is pretty old, the processors are almost impossible to find (think £180 for the top 4800+). Also AGP bit the dust years ago basically.

Your best bet would be to start from scratch, because I can't see this thing being particularly fast for under £300+, at which point you could set yourself up with an entirely new system.