Go with the 939Dual-SATA2, no question. I'm still running one, and it's still one of my favorite boards of all time. It has a few quirks, but it's a reliable board, a very good performer, and is much more versatile than the A8V.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

Go with the 939Dual-SATA2, no question.

This does seem like a good board actually.
Seems to have real AGP?

Yep, real AGP, and a full x16 PCIe slot... which can be used simultaneously if for some reason you want to run both an AGP and a PCIe card.

Thanks for the quick reply, guys!

Old Thrashbarg, when you say "quirks", what do you mean specifically?

My goal is to have a board that is stable and reliable (both in hardware quality as with drivers), and the extra features are not a main concern.

As this will be a machine do use with an AGP card only, is there any know issues with the ASRock 939?

It's just a few little things... the Jmicron SATA2 controller is a kinda finicky, I think I ended up setting mine to IDE mode and not installing the Jmicron drivers. Some of the BIOS settings are a bit odd, mostly covered in this thread. Despite what the FAQ there says, the 1T memory option doesn't work on mine.

It's all pretty much stuff to do with the initial setup... once you get it going you shouldn't have any issues with it. I know of no problems with the AGP.

Your feedback is most welcome, Old Thrashbarg.

What CPU do you believe my PC would benefit the most, taking in consideration what I wrote in the 1st post?

Athlon 64 X2 3800, 4200 or 4400? And is the ASRock 939dual-sata2 a good overclocker?

If anyone else has some input on this, feel free to share.

Any of the dual cores is going to be way better than any of the single cores. Most of the X2s will overclock to similar speeds, but out of the three listed, the 4400 will have a slight edge since it has more cache. It's not that big of a deal though. The Asrock board is a pretty good overclocker, though it doesn't have much in the way of voltage adjustments so you may have to do some volt mods for high clocks. FWIW, though, it runs my 1.8ghz Opteron 165 at 2.7ghz with no problems.

However... am I correct in understanding that you don't already have a dual core chip? If that's the case, then I can think of some better (and probably cheaper) options than buying another S939 board and CPU...

No, I'm actually still going to buy the CPU and I was aiming at a reasonable dual core (like the 4400) but I'm in the process of finding one with a reasonable price.

However, if you know a better and cheaper alternative, please say so. I'm all ears! 😀

Well, I was just thinking, if your main requirements are a faster dual-core, and being able to reuse your DDR and AGP card, there's the Asrock Conroe865PE. I have one of those as well, and it's another very reliable board... and it can use the latest Intel Core2 chips, including quad cores.

The only catch is that it doesn't support the newer 45nm chips out of the box, so you have to use an older chip to boot it and flash the newest BIOS if you want to use one of those. Or you could just stick with using an older 65nm chip... E4xxx and E6xxx Conroes can be had on eBay dirt cheap anymore and would still be faster than a S939 system.

Hmm... Very interesting! I wonder if I can find that board & CPU's from sellers in Europe and still within a cheap price...

I try to avoid buying outside Europe mainly due to customs issues and whatnot... But you really got me thinking...

Guess I'll study a different approach and follow your lead.

I was actually bidding for a X2 4400 CPU but your hint really made me think twice.

Always learning... 😎

njaydg wrote:

No, I'm actually still going to buy the CPU and I was aiming at a reasonable dual core (like the 4400) but I'm in the process of finding one with a reasonable price.

However, if you know a better and cheaper alternative, please say so. I'm all ears! 😀

Well, since memory is dirt cheap atm, why not go AM3 right away?
A dual core AM3 cpu will be MUCH faster, cheaper and cooler then any s939 dual core cpu. You can get 2gb DDR3 right now for like 20 bucks?
And finding a low power PCI-E graphics card shouldn't be too hard either.

Tetrium wrote:

Well, since memory is dirt cheap atm, why not go AM3 right away?
A dual core AM3 cpu will be MUCH faster, cheaper and cooler then any s939 dual core cpu. You can get 2gb DDR3 right now for like 20 bucks?
And finding a low power PCI-E graphics card shouldn't be too hard either.

While I do agree with your idea in principle, I'm not fond of buying low end components, as experience has taught me that sooner or later it's gonna bite in the behind.

Certainly I'm not keeping up with current technology, but is a motherboard & cpu upgrade not cheaper and more reliable than a mobo + cpu + ram + gpu and quite possibly a PSU, given the same 130€ limit?

True, but depending on the components you already own, you might not even make it with €130 for a dual core s939 system.
I reckon the s939 dual cores are kinda expensive nowdays as they are relatively scarce.

You're absolutely correct Tetrium, but since I really won't be able to afford a new PC anytime soon, I'll have to do my best to scavenge the web for the best deals. 😜

njaydg wrote:

You're absolutely correct Tetrium, but since I really won't be able to afford a new PC anytime soon, I'll have to do my best to scavenge the web for the best deals. 😜

True. In that case you should try finding AM2 stuff. Since AM2 cpu's can't be used on AM3 boards and people might upgrade their AM2 boards with AM3 cpu's, they should be flooding the market, or at least in theory. Also DDR2 should be LOTS cheaper then DDR.

Me thinks I'll study both suggestions, yours and Old Thrashbarg's, and as soon as get to some conclusion, I'll let you all know.

Thanks a million! 😉

Also DDR2 should be LOTS cheaper then DDR.

It is, but it's still significantly more expensive than just reusing the RAM he already has. Plus, a dual core on socket AM2 is no better than a dual core on S939, they perform exactly the same, so there's really no advantage to switching platforms in that case.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

Also DDR2 should be LOTS cheaper then DDR.

It is, but it's still significantly more expensive than just reusing the RAM he already has. Plus, a dual core on socket AM2 is no better than a dual core on S939, they perform exactly the same, so there's really no advantage to switching platforms in that case.

True, but the problem for him is, dual core s939 cpu's are both relatively slow, relatively hot running and relatively scarce, so probably hard to find and rather expensive.
Also it'll leave him with no upgrade path whatsoever.

If he wants a dual core s939 cpu AND that specific motherboard, he'll be spending a lot of cash anyway.
If he gets another s939 motherboard, it'll usually be overpriced, may have quirks of their own and the only ones left in stock are typically the ones people don't want.

He could sell the DDR1 to generate some extra cash 😉

And my suggestion was to go for AM3 dual core. Those can be had for like €40 nowdays, 3Ghz 😉

Hmmm, I was also vote against S939, had a X2 4200+ in my last build, first it is end of life and only can have up to dual-core. Second they are expensive now.

While I'd like to recommend a AM2+ build I can't do it.

Go for that Conroe865PE so you can use your DDR1 and AGP card. Buy a cheap dual-core, save your pennies and buy a Quad-core as soon as you can for it.

Then for the love of god go buy a monitor that can atleast do 1280x1024 (surprised your 17" can't do this res, or can it?) or 1600x1200, even. I have a 21" CRT I got for cheap that can scale beyond 16x12, but no reason for to go above 16x12.

With a resolution of 1024x768 your still very CPU bound! The s939 build will make you suffer and feel sorry about your purchase! Even a Q6600 which is going for as cheap as $100 us dollars these days can overclock around 3.0~3.6GHz and will really help out. It can keep close on the heels of a AMD Phenom II 940BE.