what are the major differences between the amd athlon 64 2800+, 3000+, 3200+, 3400+, 3700+ etc? and can the amd athlon 64's be overclocked? Also, this is not a cpu related question, but i thought i would save space, can you put any hardrive with a socket 754 motherboard?
the difference is in performance (obviously, haha, not trying to sound like a jerk :p ) Most of the processors you listed on the older socket, that is going to be phased out. I would reccomend if you are in the market for a processor to go with a socket 939 processor, which not only would give you expandability if you wished it, but allows for dual channel memory to be used.
Oh, also, as the titles of the cpus give a 2800+ really is comparative to a pentium 2.8ghz in most respects. In saying this I am sure someone will criticize me, but it is the truth.. in most cases. This cannot be said for all cases. I however, do have a 3500+ (130nm process) which marginally better than my friends 3.4ghz cpu in just about every benchmark we could find. We had similiar set ups, although I did have better harddrives. Also in that comparison he had ddr2 and i had the power of the amds hypertransport.. but anyways thats me getting off onto a tangent. Back to the matter at hand.
I would say that unless you need bleeding edge, to avoid the 3700+. It is significantly higher priced than the others for not all that large of performance difference. Now is the 3700+ a lot better than the 3400+? well yes it is, but not enough to justify the price jump. Probably the best bang for the buck of the processors you listed would be the 3200+. I myself think that hands down, the new 3500+ on the 90 nanometer process is by FAR the best bang for the buck, not to mention a kickass processor.
All amd 64's overclock fairly well. I say fairly well in that I have no previous experience in overclocking, but I do find that overclocking with my 3500+ is pretty good. I can get stable overclocks of 350mhz with my 3rd party heatsink/fan. I could get 200mhz without it though.. it was just scary playing doom 3 for long lengths of time because of temps (with the overclocko and oldheatsink/fan that is) With my new heatsink/fan combo, i reach overclocks of 466mhz. Which is pretty good I think. But take all of this as you will.
Huge suggestion though, if you are planning on overclocking, buy a good heatsink and arctic silver 5 before you do anything. Dont run your processor and then switch to a better heatsink later, i would do it right away. i know i wish that i would have. Even if you are thinking about overclocking and watn to keep the stock heatsink/fan (which isnt bad, really. amd gave a decent setup) I would buy arctic silver 5 and use that instead of the pad that they supply.
Oh, about the harddrives.. I woudl think that most harddrives would work, for sure pata (the normal ide harddrives) and i am pretty sure (well depending on motherboard of course) that just about any sata harddrive will work as well. Just check motherboard listings that have the socket you are looking for
But again.. i would go with the socket 939!!
-JonnyBlaze
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