DescentBB

So what's the better way to go as far as CPUs now?
I *was thinking of a AMD 3800 venice, but now there are 4200 and 4400 dual core chips for not much more.
I cant afford an FX, but I want to get the most power I can with this build.
suggestions?

Thanks!

RM

Duel core isn't the best choice for current games, so if that's yer route go with a single core.

Edit: 1st octouple post on the new server

Edit2: Wew, took my forever to delete all those dups -- next time stick to double posts please.. G.

jSPAM wrote:Duel core isn't the best choice for current games, so if that's yer route go with a single core.

Edit: 1st octouple post on the new server

nice1

o_0 That rocks.

That's a whole lotta JMeat.

Dual core isn't the best choice for gaming at the moment, but if you're running something thats multi-threaded like 3D rendering apps then you'll definitely want to go dual core.

This is why JMEaT has more posts then I do even though he registered a few months after I did...

If you get a dual core chip, get the 4400 because it has 1 MB L2 caches.

If I am not mistaken, dual core chips provide the same functionality (more or less) than having a dual processor system. Given that I would have to argue that having a dual core chip would be a good thing even for gamers. I am a gamer and when I have the opportunity to play on my dual processor box (2x Xeon 3Ghz) it is a joy. I can be doing backups or some other strenuous task while playing and not even notice the difference.

Just my $0.02 ...

I just got a new cpu and motherboard earlier this week. I got the Asrock dual 939 so I can keep using my agp 9800XT and upgrade to pci express later on. I also bought the 3700+ which is a single core san diego chip with the larger 1meg cache. It was $233 at Monarch and has a stock speed of 2.2. I am currently running it at 2.6 Gigs with the stock cooler and it's idling right now at 34 C. That's comparable to the speed of an athlon fx 55 (same san diego core) which sells for $800.

I was going to go for a cheap dual core, the 3800 x2 but it was $100 more and there is not that much benefit to a dual core these days so I figured I can use that $100 to put towards a dual core later on. This motherboard also has support for the new M2(?) socket amd will have out in the future through a daughter board so I'm covred for upgrading. It just won't do sli which I didn't see myself getting anytime soon.

Overall, I'm very happy with this purchase (even though it's only been running for 3 days) and would definitely get one again. Battlefield 2 is noticeable faster than my old machine whihc was an athlon xp running at 2.2 Ghz.

There are also reports of $200 s939 opterons running at over 2.8 Ghz as well all over the place. You can see discussions on that here:
http://forums.pimprig.com/showthread.ph ... ge=1&pp=20
and here:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview ... id=1728988

If I was to do it again I might get one of those opterons instead to squeeze out an extra megahertz or two. Mine is still at stock voltage so who knows what it would hit if I cranked it up. I'll get into that in a few days. Good luck.

Oh yea, I also bought it as a motherboard/cpu bundle from Monarch Computers so I got some free stuff including Half life 2 that I can sell or use for gifts.

the cheapest dual core is a 3800 for $322 with 512mb cache

The 4400 with dual core and 1mb goes for $512

monarch has a single core 4000 san diego for $344 with 1mb.

I hadnt thought of the cache size as being a factor...
So it seems the 4000 with 1mb is the way to go for only $45 more than the 3800 venice core, which has only 512mb...

does that sound right?
I'm still using the setup Krom/Matrix picked out for me so it should be a doozy of an overclocking system (I hope to up the RAM to 2gb of OCZ pc4000 ddr500 el gamer gold, and will probably go with an asus A8N deluxe board for ease of OC'ing).

No way to swing the $168 for the 4400? I promise you will see a good difference in performance with the extra L2.

Save a hundred bucks and get the 3700 and oc it from 2.2 to 2.4. I like newegg's search as it shows all the speeds and caches etc.

Newegg Search

edit: Better? Jeez I didn't know it was such a killer. Plus I didn't have the time to remember how to do it when I first posted it. I guess if it's taken me this long to get Mobi-fied I must be doing ok.

Iceman: the 4000 has 1mb of L2 cache as well, though technically I guess the dual core has 2 sets of 1mb L2....

why do you want to lop off one of your legs on your upgrade journey...and then curse yourself later.
get the dual core!

yummy 4400

Dual core works better than single core on games like Quake 4.

CritterB you fool. Ever heard of the URL BBCode tag?

JMEaT wrote:Duel core isn't the best choice for current games, so if that's yer route go with a single core.

Not right now. But if you?re planning to buy UT2007, they recommend a Dual-core processor. Since the game supports Multi-Threading for better performance, and 64 bit for better texture. I'm all ready saving up for an AMD 4800+ Duel-core; I just hope the price will drop some by then.

ReadyMan wrote:Iceman: the 4000 has 1mb of L2 cache as well, though technically I guess the dual core has 2 sets of 1mb L2....

Oops! Thanks for the correction. This caused me to hunt around for some good info on AMD cores and I found an excellent reference at Alex's AMD Core Page


EEK! Someone plz edit CritterB's url ...

Would there be *that* much speed difference between a 4000 x2 with 1mb (for $344)
and a 4400 x2 with 1mb (for $512)
That's $168 more for that jump (If it's worth it, I'll get a standard hd instead of the raptor and save almost $100)

Quick answer: Yes if you want to run two demanding tasks at once (e.g. game, file copy, backup, burn CD, etc...). No if you are running one demanding task at a time.

yeah, and that's the corner I keep finding myself in every time I go down this path:
I'm from the old school gamers where I turn everything off except the game when I play.
I just now gotten lazy and begun to not close my browser while playing.

I might start playing my own cd music while playing...but that would be the extent of it I think.

But maybe Bubbalou's right, later on the dual core is going to be more usefull. I hope to get a couple of years out of this upgrade if I can....

I'm leaning heavily toward the 4400 now

Well, If I was doing the buying and I intended to keep the box for several years, I would be leaning towards the dual core 4400 also. I certainly will be buying the latest high rated games as they come out just to check them out.

JMEaT wrote:Duel core isn't the best choice for current games, so if that's yer route go with a single core.

That's correct. A duel core setup will usually have very bad performance, because the cores are so busy fighting each other that they have virtually no time left to do something useful in your computer. And casualties are high. But once one of them has killed the other, you have a surviving, oops, make that single core machine. Speed depends on how badly the surviving core has been injured during the duel. Bad luck for you however if both die during the fight.

hehe.

But seriously, I'd go for the dual core cpu. It will not perform worse than a single core, and will perform better with applications taking advantage of parallel computing. If you're going for the latest, highest rated games, I'd however make sure I have enough money left for the best gfx card available - still plays a greater role than CPU speed, though there is a CPU induced performance limitation for most games, too.

Btw Iceman, I really like your new avatar ...

You have finally found your identity, do you? Victim ...

I dont mind losing a few fps to the dual core, but as long as the performance is reasonably close to a single core, it seems to be the better option.

If the performance is way better on the single core, like the difference between amd and p4's right now, then that's a different subject.

How much worse is the dual core than the single core?
Take into account too, that the single 4000 also has 1mb l2 cache (with the san diego core I think).

Dual core in current games is anywhere from around 3% slower to 5% faster then a single core of the same clock speed.

Diedel wrote:That's correct. A duel core setup will usually have very bad performance, because the cores are so busy fighting each other that they have virtually no time left to do something useful in your computer. And casualties are high. But once one of them has killed the other, you have a single core machine. Speed depends on how badly the surviving core has been injured during the duel. Bad luck for you however if both die during the fight.

Teh funnay! Should have bolded for emphasis tho, I don't think some of these knuckleheads got it

Yeah, looks like small but essential differences get easily overlooked ... ... I wonder whether Readyman took my post at face value, and disregarded the 2nd half of it. That's the generation comic book: More than 3 lines of reading makes them dizzy ...

Krom wrote:Dual core in current games is anywhere from around 3% slower to 5% faster then a single core of the same clock speed.

Please tell me why that is so.

Cuz thats what turns up in the benchmarks on popular sites... The reason would be because thanks to dual core the game can run on one CPU while the OS and everything else runs on the other CPU, thus giving the game more CPU time then it would recieve running on a single core system. In other cases it runs sligtly slower because the other CPU in a dual core system uses the same memory controller and can take away some memory bandwidth and induce extra latency from overhead depending on what it is doing. But generally the difference between a dual core system and an equally optimized single core system in a current game will be within the margin of error in a benchmark, meaning you won't notice it.

Now in next generation threaded games a dual core system will be dramatically more powerful then a single core system.

Diedel, your subtlety wasnt lost on me .
The Heh give it away as well.
Again, seems like the dual core is the way to go. I wonder if there is nothing running in the background besides essential windows programs when a game is played if the 2nd cpu would take away from the 1st core...?

ReadyMan wrote:The Heh give it away as well.

That was too subtle for me.

It's a pain in the ass to actually find one, but look for benchmarks where CPUs arn't compared to each other while the video card is running at 1024x768. It's true that a CPU is important, but even at 1284x1024 the speed diffrence between the entire Athlon 64 line becomes rather uninspiring. If you're even thinking about running 1600X1200, much less some form of AA and AF, your video card is going to bog down long before a X2 4400+ gets in it's way. At that point the second core would be better then another 200MHz.

Also, look into the socket 939 Opterons. The 4400+ and the Opteron 175 are identical to each other, but an OEM 175 can be had for $461 at Monarchcomputer, as opposed to $512 for the 4400+. There haven't been as many reports on the dual core Opterons as there have been on the single core, but the Opteron chips seem to be the pick of the litter and overclock better then the Athlons. Just something to keep in mind if you're into OCing.