amd/mobo

[minorflex]

Hi

Im in the process of researching a new build. Im moving to my first AMD chip after having 2 intels which served me well, but price/performance/heat it has to be AMD at the momenent.

Anyways, My concern is this dual core business.

I was aiming for a amd64 venice core 3200+ , sensible price and good performance. As it takes me ages to be bothered to up grade the rig, i'd rather dual core not take us by storm and make these single core chips usless.

My question to you guys is the following..

For budget constraits and realistic performance, should I get dual core or single.

Another option I stumbled across was a motherboard that supports s939 as well as X2, I figure this is Amds dual core chips? If so does this mean that this particaulr mobo supports todyas s939 aswell as dual cores?

The pc will be used for gaming, aswell as encoding/decoded large files, not too bothered if I can do them simulatanously tho..

Anyways your thoughts will be very much appreciated.

Cheers

 

[mdd1963]

"Another option I stumbled across was a motherboard that supports s939 as well as X2, I figure this is Amds dual core chips?"

All X2 series of cpus are currently socket 939, and are dual core processors, yes. (There are also socket 939 Opterons, single and dual core, but there are also socket 940 Opterons)

The least expensive X2, the X2-3800+, is about $320, 2.0GHz x2.....

You can probably find a sinlge core 3500+ for about $100 less...

If it was up to me ( i built mine a few months before dual cores), I'd opt for the dual core, as more games/drivers are being optimized to allow performance increases from an SMP rig...Quake4 for example.