What Processor should I get??? need help before I spend big

Haku

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I am about to upgrade, what processor would be better for playing games like BF2?

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Manchester 1GHz HT 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Dual Core Processor

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego 1GHz HT 1MB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor

Or do you suggest something else in the 939 processor range?
 

endyen

Splendid
How much did you spend on your gfx card?
A good rule of thumb is to spend as much on chip and mobo as you do on gfx card. If you are a serious gamer, you might want to consider spending as much on your gfx card as you do on your mobo, chip, and system memory.
 

endyen

Splendid
To match your gfx card, you should go to a 3800/3700. Personally, I would go to a 148 opteron venus core.
Since you are on agp, and will need a new mobo (probably ram, since AM2 is getting close), and gfx card for your next upgrade, there is no point in getting a cpu, and having your system overly gpu limited.
 

tenaciousleydead

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i would stick with atleast a x3800 as new multi-threaded games are seeing as much as a 30fps gain(quake 4). and there will be alot of future games utilizing this new technology.
 

admiral25

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opteron 165, got mine from newegg ocd 2.8ghz on air with stock cooler and 1.45volts. even if you only get 2.5 to 2.6 its still a 700mhz oc if you get to 2.5ghz.
 

rHy0

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Well i always thought that dual processors (X2 4200+) werent very good performance wise (for gaming) compared to single, so id say go for the 4000+ san diego.
 

admiral25

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Well i always thought that dual processors (X2 4200+) werent very good performance wise (for gaming) compared to single, so id say go for the 4000+ san diego.

man get with the times... dual cores are far better than any single core, even if you dont use one of the cores. On top of that when everything is dual core ready your allready set and dont have to go and buy another processor, because you allready have one. Dual core is not like sli/crossfire where you pay 100% more and only gain 30% performace, with 2 cpus you have 100% more processing power.
 

scoobertscoobydoo

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I am about to upgrade, what processor would be better for playing games like BF2?

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Manchester 1GHz HT 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Dual Core Processor

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego 1GHz HT 1MB L2 Cache Socket 939 Processor

Or do you suggest something else in the 939 processor range?

i recomend a 170 opteron, i say this because you get the 10X multiplier, and thats a 1:1 overclocking processor. also you can go to 2.8ghz with that.
 

luminaris

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Alright, let's take a closer look at this and I hope everyone considering single or dual core will look closely as well.

1. AMD 4000 = 2.4Ghz + 334.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103529

2. AMD X2-3800 = 2.0Ghz + 297.00
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103562

Now, what you do is take the 3800 and OC it to 2.4Ghz, which can be done, and essentially you have two AMD4000s on one chip. The only difference being, the cache size. You do this for less money as well.

So certainly going dual core has an advantage whether your gaming or not.
 

cardcrash

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Well one thing I learnt quickly was be sure to get the best PSU you can, before anything else or you'll be sure to run into problems, if not initially, later down the line.

I guess the general consensus is gaming rig = $$$

Oh and I'd also consider selling the AGP card and going PCI-express.
 

admiral25

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dual core doesent give you 100%, its something like 30% but with dual cores you can multi task without penelty.


You have 2 cores 2 cpus what do you mean you only get 30% with dual core?!
sli/crossfire you get 30% performace increase. I can encode a dvd with dvdrebulder on 1 core and play cod2 or any other game on the other core (dvdrb uses 50/100% of my 1st core and then I have a whole nother cpu with 100% processing power. In order to take real advantage of dual core you need 2gigs of ram vs 1gig.
 

scoobertscoobydoo

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your using the same FSB, the same ram channels, the same video card, ECT, maby 100% processing power, but because it uses the same bus you truely dont get 2 computers.
 

admiral25

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your using the same FSB, the same ram channels, the same video card, ECT, maby 100% processing power, but because it uses the same bus you truely dont get 2 computers.

Thats whats great about the a64/opteron, it has an onboard memory controler so it can get as much memory access it needs from the ram, also with 2 gigs of ram while im encoding I use 500-550 megs of ram so I still have over 1.3gigs free to do whateva I want. If it is slower I can't tell from my 3200+ that I had, and now opteron 165 running @ 2.6ghz (I can run 2 different program w/o any slowdown). On the video your right I can only run 1 game at a time(but I do have dual 17inch vpr matrix crt monitors)