New Game Rig Question

[Tyvy]

Hey everyone,

I have been looking for a good post on Best Mobo / CPU for games. I have read that you actually lose performance on games with the x2 chips..

Is this ture? Is it worth getting one for game purposes.

Also, what about a mobo. I do not do any overclocking FYI so just a solid board with PCI-E. I have a 7800GTX pce to put in the system and 1.5 gig of ddr400

Thanks

 

[Mex]

I can't speak so much for the X2 chips but rather for dual cores in general, so here goes...

Hypothetically, compare a Athlon 64 3800+ at 2.4GHz against an X2 3800+ with two cores at 2GHz each. In most games, the Athlon 64 3800+ would likely win with its higher clock speed. This is because most games are single-threaded, or written to use only one core. In effect, the other core is idling with nothing to do. Therefore, it boils down to the A64 3800+ at 2.4GHz vs. the X2 3800+ at 2GHz. The exception is if you perform other tasks at the same time. If you played a game and tried to encode/compress (whatever...) a video at the same time, the X2 would win because it would offload the video task to the other core while the A64 tries to do both at the same time with one core.

So, should you buy a dual core. Most people on this forum would likely say yes. As we speak, existing games are being optimized for dual cores and games in development are being written to natively use both cores.

:arrow: If you want bang for the buck, buy a single core, as they have become very cheap in the wake of Conroe (You could buy that A64 3800+ for $150 USD off of Newegg.
:arrow: If you want to futureproof your machine, or if you perform other tasks while gaming, buy a dual core. If you want an X2, wait until August when AMD's X2 price cuts take effect.

As for a motherboard, I would probably say the ASUS A8N-E. Just be aware that the chipset fans on this board are notoriously unreliable.

 

[Tyvy]

Thank you both for the information.

I truely appreciate it.