Upgrading to an Athlon X2, got some compatability questions

[fredweston]

Hi guys, I mainly stay over in the network forum since that's what I know about. But today I noticed that with Core 2 stuff coming out, the price on X2s has dropped quite a bit so I thought I'd come pick your brains about some questions I had.

Currently I have an A64 4000+ San Diego on an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe. I was looking at the X2 4800+. First off, I need to make sure this CPU will work in my motherboard. I checked http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx?SLanguage=en-us and it said it should, but I just want to see if anybody can confirm this combo works?

Would I be correct in assuming that since the 4000+ and the 4800+ both have the same core clock speed that their performance would be identical in single-threaded applications?

About the only CPU intensive task I do these days is rip DVDs and encode them to Xvid. I checked up on Xvid, and it appears that it's had multithreading support since earlier this year, so I'm assuming that I would see a pretty significant performance increase there?

Thanks for any info you can provide.

 

[DomBenson]

The X2 does work on that board - I run the same chipset with an X2 3800, so there should be no problems there.
In single threaded apps the performance would be similar, but the dual core should still be faster, as background processes can be offloaded onto the second core. For multithreaded apps the performance increase should be very noticeable indeed.
I don't know how much RAM you have at present, but it might help to have more, as the dual core chips are good at using it (2GB+ ideally)

 

[fredweston]

I have 1GB of Crucial Ballistix 2-2-2-6. I have another GB, but I had some issues getting four dimms to run at 400MHz because the timings on the other set of dimms are slower.

Regarding the background processes, I understand that but as far as whatever the main singlethreaded app I have chugging on the one core is concerned, performance should be about the same on both CPUs, right?

 

[AddictiveHerring]

"Would I be correct in assuming that since the 4000+ and the 4800+ both have the same core clock speed that their performance would be identical in single-threaded applications? "

No, not really because that clock pertains to each core. So each core runs as fast as your 4000+ so you could have one core handling windows and the other running other apps, dual core offers the potential for twice the speed.

damn it'll be cool when everything is written with dual core in mind

 

[AddictiveHerring]

ah, sorry my bad.

 

[jaguarskx]

About the only CPU intensive task I do these days is rip DVDs and encode them to Xvid. I checked up on Xvid, and it appears that it's had multithreading support since earlier this year, so I'm assuming that I would see a pretty significant performance increase there?

Thanks for any info you can provide.

What you could also do is encode two different movies at the same time.

I encode my DVDs to DivX and I did a test run do two movies at the same time. I specified the each instance of DivX to write the first pass info data to separate files (the divx and mvinfo files). On the 2nd pass each DivX instance you read from the appropriate info data file to finish up the encoding process.

I find it is faster to encode 2 DivX file using a single threaded program at the same time than it was to encode 2 DivX using a multi-threaded program separately.

It could be worth a shot for XviD.

 

[fredweston]

What you could also do is encode two different movies at the same time.

Yeah, I realize that. Xvid wasn't the best example since that does support multithreading, I was primarily thinking of games and other stuff like that since, as far as I know, none of the current generation of games support multithreading. I just wanted to make sure that I wouldn't be *decreasing* performance in those apps.

So to sum up, the 4800+ is essentially two 4000+ cores on one die? On that train of though, does that mean that for single threaded apps like BF2, I would decrease performance going from my 4000+ to something like a 4200+ or 4400+?

 

[big_tuna]

that mother board supports the dual dore cpu's,but on the website it says your bios has to be a certain version (cant remember#)or higher.look at the asus site again. but i also looked their before i upgraded my system . if you have the latest bios you'll be fine

 

[fredweston]

that mother board supports the dual dore cpu's,but on the website it says your bios has to be a certain version (cant remember#)or higher.look at the asus site again. but i also looked their before i upgraded my system . if you have the latest bios you'll be fine

Thanks for the info, I saw that and I think it was version 1010. I do have the latest which I think is 1016.

 

[Colonel_Curly]

yup the cpu will work on the mobo an it'll be faster. get more RAM though

 

[jimw428]

It may be somewhat faster, but in my mind the real question is, will the performance increase be worth the price. IMO, an additional GB of good fast memory might offer a better return on your investment.

 

[fredweston]

It may be somewhat faster, but in my mind the real question is, will the performance increase be worth the price. IMO, an additional GB of good fast memory might offer a better return on your investment.

I don't know about that. Xvid isn't really memory hungry from what I've seen. About the only thing I do that does like it's RAM is BF2 and it runs "okay" now. Even when I've got 8 or 10 things going I usually have at least a couple hundred megs of physical memory available. I'm looking at it more in terms of upgrading to whatever I can get in socket 939 since I probably won't upgrade the motherboard for another year or two. Thanks for the advice though.

 

[Dahak]

dual core cpu's are able to process 64 bit and 32 bit lines of code simultaniously.the 4800+ dual core will outperform the 4000+ single core.probably even out do it in single threaded applications.good choice for an upgrade.and yes the board should support it.at most you might need to update the bios.have fun and goodluck.

Dahak

EVGA NF4 SLI MB
X2 4400+@2.4 S-939
2 7800GT'S IN SLI MODE
2X1GIG DDR400 MEMORY IN DC MODE
WD300GIG HD
520WATT PSU
EXTREME 19IN.MONITOR

 

[fredweston]

Okay, here's another question. Anybody know if I'll have to reinstall Windows if I swap out the CPU? I know if I switched the whole motherboard I would since the chipsets would be different, but what happens when switching CPUs?

 

[jough626]

Nope. Just ensure the BIOS is updated and away you go.