Upgrade? AMD 3500+ Manchester to ???

My brother had a computer that was put together rather hastily and cheaply to replace a dying one.

The processor was basically the bottom of the line at the time, the 3500+ Manchester (socket 939) - sells for under $50.

However, since then, he has moved up to 2, 7600GT's in SLI and has 2x1GB of DDR800.

Trying to figure out how much difference a CPU upgrade will make and which one would be best.

Also, how much is the current CPU crippling the system?

Thanks!

Probably not a lot.

Your setup is pretty good... I'd leave it be until you feel like it's slow. 7600s in SLI should be plenty of graphics horsepower and upping clockspeed by 20% isn't worth it. S939 X2s are a good upgrade if you notice a lot of slowdowns when multitasking but aren't a big deal...

I'd sit on your setup until you want to jump into AM2+ or Intel's next gen.

For $80 you can get an OEM X2 3800+ which runs 200MHz slower but has 2 cores. It will run multiple applications more smoothly, but is otherwise no faster that the 3500+. I would skip it.

Another reason a dualcore is better.

Ain't no way he's running DDR-800 in a 939 MB. That would be 400mhz which nobody has been able to reach. What a clock you could put on that puppy, huh?

I would definitly get the dual core if I was your brother. I built a system for my parents about 2 years ago. It was similar to ur brothers system.
AMD 3800 @ 2.4ghz
2x1gig DDR400 value ram
MSI K8N Neo4
ATI X1300pro
160gig Samsung Spinpoint
Ultra Wizard ATX case
Ultra Xconnect 500w psu

I got a very good deal on a second hand 3800x2 from my freind so I decided to install it in my parents system. I was a bit worried that the 400mhz lower clock speed would make the system feel slower, but I tried it anyways. The 3800x2 installed with no problems and ran great. Everything felt more responsive and smoother. The one thing I like best about dual cores is their multitasking abilities. You can run a virus scan in the background and it doesn't slow things down at all! I definitely didn't notice the lower clock speed, the extra core more then made up for it. Next I tried a bit over over clocking, I wanted to see if it could reach the 2.4ghz of my single core 3800. It easily OC'd to 2.4ghz on stock volts so I kept going and reached a max of 2.55ghz on stock voltage! I didn't push it any further because I didn't have a suitable cooling solution to let me increase the volts, I was using a cheap $10 hsf thats rated for use with single core cpus up to a 3800+. I'm guessing the chip could reach about 2.7ghz with extra volts and decent cooling. So don't let the lower clock speeds discourage your from buying a dual core, they can easily OC to speeds equal to the fastest single core s939 chips. IF your really serious about over clocking you could even go with an Opteron 165 or 170 which have been know to reach as high as 3.0ghz and can be had for around $100-$120. Definitely worth it if your not ready to upgrade the entire system yet.

Well, then obviously something is up!

I will take a look. Stuff is from January 2007.