Decided to just upgrade my AMD machine for now instead of springing for a new high end intel box.

I went from a FX-55 to a X2 6000 and from ddr-400 memory to ddr2-800 memory.

My machine specs:

X2 6000 cpu
nvidia 7900gto 512mb agp graphics card
2gb ddr2-800 memory
thermaltake 430w power supply
etc

The results:
> Saw about 18% gain in mp3 encoding
> Saw about 100% gain in multi thread benchmarks
> Saw about 0% gain in gaming benchmarks

I do play Quake4 which is multi threaded but didn't notice any fps gain
Both Unreal tourney 3 and Crysis that release in about a month are multi threaded as well, so we shall see.

Conclusion, i spent close to $300 on the upgrade, X2 6000 $160, Memory $70, Heatsink $40, Expansion Board $40
and saw really no gain in single threaded applications or games. Probably would have been better to spend the money on a 8800gts 320mb video card but oh well.

Also notice the stock cooler that comes with the X2 6000 is a little louder than my old 3rd party heatsink, i couldn't use the new 3rd party heatsink i bought because the bracket wouldn't fit around the cpu mount.

Any comments welcome.

TC

My machine spec is as follows:

AMD Socket 939 4000+ Single Core
Nvidia 8800GTS 320MB
2GB DDR 400
Thermaltake 500W power supply

I've upgraded my graphics card from a 6600GT to the 8800GTS and saw major improvements in my gameplay framerates.

Did you install the dual core patch for Quake 4? Would've thought that you'd at least see some improvement with the dual core cpu.

what you need to do is run your anti-virus and anti-spyware and seti@home and then play your games. the overhead for multiple apps is where i notice the diff.
also
drop your multiplier from 15 to 14 and raise the fsb to 214.
still 3.0ghz but now ddr2-856.

mine 6000+
7950gt 256
2gb wintec Ampx
works power 450w PSU.

I really like posts like this one... not asking for help... just sharing useful, detailed information. Kudos!

I did a similar thing with my 939 board going from a 3700 to a X2 4600 and the difference isn't that great, but I upgraded my graphics card to a 1950pro from a 7600GT and that upgrade was definitely worth it, also 2 gigs of ram is definitely better than one.

Well i think in crysis it will make a big difference, cause rumor has it that, for once, a game will support multithreading.

I'm surprized that you didn't find any increase in gaming, but then again, the FX55 was a fairly good CPU and the 6000+ is not that much better, if any, when it comes to stock clock speeds. While there are few games that presently take advantage of multicore CPUs, some are around and if you tried them, you should make considerable gains. Another thing is that as good as your present video card is, a newer, faster model would give a far better result. I have seen it many times, and have had it happen to myself, that changing a CPU doesn't change game speed all that much, but changing to a better video card gives great improvements in games.

By the way, if you haven't done so already, install the patches for multicore CPU. I'm assuming that you didn't change the OS when your changed the board and CPU, so the OS may still be using coding that does not utilize the multicore CPU. One thing for sure, your change to an AM2 X2 system will help in a lot of things, not just gaming. Like I often have a game going and am running other applications at the same time without any performance hit, which I would get in my old single core machine.

Thanks guys:

Didn't know about a dual core patch for Quake4, no i don't have it installed so i will go out tonight and get it. I am also benchmarking quake4 via timed demos in the game, are these multi-threaded by nature as well?

I am still running windows xp 32bit, i didn't know that there is any dual core patches for this either, so i will have to look into that.

I know that the multi core will help in other areas such as multi tasking and music/video encoding but i expected perhaps a bit better performance on the gaming side. Thing was i couldn't find any gaming benchmarks on the web comparing a fx-55 to an x2 6000 so perhaps i should have stayed with what i had. I wasn't going for the big video card upgrade this time, just a simple $300 upgrade for now.

TC

It's possible that your games are GPU bottlenecked, because you should see atleast some difference in benchmarks... the 6000+ is a full 400MHz faster, that is not phenomenal but it is also not insignificant. Try the dual core patch, also see if you can get a hold of a game like Supreme Commander which really takes advantage of 2 cores.

sealboy,

beat me to it. If your gaming benchmarks stayed static, your video card is very likely the bottleneck depending on your in game settings.

Your video card is pretty good right now.

Use RivaTuner and OC a little bit

As you figured out, your games are NOT bottlenecking the cpu. Most games don't. Getting quake 4 to run on multiple cards will NOT increase it's speed simply because it doesn't need it. Something like Microsoft Flight similator will benefit from the cpu and other similar games. Haven't seen enough benchmarks on the newer games to see if they bottleneck cpus. Crysis, however, i've seen really stress the crap out of the video card.

Check you have dual core anabled in the Q4 GUI,or enter the setting useSMP"1" in you cfg.
You certainly should be getting a big fps increase using a dual core,i do and so do the rest of my clan.