I'm no rocket scientist like most of the guys on here, but I can tell you that you cant run a second CPU on your board or prety well any other AMD mobo but the knee-slapper QuadFX which was purchased by two addled little old ladies in Iowa who thought they were getting a cable channel. Your extra RAM should have helped some, but your system is a couple of genertions old, single core, outdated video, etc. You may have made a mistake by adding RAM as PC3200 is now no good in any modern board. You can get some fantstic dual and quad core cpu/mobo packages for under $300 (go Intel... AMD is S.O.L rite now) which with a modern vid card and 2GB RAM should make it zoom. You shuld also be aware if your playing poker online a lot of it is depindent on your broadband speed. No cpu can help that! Just make sure that you hang up the sign up over your PC when your playing: Liquor in the front, Poker in the rear!
Well, if you don't have the cash to build a whole new pc you could always try to do some overclocking. It won't get you the uber performance of a new Q6600, but it should make some things run more smoothly.
Your pc is a bit outdated so there is only 2 choices here:
1.) Build a new pc (or buy one).
2.) Assuming you built it, you can try overclocking.
It's pretty much not worth upgrading, although if you really must, newegg offers some 939 Socket dual-core cpu. Dual-core meaning 2 cpus on a single die
If you bought your pc from a company like Dell, Gateway, emachines, etc, then I suggest you not to upgrade and learn how to build a pc.
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They seem to have cpus that go from 40 dollars to 450. Are all suitable?
I dont really play any games on it (apart from a shiitload of poker), so i am pretty happy with it.
Although i can stay with it, what would be the max cpu i could upgrade to?
Will i really see much difference?
The newegg link was for a AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ Manchester 2.0GHz 2 x 256KB L2 Cache Socket 939 89W Dual-Core Processor - OEM
Mine seems to be a 3500+ 2.2Ghz, isnt this about the same as the newegg one? Or is the newegg one twice as fast, as it is a dual core cpu
Sorry if my questions are kinda retarded, i am WAAAAY out of my league in the forums here, so all advice much appreciated
If all you are running is single threaded programs keep what you have. Getting a dual core cpu will only speed up programs that can take advantage of them. In regards to gaming don't believe all the hype you hear a lot of single core cpus can easily hold their own in older games that don't take advantage of the multiple cores. Most games are more dependent on the GPU and not the CPU. Only recently have games started to come out that support multiple cores.
I have a S939, OC'd to 2.25Ghz and I can play Crysis on Max settings (with the DX10 hack) at 1440x900, and it is VERY playable, about 30FPS.
I figure my "dated" S939 should be good till the 45nm Octals are out
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djcoolmasterx - "Ofcourse there is nothing that you are doing that will use that kind of power, beacuse you don't have that kind of powr to do things with."
Online poker does not use dual cores, so your chip is probably not the problem. It doesn't need more than a gig of ram, nor does it use what we would call intensive graphics.
You may have poor internet service. Are you using DSL/ADSL in the U.S.? If so, that is probably not your problem either.
My guess is that you are running so much crap in the background, that your system has bogged.
A clean install is your best bet, but you can "click run, type in msconfig, hit OK, click the startup tab, and uncheck everything you think you dont need, while playing poker"
Good luck.
I dont have any stuff in the background, and have done the adaware/spyware/virus check, etc
My main problem is that, while playying poker, i get constant cpu spikes, and occasional trouble. I play party poker, have pokertracker 2, and pokerace heads up display, and spadeye running, all of which really suck up the cpu
I have broadband, and am here in australia. My problem is not the net, just the cpu spikes.
Is there anything else (other bottlenecks, perhaps? -eg i upgraded my ram, and it is heaps better than before) that it may be, apart from my cpu.
Would also like peoples opinions on cpus, they range from bugger all, to $450us
online poker shouldnt be any trouble for your current system. But none the less I would uprade to socket 939 x2. Shouldnt run you to much money if you can track them down in your country. What web browser are you using by the way? Your cpu should eat up online poker like its nothing.
Good grief people, come on. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the system he has for online poker. Any upgrade other than your internet service is a complete waste of money for what you are doing and will not help one tiny bit.
Omaha, what kind of internet service are you using currently?
It's hard to say what the right course of action is here. Most people think poker shouldn't tax a A64 3500+ (though that is one of the slower A64s I think- 256MB L2?). Try a A64 4000+. The S939 dual cores are getting pretty expensive. personally, I'd try the A64 4000+ before I tried the X2 3600+. I believe that one might be cache crippled also. You'd have to check but I don't remember it to be much of a performer.
I think socket 939 3600 x2 are only 256 kb of cache. I think tigerdirect still has the 3800 x2 with larger cache for 60 dollars US currency. Would also look at ebay. Should be able to get an x2 4200 or 3800 x2 for a reasonable price, then he could overclock it for more speed. But I would not dump too much into the socket 939.
Also he said he's getting cpu spikes and has a lot of programs running in the background. I think the dual core would take some load off. Because we who have dual cores and have had single cores, you can do a lot more multitasking on a dual core. That said I would NOT put more than 60-80 dollars US currency into a socket 939 chip. The reason is that it's an end of life upgrade, and any socket 939 upgrades are going to worth less than moving to a newer platform.
Message edited by ohiou_grad_06 on 01-03-2008 at 04:08:35 AM
Your extra RAM should have helped some, but your system is a couple of genertions old, single core, outdated video, etc. You may have made a mistake by adding RAM as PC3200 is now no good in any modern board. You can get some fantstic dual and quad core cpu/mobo packages for under $300 (go Intel... AMD is S.O.L rite now) which with a modern vid card and 2GB RAM should make it zoom. You shuld also be aware if your playing poker online a lot of it is depindent on your broadband speed. No cpu can help that! Just make sure that you hang up the sign up over your PC when your playing: Liquor in the front, Poker in the rear!