New PC vs friends PC (For gaming)

[mokomaki]

So im going to buy some new parts on the 20th day. And what im getting is:
Athlon II x3 445 3.1ghz
2gb DDR3 1333
and reusing my current GT 220
MSI 760G-E51
LCpower 450W, LC6450 v2.2, Silent Green Power (80+ of course)

My real life friend has a Pentium dual core E5200 @ 2.5ghz, 4GB DDR2 RAM and a GT 220.
Hes currently playing Bad Company 2 at medium graphic settings (Played it myself at his place so not lying)

The question is that would i get better performance with the Athlon II x3 445 @ 3.1ghz in BC2 versus a 2.5ghz dual core?
And how much better?

Im also having a VERY hard time deciding on Athlon II x3 445 or Phenom II x2 555
But since im going to be playing multithreaded games like Bad company 2, GTA IV, World of warcraft then shouldnt the AII x3 be better? On other forums people always say that the Phenom II DUAL CORE is much better for gaming. which i kind of understand since it has much more cache and better architecture. but still.

Thanks!

 

[mokomaki]

Just as i thought :/ And yeah the GT 220 is a pretty bad card. But if he plays Bad company 2 with an E5200 then so can i with a PII 555 or AII 445/450!

 

[mokomaki]

Yeah i know. And thanks. Im not quite as stupid as i seem when it comes to computer hardware. But i just want to make sure because im not so wealthy and i can finally afford some parts that will let me play latest games... so yeah. Upgrading from a Pentium 4 and 1gb of RAM... anyway if i got the 445 or 450 instead of the 555 would i loose noticeable performance? Cause im no enthusiast who demands 50 fps 24/7. I just want to be able to play games like WoW, BC2, GTA IV, Cod BO at some medium graphics at 30+ fps.

World of warcraft is the most CPU intensive game of all of the games mentioned above.

 

[Onus]

I would choose the extra core, if only because it will help offload background O/S tasks.

 

[pete3867]

I have a 440, and it overclocks like nobody's business, in most benchmarks it comes ahead of a 550

 

[mokomaki]

ACtually ct1615, WoW is optimized for 3 cores and uses as many as it is given.
Its built from one big main thread, one big sound thread. and multiple other smaller threads. So 1 core for the main thread, 1 for the sound thread and the remaining one for the smaller threads.

You wont get good framerates in WoW 25 man raiding unless you have a Phenom II x3/4 or Intel i5

 

[brett1042002]

You will see way better performance in gaming by in investing in a better GPU.

But go for the Athlon 445 for the extra cores. Just don't expect a huge performance increase between the two. That GPU is a big bottleneck. Good luck!

 

[mokomaki]

But anyway! Thanks! I think ill go with the x3. fits my budget much more

 

[mokomaki]

Yeah well as i said. I just want to be able to play new games.
Since you really cant with a Pentium 4 at 2.93ghz

 

[mokomaki]

Best answer selected by mokomaki.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey