P4 - 2.8Ghz vs AMD Athlon64 3500+

[Raven1]

Hi All

I currently have a MSI m/b (800FSB) with a P4 - 2.8Ghz CPU and would like to know if it will be worth it to upgrade to a MSI m/b (1000FSB) (socket 939) with a AMD Athlon64 3500+ CPU?

Is there quite an increase in speed between these two processors?

I have been searching for quite some time now on the internet to compare the two CPU's. I have also read many reviews etc., but I cannot find a clear answer as to how much faster the AMD 3500+ CPU is in games.

I have gathered the following info thus far:

Quake3 is 30 FPS faster on 3500+ than 2.8Ghz (1024 x 768)
Wolfenstein is 24 FPS faster on 3500+ than 2.8Ghz (1024 x 768)
UT2004 is 40 FPS faster on 3500+ than 2.8Ghz (1024 x 768)
Far Cry Creation time is 77 seconds faster on 3500+ than 2.8Ghz (1024 x 768)

(The FPS above does not seems like a lot, but I am not an experienced person in this field.)

Thus, I would like to know if it is worth to upgrade to an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ CPU just for the fact that it is faster. (and how much faster is the AMD CPU?)

Thanks
Raven1

 

[o1die]

Have you tried overclocking? I've been using an msi 865pe board with 2.8c for about 1 year, and it runs very stable at 260 fsb (about 3640). At this speed, the amd 3500 wouldn't be that much faster to justify an upgrade.

 

[ChipDeath]

Even at stock speeds, I doubt you'd see any difference. If your games are lagging a little then a Gfx card upgrade is more likely to show an improvement than a CPU one.

Plus, as suggested a mild overclock would bring CPU performance up should you need to. I've never heard of a 2.8C P4 that wouldn't easily exceed 3.2Ghz on the stock cooler, although your RAM might limit you, depending on exactly what it is (even that isn't necessarily a problem - you can just run it at a 5:4 FSB:RAM ratio to keep the RAM in spec).

So in short, no. You won't see any real improvement if it was a 2.8B (533FSB) then it might prove more worthwhile, but there you go.

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