Last message on previous page: your best best is to overclock the hell out of your single core. Then tend to oc better than the dualcores. You'll get better gaming performance than a dualcore if you do it that way.
TBH, performance most likely wont be better with a single core over dual core... in the sense that if you clocked your single core higher, you may receive higher benchmarks and stuff for certain things, and if you shut every single other application and process down on your system, a game may be more responsive, due to the single core simply being higher clocked (and not being able to be interrupted in processing more likely that way, for however brief a moment)... ...but from what ive seen in day to day usage over the past year and a half, a single core will easily lend itself to more lengthy interruptions and subtly annoying pauses for anything really, the end user experience isnt quite as smooth overall as a result... that should matter more than benchmarks honestly
it wont be a night and day difference at first (and expectations shouldnt be as such), but your user experience will be better off (even if none of your major applications can take direct advantage of the second core), and youll find you may end up multitasking more than you used to too... just because you can easier
Not all that much of a topic change, really, so no worries. Multicore vs Single core is very much a part of my upgrade considerations. I just figure it's future proofing... More and more programs and games WILL take advantage of multi core processors. Seeing as how (for whatever reason) 939 is on it's way out, I just think it's a sound decision to purchase a new CPU.
Anyway, Opty 170 vs Opty 175 vs X2 4400+... Still haven't decided, as I'm working on overclocking my existing 3700+ first, just as a warmup... But I'm getting up to 2532mhz fairly comfortably so far, and intend to push it a tad more tonight. I just want to make sure I get at least as much performance out of whatever multicore processor I get as I am out my current single core...
s939 really was kicked out way before its time (the socket was abandoned in favor of [IMO, slower] ddr2 memory support), which is one of the main differences between s939 and sAM2... performance however is still nearly identical between the sockets otherwise (as of right now)
as far as between those 3 cpus, the opty 175 would be your best bet for OCing potential... its clocked 200MHz slower than the X2 4400+ at stock, but its also binned higher, so its more reliable/cooler running for use in servers, which will help in being able to acheive a higher OC when you do try
as far as multitasking application performance in comparison... youre most likely already aware, but really its going to depend on what you load the cpu with... ...you can try running 2 video encoding programs for example; 1 per core, and you would still be able to use your computer for regular online browsing and stuff at the same time... and that would already be much more than the 3700+ could do (without having difficulty anyways)... ...you can try browsing too when the 3700+ cpu usage is maxed out, but there wont be as many idle cpu cycles to spare in comparison usually, so youll most likely have more pauses and such when attempting to multitask at all then
as far as individual applications in comparison, its going to depend on how well the program was coded for smp, you may typically see anywhere from 60% (1 full core and then some) to 85% (nearly 2 full cores) dual core cpu usage with an smp aware program... sometimes more... ...not sure how that would extrapolate in comparison to a single cpu as far as improvement (math is kinda bad)... but, its going to close in on around a 100% OC needed either way under ideal conditions (at the very least a 1-2GHz OC above stock for your 3700+)... again, my math is probably wrong, but you get the idea im sure
I just bought one a 2X4400 from new egg for 139 and free shipping and for 50 more you coulkd move up to the 175 opty I think. But the deal is all the 40series 939 cpu's overclock top pretty much the same place. And if you can get the ram to run at about 1/1 up to about 26 or 27 on DDR500 like GSkill black ram you have it made.
If you are looking for faster game the duall core wont help near as much as 2X1Gig of ram will. If your like me and you do video processing xvid to DVD encoding the duall core really helps. One hour project's turn in to 30 min project's. If your looking for big gme OC your set up to 2,4 or higher like 2,6 and get a high dollar video card. And if you can get a good price on a 2X4400 do it. I sure did. Im running 4X1Gig of ddr-500 ram at the moment and thinking of downgrding to 2X1gig because of having to run at 333 and T2 timiung instead of 1/1 like i have in the past. BA
PS 64bit win XP dosent hurt on the gaming or the ram either.
