3200+ Venice vs 3700+ San Diego

[dman918]

Hi,
I guess I am curious if the 3700+ is that much faster and therefore worth paying the extra $100 for. Or is there a middle ground or alternative I should consider?
Thanks for any help.
Mike

 

[fstime]

If you're tight on cash, it'd be smart to get a better video card or memory, etc.

 

[furballi]

Spend the $ on a better video card if you're a gamer. Without benchmarks, you're not going to notice the difference in speed. A decent 3000 CPU can be overclocked to +2.4GHz core speed.

Expensive RAM is a waste of $. Just use 5:6 memory divider. The performance hit is about 50MHz CPU core speed.

 

[dman918]

Thanks for the replies. I am not a hardcore gamer, but I do like to play some games. I am not strapped for cash, but I just don't want to spend money unneccesarily. I just don't want to get too obsolete too quickly. However, if I won't see the difference in gaming or desktop application, then it isn't worth the money. When would you see a difference?
I am basically going to build a system with a 19" LCD for $1300-$1400.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

I upgraded from a 3200+ winchester to the SD3700+, and I saw a noticeable increase. Well worth the $100 upgrade IMO. My 3700+ overclocks to 2.8ghz (200mhz more than I got from the 3200+) and the extra cache also makes a difference.