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AMD 3700+ San Diego or should I go Dual core?

B

Blammo300

Senior member
I am building a new computer for a buddy of mine and am having some difficulty with choosing the best CPU. I was planning to go with an ABIT KN8 Ultra mb and AMD 3700+ San Diego but the Manchester 3800+ is only $100 more.

Is the manchester dual core worth the xtra price?
 
Go with the X2 3800+, no doubt. I also wouldn't go with the ABIT KN8 Ultra. For about $20-$30 bucks more you could get either the DFI LANParty UT nF4 Ultra-D, Asus A8N-SLI, or the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum. In short definitaly get the X2 3800+, and one of the three motherboards above.
 
It depends on what he is using it for. The single core 3700 is significantly faster in games at stock and can easily be clocked to FX-55 speed. If it is primarily a gaming machine, go with the 3700.


 
If its a gaming rig go with the 3700+ and overclock it to 2.8, then in a year or two when more games are multi-threaded and dual cores are a dime a dozen pick one up for a cheap upgrade. And spend the extra ben on a better video card.

If doing audio/video encoding, photoshop, or other multi-threaded CPU intense apps, then get the x2 3800+
 
Originally posted by: Blammo300
It is a gaming rig so I will probably go with the 3700+. Any recommendations for motherboard under $130?
Click to expand...


I built a gaming rig and built it with a X2:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80721-1

I mean honestly you're never going to do anything else with it? Well if not, gaming is soon to be taking advantage of dual cores and some people even report some games for them now are.

ALOHA

 
Go dual-core, the X2's work just fine for gaming, and should be overclockable to at least 2.4 GHz. Games aren't that CPU limited anyways, so you really wouldn't actually notice any difference between the dual-core at 2.4 GHz and the 3700+ at 2.8 GHz, and the dual-core would be far better at multitasking and more futureproof as well. The high-clock single core only has a gaming advantage from a technical standpoint. In actual practice they'd perform essentially identically.
 
I do all kinds of things with my PC and I can't think of any reason why I would benefit from dual core. The 3800+ costs $100 more and is quite a bit slower than the 3700+ in games, so... why?? I guess in 2-3 years games will be better optimized for this, but that 3800 will be outdated by that time anyway. Spend the extra $100 on more video power.

 
quite a bit slower is a pretty big statement, I hardly think that is the case. Rather a LITTLE bit slower may be more appropriate, I hardly doubt the differences would be noticeable.

Personally I'd like to see some specs against these to show, not just talk.

But yes if that box will truly do nothing more then game, then the dual core would be a waste. I persoally can't believe that someone that is on the Forum here asking questions, in the future won't be doing so on that gaming box and surfing the net and chatting online, watching movies and burning them DVDs, etc.. but ONLY he can really say for sure.

ALOHA
 
Originally posted by: professor1942
I do all kinds of things with my PC and I can't think of any reason why I would benefit from dual core. The 3800+ costs $100 more and is quite a bit slower than the 3700+ in games, so... why?? I guess in 2-3 years games will be better optimized for this, but that 3800 will be outdated by that time anyway. Spend the extra $100 on more video power.
Click to expand...
With the new drivers that take advantage of dual-core, as well as game patches that do it as well, the X2 3800 might turn out to be quite a bit faster than the 3700, even at stock speeds.
 
Originally posted by: Meuge
Originally posted by: professor1942
I do all kinds of things with my PC and I can't think of any reason why I would benefit from dual core. The 3800+ costs $100 more and is quite a bit slower than the 3700+ in games, so... why?? I guess in 2-3 years games will be better optimized for this, but that 3800 will be outdated by that time anyway. Spend the extra $100 on more video power.
Click to expand...
With the new drivers that take advantage of dual-core, as well as game patches that do it as well, the X2 3800 might turn out to be quite a bit faster than the 3700, even at stock speeds.
Click to expand...

What new drivers?

ALOHA
 
Originally posted by: DasFox
Originally posted by: Meuge
Originally posted by: professor1942
I do all kinds of things with my PC and I can't think of any reason why I would benefit from dual core. The 3800+ costs $100 more and is quite a bit slower than the 3700+ in games, so... why?? I guess in 2-3 years games will be better optimized for this, but that 3800 will be outdated by that time anyway. Spend the extra $100 on more video power.
Click to expand...
With the new drivers that take advantage of dual-core, as well as game patches that do it as well, the X2 3800 might turn out to be quite a bit faster than the 3700, even at stock speeds.
Click to expand...
What new drivers?
Click to expand...
I know that the newest Nvidia and ATI drivers have SMP optimizations.

I haven't tested the Nvidia drivers, which are supposed to provide a decent improvement. The 5.13 Catalyst drivers for ATI give about a 5% increase in performance on my system. The Call Of Duty 2 patch gives me almost a 30% boost in FPS. In essence, my 2.4GHz X2 3800 will perform equivalently to a 3.2GHz AMD64 single-core.
 
Originally posted by: DasFox

Personally I'd like to see some specs against these to show, not just talk.
Click to expand...

I consider 13-17% better performance to be pretty significant:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=237&model2=241&chart=68

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=237&model2=241&chart=71

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=237&model2=241&chart=50

That said, I'm sure you guys are right about future games, and I will inevitably end up going dual core at some point - when I know I'll actually see the benefits. 🙂
 
That's more like it professor1942, thanks, well for me I game, but I'll use the box for work as well, so I'd like to have that dual core for all the multitasking I'll be doing.

ALOHA
 
I consider 13-17% better performance to be pretty significant:
Click to expand...

The problem is that they're not using quality settings that actually tax the video card, and even if you played the game at those settings there's no way you'd actually notice the difference between 130 fps on an X2 3800+ and 150 fps on a 3700+. Your monitor doesn't even refresh that fast. If the quality settings are cranked up to the point where things become GPU limited and fps drop down into the 60-70 range, the variation from chip to chip will be much smaller than 13%-17%. The way most of us game, the performance is GPU limited, not CPU limited, and even if you run at settings that are CPU limited, the difference from one CPU to the next isn't going to be noticeable during gameplay because your fps will already be extremely high (unless you happen to have one of those poor P4's at the bottom of the list).
 
What Some1ne says is valid and between these CPUs when it comes to the Video cards, this really brings things more into perspective. Like I might run a X2 3800 with a 7800 GTX and he runs a 3700 with a 6800 GS, so who's really running gaming performance?

Yes we can't only say the CPU is faster, TRUE as a stand alone component it is, but when matching it to the rest of the system for gaming and the settings, Well that's really the question, the best matching of components to bring it ALL into performance.

ALOHA
 
Well that's really the question, the best matching of components to bring it ALL into performance.
Click to expand...


Yep, and the general consensus that I've noticed is that most people feel that even a 3200+ at stock settings is fast enough to not bottleneck even a 7800 GTX.
 
I would still go with the X2. Even in those benchmarks, the framerates are so high they would not make a difference. Plus, you have the option to do other things with better performance with the X2, and on top of that you are much more future proof then the 3700+. I still say go with the X2.
 
With the new drivers that take advantage of dual-core, as well as game patches that do it as well, the X2 3800 might turn out to be quite a bit faster than the 3700, even at stock speeds.
Click to expand...

heres Q4. the game has to be patched for it. cod2 has the patch as well and as intel is the one pushing developers to patch, we should see more sooner than later 🙂

as noted, if you're taking $100 away from your video card purchase to buy the x2 then just get a cheap single core. but i know someone here who got an x2 3800 for $254 and theyre pretty easy to find sub $300.
 
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