Athlon 64 or dual core?

[velocci]

hi there, i'm building a new machine and i'm not sure if i should get the Athlon 64 4000+ 2.4 ghz L2 1mb or the Athlon dual core 4200+ / 2.2 GHz L2 1 MB. can you play games on the dual core as good as you can on the 64? is the dual core at 2.2ghz faster than a 64 at 2.4ghz?

 

[BoboKatt]

Take it from me who resisted the concept of going to a dual core X2 for ever since I could not justify the higher price and essentially lower CPU speed compared to say the AMD64 4000+ with 1MEG. I finally gave in and got an AMD x2 3800 (which by the way overclocks like a GOD) and I simply cannot believe the difference in speed and responsiveness. I play many different games from new and old and the ability to switch in and out of games with no delay or even running multiple instances of games like Everquest... it's just amazing. I wouldn't drop a peny on a single core... period.

Edit.. oh and btw... the loss of speed in mhz... is about the only thing really you will lose which can easily be made up with a little OC. However again comparing apples to oranges as your benefit of dual core goes beyond simple clock speed to clock speed comparisson.

 

[velocci]

hi BoboKatt, that's for the reply. But without overclocking the dual core you have, is it still faster than the 64 4000+ you had before?

 

[DeathSlayer]

I definitely recommend dual core. It is the WAY to go!

I would get a 3800+ X2, it is cheap for dual core... get a good heatsink/fan, and overclock it to at least 2.4GHz... a super deal, and easy to do.

 

[velocci]

i don't really plan on spending money on another heatsink and fan. i'll just use the one that comes with it. so i might not overclock. is the dual core still faster without overclocking?

 

[biostud]

click on the 1 and 2 in my sig and read.

If you're not much into reading just jump to the conclusions

 

[velocci]

Hey Biostud, you're right i'm not much into reading. but i skimmed through the conclutions and it seems to say that the dual core won't give me much advantage over the 64 single core. right?

 

[velocci]

as long as i have a good graphics card. i'm looking at the EVGA 7800 GT.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: velocci
Hey Biostud, you're right i'm not much into reading. but i skimmed through the conclutions and it seems to say that the dual core won't give me much advantage over the 64 single core. right?

if you're only talking about fps in games no, but it has lots of other benefits:

not slower than singlecore in games
"futureproof", more applications will start to take use of the 2nd core, including games.
can be overclocked to match singlecores in single thread apps.
Excellent for multitasking and media encoding

 

[DeathSlayer]

Originally posted by: velocci
as long as i have a good graphics card. i'm looking at the EVGA 7800 GT.

go for that. its an excellent card, but cheap. it's what im getting for my next build