CPU for gaming

[atlxpat]

Alright i'm new to the forums and i'm looking for a better cpu then what i currently have* AMD 64-bit 3200+ venice core* i am on a budget of less than $300 but i'm considering the pentium D 805 due to a friend sending me this
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/10/dual_41_ghz_cores/
thanks

 

[Ika]

For gaming, a 3200+ venice is generally good enough, and definitely better than any Pentium under $300. If you overclock, the 3200+ can become even better. the 805 is more for multitaskers and home entertainment, as it is a good overclocker, cheap, and dual-core. at this point, however, A64 still rocks intel in gaming.

 

[R3LIC]

i would look more at your video card than your cpu

as gouziming said, a 3200+ is good enough for gaming

use the $300 and get a 7900GT or X1800XT

 

[atlxpat]

yea, currently i got 6800 ultra and 1 gig of ocz gold edition ram

 

[Sable]

Wait a sec. You want to upgrade your AMD 64 3200+ to an Intel Pentium D 805?

Are you including a motherboard upgrade in this as well?

Surely you could get more processor for your money by buying one to drop into your present motherboard.

 

[deadseasquirrel]

While the CPU does play a factor in gaming performance, the rest of your system also plays a very important part-- i.e. what video card you have, what resolution you play at, etc. I don't know what games you play or want to play, but here is BF2 with chips ranging from an FX57 to a Celeron D. At a mid-range resolution (1280x1024), there is virtually no difference between an FX57 and a Sempron 3400+ in BF2. The difference would be even less at higher resolutions, and likely more pronounced at lower resolutions. The graphics card is a 7800GT.

Here is FEAR. It's even more GPU dependent. As you can see, they even dropped the resolution down lower to 1024x768 and show that an FX57 performs the same as a low-end Celeron D. (Another FEAR example)

Your 3200+ is a great gaming CPU. Focus that extra money on a GPU upgrade (get $150+ from selling your 6800U on the For Sale forums here) and grab a x1900xt or 7900GT or whatever your budget will allow. I don't know what display you're using, so I can't comment there. Another 1 GB of RAM would definitely help too.

 

[NoStateofMind]

^^^^ fricken right on!

 

[Gbaby1008]

Save up for a new video card. Your 3200 venice is just fine for gaming. If you have to overclock it. I got mine at 2.6 at 1.45v and i can get fx-57 speeds on 3dmark05 cpu test

 

[TejTrescent]

The 805D would be a pointless upgrade--after the mobo, CPU, and cooling, and quite possibly new power supply required to get it running (unless you've got one that could handle SLI easily, since.. it peaked at over 400W, I think it was over 500W even, with a single graphics card, did it not?), you'd be over the 300$ you mentioned.

RAM and GPU. Go for a GPU upgrade. If you don't push any harder than 1280x1024, you won't see any visible difference in anything but MAYBE Oblivion. RAM's another fast way to increase your performance in some games, but your 6800U, it's gonna fall out faster than the 3200 is, which I hate saying since I've also got one. A 3200's a really good budget CPU.

If you're DETERMINED to get a processor instead of anything else, probably an X2 3800's your best bet, but.. really.. GPU and RAM, far better use of your money.

 

[atlxpat]

yea alright heres my specs
ultra 600w power supply
6800 ultra 256mb
3200+ amd 64 and i do have a non-stock fan for it forgot what kind but its copper so im sure it could handle overclocking + arctic silver 5
1 gig ocz gold edition
K8n Neo2 board
well heres another question then: from these specs how much could my computer overclock to and still be stable and could you please give me the FSB and etc. for it

 

[atlxpat]

btw i play many FPS's right now i'm trying to play ghost recon: advanced warfight but i can barely run it at the minimum graphics, it crashes straight to desktop
i'm thinking this maybe possibly be ram cause my friend did mess around with it in bios but who knows there can be many reasons why this is happening =\

 

[Sable]

Originally posted by: atlxpat
yea alright heres my specs
ultra 600w power supply
6800 ultra 256mb
3200+ amd 64 and i do have a non-stock fan for it forgot what kind but its copper so im sure it could handle overclocking + arctic silver 5
1 gig ocz gold edition
K8n Neo2 board
well heres another question then: from these specs how much could my computer overclock to and still be stable and could you please give me the FSB and etc. for it

Overclocking is trial and error and to be brutally honest I don;t think you've got the computer knowledge to be messing around with it. There's plenty of guides for it though so you could give it a try.

GRAW should run on your system, it sounds like something else is buggered up somewhere in your setup.

http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/action/tomclancysghostrecon3/review.html?sid=6149136

To give you an idea of the kind of stress GRAW can put on your computer, the machine we tested on, a Pentium 4 2.53GHz with 1GB of RAM and a 256MB GeForce 6800 Ultra, is considered mid-spec by the game. You're not allowed to even try to set the texture detail to high with a 256MB card--that's reserved for the pricy 512MB behemoths. The game still looks nice and sharp at medium detail, but as we mentioned, frame rates can drop precipitously when there are explosions or even just lots of enemies in the surrounding area. All of our gameplay was done at a modest resolution of 1024x768-- anything higher than that led to an unacceptable frame rate.

 

[BW86]

Your 3200 is fine for gaming. Maybe get a better HSF and overclock it. I would invest the money in a better video card.