Looking at stretching out my 939 system.

[agathodaimon]

I have an athlon 4000 right now, on a MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum board that supports dual core processors.

I'm looking at the x2 4200 939 chips, and was wondering if it may be worth the hassle.
I don't have the money, and won't for quite a while for a whole new system.

I've recently started playing Supreme Commander, and my 4000 struggles when the games get even remotely intense. I'm thinking dual core might help. (from what I've heard)

Any thoughts? I would like to get the 4400 chip, but they're too expensive.

Also, I don't overclock. It has never gone well for me.

 

[google01103]

Big q re: x2 is whether the games played take advantage of both cores, if not you'd be better off with a fast single core (iirc the individual cores of a 4200 x2 are slower than your 4000+) . Socket 939's are pretty cheap in the 4sale forums.

Personlly I think you should attempt to oc because it's the cheapest thing you could do though the higher clocked cpu's tend to have less headroom to oc.

might more ram or a better gpu help?

 

[agathodaimon]

Well, for the rest of my system I have a x1950xt (512mb) and 2gb of PC3200.

Newegg has the x2 4200 for $84 shipped.
Most of my games run fine, but if I can get some decent performance gains in Supreme Commander for only $84 plus the sale of my 4000, I'll go for it.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Overclock the old CPU. Should be able to hit 2.7GHz or better.

 

[myocardia]

Supreme Commander will definitely take advantage of the second core. I'd buy that 4200 soon, though; it wasn't there 8 hours ago, and probably won't be there tomorrow.

 

[Slackenerny]

I moved from a 3200+ running at 2.5GHz to an X2 4600+ and noticed a HUGE difference on most things. Sup Com was actually the driving factor for the upgrade. Sup Com on single core doesn't work...totally CPU bound. An X2 939 is fine for it. Also Vista needs a dual-core. I've run it under both single and dual and its like night and day.

Here are my Sup Com perftest (internal benchmark) scores with the X2 4600+ running at 2.6GHz and a 7800GT:

Supreme Commander - Sim 8301
Supreme Commander - Render 4164

 

[QuixoticOne]

I agree, X2 is a very good and cost effective upgrade.

Supreme Commander runs great on my X2-4400 original (1MB+1MB L2 cache unlike
the newer ones).

I'm sure you could overclock an X2-4200 a bit too, so that may help it perform as
well as a 4400 at stock speed might.

Check out "Crystal CPUID" from Crystalmark
I think it might be able to manage your CPU clocks under a Windows program.

However your best and cheapest performance increase is to modestly overclock your
existing CPU. You should be able to get at least a stable 15% boost
easily without any added voltages or unreasonable temperatures (though keep an eye on it!).

I've seen Fry's selling the X2-4400 AM2 WITH an low end
AM2 / motherboard for $99, and I imagine they'll do that sort of thing again
more frequently. I'm not sure if the motherboard took only DDR2 or also DDR option.

I don't know about similar Socket 939 CPU deals from them, but it's a possibility,
but less common since most of AMDs CPUs are AM2 socket now.

 

[Vinny73]

I had a XP 3200+ went to a 4400+ massive difference.
Just gone from the X2 4400+ to the X2 6000+ again a nice noticeable difference. But also went DDR2 at the same time.

I can o/c my 4400+ to 2.5ghz per core no prob. You wil notice a difference on either the 4200 or 4400, they are both cheap these days.

 

[robmurphy]

If you use socket 939 you MUST use DDR. If you use AM2 you MUST use DDR2. On the S939 and AM2 processors the memory controller is on the CPU.

If you are stuck for the S939 X2 checkout if the equivelant dual core S939 Opteron is available.

The S939 X2 came with 512k and 1M cache per core. The CPU with the bigger cache was rated 200 more so if the X2 4200 has 512k cache the X2 4400 will have the same clock speed but a bigger cache.

Rob.

 

[agathodaimon]

Well, I ended up ordering it yesterday & said what the heck.

It'll be here tomorrow sometime.
I figure $80 for dual core isn't bad at all, and I'll hopefully recoup half that cost with the sale of my 4000.

Supreme Commander is really the first time that I've "needed" dual core... I was a bit disappointed that my 4000 did so poorly with it.

 

[Vinny73]

I paid today's equivalent of about $500US when that CPU came out, $80 is a bargain. Just bought the 6000+ for $200 roughly.

 

[Ichigo]

He clearly mentions SC in his first post and you guys beat around the bush wondering if any games he plays will need dual-core.

TC: You made the right decision.

 

[agathodaimon]

Well, I got my X2 yesterday... Plopped it in and booted up just fine.
I downloaded the X2 optimizer from AMD's site. Whether or not it does anything, who knows.

I haven't had ANY time to game yet, but I'll update how it does.
So far though, it beats my 4000 in 3dmark by several hundred points, that's even at the lower clock speed too.
2.2ghz vs. 2.4ghz.

Now, I've already tried overclocking for the heck of it, but I'm a n00b and set the FSB in my bios to 220mhz.
Made the tiny bit of gaming I've done unstable... The screen would blank out after a few minutes, and I'd be stuck having to reboot.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[agathodaimon]

Update on the gaming scenario.

The dual core move was WORTH IT. Every single penny. Supreme commander runs silky smooth 90% of the time, and Titan Quest's lag is gone. Sometimes in TQ, it would get choppy and lag (all single player), I played for about 3 hours today with no problems at all.

Highly recommended. I wonder what I'm missing with newer AM2 or C2D cpus if the 939 X2's are this good.

 

[CurseTheSky]

The jump from single core to dual core is huge; the jump from an older dual core to a newer dual core (S939 X2 to Core 2 Duo) won't be as noticeable.

 

[NoSoup4You]

Congrats on the X2, glad to hear it's working out well for you.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: agathodaimon
Now, I've already tried overclocking for the heck of it, but I'm a n00b and set the FSB in my bios to 220mhz.
Made the tiny bit of gaming I've done unstable... The screen would blank out after a few minutes, and I'd be stuck having to reboot.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

How to overclock an Athlon 64. Most of the X2's will do between 2.5 & 2.8 Ghz. You'll just have to try yours, to find out how fast it will go.

 

[imported_rod]

I have an X2 4200+ ... it's a good CPU. SupCom will definitely benefit from it. And you can always just overclock it back up to the speed of your current 4000+.

BtW, the X2 4200+ is basically dual 3500+'s.

 

[agathodaimon]

I don't think the extra 200mhz difference even matters. As it is getting better scores on benchmarks than the 4000 was... Everything at stock speeds.

Doesn't mean I'm NOT going to try overclocking it.