- May 6, 2004
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Anand's latest benches in the phenom II article kinda caught me off guard; I was still under impression that CPU performance is largely irrelevant for gaming past a certain threshold (say, 2.4ghz c2d). Then there were those benches on Crysis Wars that clearly showed benefits of quad cores. I am into MMORPGs and some of the players their attest that CPU performance matters quite a lot. Maybe the time is finally ripe to seriously consider quads over duals for gaming.
Here is the situation I am in: I am used to having two computers, until I gave my primary one (E7200@3.7 + HD4850) to my cousin. The secondary rig is still quite decent (E6420@3.2 + 9600GSO) for my CRT where I am free from native rez limitation.
Now that I have spare parts (case, monitor, kb, mouse, etc) except cpu/mobo/ram/vid, I am thinking of putting up another inexpensive gaming rig. My budget is quite stretchable, but I don't want something just for bragging rights. As long as it plays games well enough, nothing else really matters. Never have I encoded anything, I don't do any work on my desktops anyway.
At first I was going to get me a cheap P45 board (or that x38 foxconn for lil over $100) with a E5200 and OC the hell out of of it, but phenom II sounds mighty interesting with the talks of them having great bang for buck. I have been a bit out of the loop sorta, as I had got my E7200 and became a happy camper ever since.
I see some great deals out now, but would it be better to hold out just a tad longer? I am not in a huge rush at the moment, I could wait another month or two if needed. If otherwise, is there some significant benefit of phenom IIs over cheap wolfdales (for gaming, and gaming only)?
Cost of CPU+mobo for
C2D: $68.88 + $110.72
Phenom II $180 (920) or $220 (940) + $114.38
Overclocking is no news for me, performance at stock speeds is irrelevant.
Here is the situation I am in: I am used to having two computers, until I gave my primary one (E7200@3.7 + HD4850) to my cousin. The secondary rig is still quite decent (E6420@3.2 + 9600GSO) for my CRT where I am free from native rez limitation.
Now that I have spare parts (case, monitor, kb, mouse, etc) except cpu/mobo/ram/vid, I am thinking of putting up another inexpensive gaming rig. My budget is quite stretchable, but I don't want something just for bragging rights. As long as it plays games well enough, nothing else really matters. Never have I encoded anything, I don't do any work on my desktops anyway.
At first I was going to get me a cheap P45 board (or that x38 foxconn for lil over $100) with a E5200 and OC the hell out of of it, but phenom II sounds mighty interesting with the talks of them having great bang for buck. I have been a bit out of the loop sorta, as I had got my E7200 and became a happy camper ever since.
I see some great deals out now, but would it be better to hold out just a tad longer? I am not in a huge rush at the moment, I could wait another month or two if needed. If otherwise, is there some significant benefit of phenom IIs over cheap wolfdales (for gaming, and gaming only)?
Cost of CPU+mobo for
C2D: $68.88 + $110.72
Phenom II $180 (920) or $220 (940) + $114.38
Overclocking is no news for me, performance at stock speeds is irrelevant.