New CPU: Newcastle or Clawhammer

[Bojangles139]

Newcastle cheaper but only come with 512 cache. is the meg cache worth the extra money?

will be paired up with DFI's nForce3 250 board and Corsiar PC2700 and is primarly used for gaming.

brandon

 

[uOpt]

In my choice of a 3400+, I could get the faster clockspeed or the bigger cache. For almost all applications (sans Unreal, apparently), the greater clockspeed is overall faster.

Note, however, that I don't overclock, the newer core might have more overclocking potential. But if you wat that you should probably go to 90nm right away.

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Go with the higher clockspeed Newcastle because the Cache has been shown to have less overall performance increase than clockspeed. Look at the FX-53/4000+ benchmarks versus the 3800+ benchmarks. Very close. Now look at the FX-55. Much bigger jump in performance going from 2400 to 2600 with same 1024 L2cache(FX-53/4000+ vs FX-55) than going from 2400 512K L2 cache (3800) to 1024L2 Cache (FX-53/4000+). There will be some instances where the cache is better but not many. Also overclocking may be better on less cache but not particularly.

 

[Bojangles139]

Originally posted by: MartinCracauerNote, however, that I don't overclock, the newer core might have more overclocking potential. But if you wat that you should probably go to 90nm right away.

ok, i get to ask something thats perplexed me for a bit... what does Xnm mean?

 

[jeffmin]

nm = nanometer = one millionth the size of a millimeter = really damn small

when talking about cpus, it usually refers to how small they can make a wire in the manufacturing process. 90nm is only about 300 atoms big, so that means there are some seriously small wires and transistors etched into today's chips.

 

[Bojangles139]

Originally posted by: jeffmin
nm = nanometer = one millionth the size of a millimeter = really damn small

when talking about cpus, it usually refers to how small they can make a wire in the manufacturing process. 90nm is only about 300 atoms big, so that means there are some seriously small wires and transistors etched into today's chips.

meh... ya, i know NM is a measurement of size/distance, just not sure how they relate to cpu performance.

brandon

 

[imported_SLIM]

Originally posted by: Bojangles139

Originally posted by: jeffmin
nm = nanometer = one millionth the size of a millimeter = really damn small

when talking about cpus, it usually refers to how small they can make a wire in the manufacturing process. 90nm is only about 300 atoms big, so that means there are some seriously small wires and transistors etched into today's chips.

meh... ya, i know NM is a measurement of size/distance, just not sure how they relate to cpu performance.

brandon

Die process shrinks (180nm to 130nm to 90nm) typically lead to cooler, less power hungry processors given the same number of transistors at a given frequency. It also means that AMD or Intel can make more cpu's per wafer of silicon which SHOULD make them cheaper. Die shrinks also typically allow for higher clock speeds.

SLIM

 

[KoolDrew]

If you are overclocking I would say it is worth the extra money. You could easily overclock the clock speed but you can't add more cache

But seeing as you will porbally not be overclocking (especially with PC2700 RAM) then going with the higher clock speed would be better

 

[Concillian]

If you are overclocking:
The newcastle core is known to reach significantly higher speeds than the clawhammer core (~2500 or so vs generally <2300 for the Claw)... winner Newcastle

If you are not overclocking:
In almost every case 200 MHz > extra 512k cache... winner Newcastle

Price is cheaper on the Newcastle.

So umm, get the Newcastle.