Should I get a dual core?

[IHYLN]

Originally posted by: Neavo
there are those of us that say go for it, there are those of us that say not to go for the X2.
im one that says dont. you dont need it at this stage, waith 18 months when thats all thats made. Right at the moment, there arent many programs written for hte dual core, not many softwares written in that bit. kinda like the Athlon 64, its a 64 bit chip, most software is 32 bit. thats the problem we had with windows 3.1 going to 98. all programs back then had 16 bit interfaces, so when the 32 bit os came out, the cpu had extra work to do converting 16 bit into 32 bit. same thing with the x2. its a great chip yea, but it doesnt do alot more for ya, go with a AMD 64 3200 or higher, but use a 32 bit OS for now. a good video card (256-512MG) should take alot of work off your cpu, not to mention plenty of ram. so thats where i stand.

if you work for the I pull stuff out of my ass department then yeah you are right. Fortunately, you aren't. Windows 95/98 could run 16bit apps without any of the extra work you mentioned because 95/98 was still basically a UI on top of DOS with better 32bit support.

reading the rest of your post I can see you don't seem to know much about computers, OS, and the basic architecture of PCs in general. CPUs starting with the 386 (I believe starting with that CPU) were 32 bit chips so I have no idea where you got the idea that CPUs needed to convert. I'm guessing you thought that since athlon 64 is a 64bit chip then all CPUs are converting to 32bit because of the OS, I don't know what nonsense you were thinking of but you were coughing up not just the wrong tree but a whole forest.

 

[Makaveli]

that was funny

 

[13Gigatons]

I recommend the x2 for these reason:

1. Vista will run great on it.

2. It won't be obsolete as fast as single core.

3. More software will come out that will run great on it.

4. Single core gets bog down just doing simple things like scan for viruses.

5. It overclocks pretty well: 2.6 Ghz or so which should rock in games.

 

[billsbury]

I just got the 3800 and I'm pleased with it.

 

[Ichigo]

If you had the money, there's no way anyone could argue for single core. But your budget is low, so you don't have a choice.

 

[Ichigo]

And not like Quake 4 or CoD2 have dual core support right?

Only CoD2 has performance gains, but you know.

 

[Mem]

Quake 4 has dual core support with latest drivers,lot of new games will support dual core ,Oblivion being one for example and now both ATI and Nvidia have dual core support in their drivers.

We all multitask to some point,I know I'm happy with my AMD dual core CPU (3800+).

All I can say is go with your gut feeling,in the end your decision is the only important one.I always keep my CPU longer then my video card(so having a faster video card with a single core cpu for same budget and gaming in my situation is not that important) .

 

[LED]

Originally posted by: 13Gigatons
I recommend the x2 for these reason:

1. Vista will run great on it.

2. It won't be obsolete as fast as single core.

3. More software will come out that will run great on it.

4. Single core gets bog down just doing simple things like scan for viruses.

5. It overclocks pretty well: 2.6 Ghz or so which should rock in games.

Very valid and good points not to mention that D/C video drivers are just starting to tweaked and many Multimedia stuff (ie.Windows Media Encoder 9) will preform much better with D/C...although the OP is limited with funds...if gaming is the priority here sure buy the SC and better GPU be happy for a short while...I guess I'm old fashin but I cannot see anyone having a Puter just for Games...hell I'd get 1 PS2 or the like if that was my case