should I upgrade to an X2 3800 from a non X2 3500?

[niggles]

I am hoping to get some advice here. I currently have a "AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2.2GHz Socket 939 512k L2 Cache".
I was thinking of upgrading to a "AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz Dual Core Socket 939 512K L2 Cache"
The reasoning was to get a dual core processor and perhaps to take advantage of some of the overclocking possibilities on this processor. I have the Asus budget board the Asrock 939 Sata 2 so it's not like I am going to get huge returns on an overclock. My current CPU is only clocked at 2.34 from it's stock 2.2, it's not really an overclocking board, it's a board with a ton of features.
What's the scoop, is this a good buy based on my board?

 

[Canterwood]

Go for it!

The X2 3800+ should hit at least 2.4Ghz on that board, no problem.

 

[robertk2012]

If your only using the computer for gaming I would wait. No point in upgrading now since you will see very little increase in performance in most games at this time. Now if your multitask or do alot of encoding the situation changes and im all for an x2 or opty. You probably would want to get a new board. You can get a budget DFI NF4 Ultra or Infinity for about $85 or $75. Either of those will meet your overclocking needs.

 

[niggles]

Yes, I wish I could say that I'm doing this for something other than gaming, but no, you've hit the nail on the head. I am interested in this for Gaming. So it seems this is a waste of money.
The reason why I'm trying to avoid changing the mobo is that there is a slot to allow this mobo to take the new AM2 Form-factor CPUs that are about to come out. I'd prefer the flexibilty over the additional clock speeds. I think that a few years after the new form factor is out and the boards start coming down in price then

 

[Munky]

I just recently upgraded from a 2.6ghz venice to a 2.4ghz opty 165. To be honest, it's not worth it if all you do is play FPS games. The dual core really makes a difference in cpu-intensive games like Civ4, and it was cool to be able to encode divx movies at 110fps (no kidding!), but in general every day use I dont notice much benefit from dual cores, especially if most of your apps do not suport multi-threading. I was at least hoping I could compress/decompress files faster in WinAce, but it only uses one core, so I see no benefit in that case.

 

[the Chase]

I agree with the tiger and the munky...