Single-Core guy looking to upgrade

JasonSix78

Platinum Member
Mar 5, 2005
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So I'm the hardware guru, at least to everyone who knows me. Lately everyone is asking me to pick out various hardware upgrades for them, and all the perusing on Newegg is drivin' me nuts for an upgrade myself.

I'm looking at upgrading to an AM2 based board with an AMD X2 5200+ processor. What I'm hung up on, other than the fact that I don't need to spend the freakin' money, is what kind of performance increase DDR2 800 offers over DDR 400. I understand that timings and latency comes into play, but overall what's the boost, if any? The reason I ask is that I'm going to try to keep the cost down as much as possible and will only be using a gb of RAM to start off with. I'll slap some more in later on down the road.

Also, is there any software that will allow you to ban yourself from computer hardware sites like Newegg?? :eek:

Cheers :beer:,
-Jason

 

semo

Senior member
Dec 24, 2004
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are you just generally asking about the difference or are you considering which one to purchase. as far as i know you can't put ddr on am2 board/proc so ddr2 is your only choice. if you're just asking... well who cares ddr is dying, i don't think any new stuff is coming out and ddr2's price is coming down faster than it is coming down for ddr.

ps. i don't think you can ban yourself to do anything, maybe ask your parents to install parental control on your pc and don't ask for the password.
 

JasonSix78

Platinum Member
Mar 5, 2005
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:laugh: Well I would have to install the parental control myself, I'm 28 years old. The software bit was a joke. :)

And about the memory, I was just wondering what to expect in the jump from DDR to DDR2 in terms of system performance (games, encoding, etc.) Ad your right about memory prices, I was considering a DDR memory upgrade several months back but the stuff is too expensive.

-Jason
 

semo

Senior member
Dec 24, 2004
292
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i know u kid. i kid too.

for real difference i can't give you an idea (can't tell you how it "feels" since i'm still on pc-133) but i know the switchover wasn't nearly as bad as when intel did it. ddr2 has been refined, lowered in price and become faster since the bad old days of prescott. i would say don't worry about it since going from 1 core to 2 alone gives nice boost in performance (i hear dual core solves most of the "program does not respond... needs to close" annoyances) but if you want facts, why don't you look at some reviews when am2 just came out.
http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2741&p=9
there's more. the one above was a preview i think.
 

ayabe

Diamond Member
Aug 10, 2005
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Well it might help if you told us a little more about your current rig. If you already have a 939 mobo and some decent DDR, I would just get an Opteron or X2 flavor of 939 dual core.

If you are going to have to shell out for DDR2 there's really no sense in going AM2 over C2D, get yourself a decent mobo and an e6300 and it will smoke the X2 5200 with a little overclocking.

As for the performance to be gained going from DDR to DDR2, it's pretty much nil in real world terms.
 

JasonSix78

Platinum Member
Mar 5, 2005
2,020
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Wow, looks like the performance gain is very minimal, according to those Anandtech article links. Of course the DDR they're using is running some tight timings and low latency and the DDR2 they paired it up with isn't the fastest. But still, I get the picture. Thanks for the links Semo and Roguestar.

My current rig:
Asus A8N5X (skt. 939)
Athlon 64 3200+ Venice oc'd to 2.4ghz
2 x 512mb DDR 400 (Corsair XMS running cas latency 2.5...can't remember the timings off the top of my head, nothing spectacular)

As far as building a C2D rig, I've been a loyal AMD customer for some years now. I've had zero issues with all my AMD rigs so I've stuck with them. I'm considering building a C2D rig now because, including you Ayabe and Roguestar, the general consensus is that the C2D processors are where it's at.

Any other suggestions are very welcome.

Thanks,
-Jason
 

imported_Imp

Diamond Member
Dec 20, 2005
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Have to recommend you go C2D as well, AMD's lagging in price and performance right now. If you really love them, you won't give them money as incentive to catch up;).

Edit: Took out asked & answered part.
 

DaveSimmons

Elite Member
Aug 12, 2001
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My old work PC was a P4 3.2C, my current work & gaming PCs are both A64 X2.

If you're buying all new RAM and motherboard, AM2 doesn't make much sense except at the lowest end (cheap, better than cureent P4/celeron). Core 2 is simply superior right now on price, performance, and performance-per-watt (important if you like quiet PCs).

Don't buy AMD out of brand loyalty. Buy the better intel CPU to encourage AMD to start competing again.