SSE3 on A64... how important?

[htmlmasterdave]

How much of a difference does it make in typical stuff? SSE3 enabled programs? Has anyone compared it on Vista? Just wondering if not having SSE3 when I upgrade to vista will suck.

 

[sourceninja]

Not sure about windows, but most linux distros do not compile with sse3 enabled. Plus for 64bit linux distros most sse, sse2, sse3, etc type things do not work anyways (I know gentoo hard masks those flags in most packages so they do not get compiled with that support).

I suspect windows is the same way. I doubt you will notice anything by not having sse3.

 

[dguy6789]

At the moment, SSE3 does not improve performance much. But in the future, it very well may do so.

Right now, the difference between a processor with SSE1 and a processor with SSE2 is huge.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=1884&p=16

Notice the terrible performance the Athlon XP 3200+ has compared to other processors that it is normally very competitive with(3.0C). This is because all processors in those tests have SSE1+2 while the Athlon XP has only SSE1.

There is no reason why this trend will not continue. I expect future programs to take great advantage from SSE3 in the future.

 

[htmlmasterdave]

Thanks, I know it was a bit of a dumb question, but I was just curious. Right now I'm looking at a new video card, but I have an agp/pci (a64 w/ sse2) system and I'm just trying to figure out how long it will last for. I don't want to buy a new agp card and then in 6 months curse myself because I want to buy a new cpu and can only get a PCI-E motherboard, forcing me to buy another card.

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: htmlmasterdave
Thanks, I know it was a bit of a dumb question, but I was just curious. Right now I'm looking at a new video card, but I have an agp/pci (a64 w/ sse2) system and I'm just trying to figure out how long it will last for. I don't want to buy a new agp card and then in 6 months curse myself because I want to buy a new cpu and can only get a PCI-E motherboard, forcing me to buy another card.

Then may I recommend this mainboard:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157081

It supports both AGP 8x and PCIe x16, socket 939 and am2, as well as has a pcie1x slot and 3 pci slots. Dual channel memory, ect.. Great performance, easy overclockability... But don't take my word for it, take anandtech's.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2524

I have been using this board myself for multiple months with both agp and pcie cards and it is pure ownage.

 

[htmlmasterdave]

Well the only problem there is, I have a socket 754 cpu right now...sorry I didn't mention that

 

[dguy6789]

You can buy a good agp card now. When you upgrade to socket 939, you can use that board and still keep your current gpu.

 

[htmlmasterdave]

I guess I can always hope I'll find an agp board I like by the time I want to upgrade... if i went to something like a 6800GS or 7800GS... it should last a while right?

 

[dguy6789]

Depending on the resolution and anti aliasing levels and anisotropic filtering levels you like, either card may last quite a while. People say the 6800GS overclocks really well and at that level, it performs on par with x800xl/xt level cards. 7800GS is a little slower than an X850XTPE. Both of those cards should be able to run games for the next year or two very well.

 

[htmlmasterdave]

Yeah... I'd probably lean towards the 7800GS at some point.... do you think my powersupply can handle it all? These new cards are really power hungry aren't they? http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=10549