Upgrade from Athlon64 2480mhz on 939 board?

[wbynum]

I've got a two year old socket 939/nforce4 system with an Athlon64 Venice chip running at 2480mhz. I recently upgraded the video card to an x1950xt card. I know the upgrade path on the 939 socket is limited. Is there a better 939 chip that would make an appreciable difference in games at 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 resolution?

My current system specs:

- Epox 939 nforce4 MB
- Athlon64 Venice OC'ed to 2480mhz
- 2GB DDR memory
- x1950xt Sapphire reference design card

Thanks!

 

[MarcVenice]

Not really, I think. You would have to go dualcore, but not that many games really utilize dualcore. Shadowrun does, Two Worlds does, and so does supreme commander, that's it. But you'd have to get one running faster then 2480mhz, coz otherwise a lot of games will run slower if they only use 1 core. But, dualcore is always nice, you could get a x2 3800+ toledo at newegg for 85$ or so, oc it to 2.6ghz at the very least, coz it has a 10 multiplier, instead of a 9 multi like you got on the venice, right ?

 

[duragezic]

Only noticeable in current dual core utilized games like Quake 4, the ones Marc mentioned, RB6 Vegas, and a few others have decent utilization of 2 cores. I posted a similar thread and the general consensus from people who did basically the same upgrade was NO difference.

Yet in spite of that, I still did the same upgrade. UPS is taking their sweet ass time cause they wouldn't want to be early or anything like that, but I can update on Monday when it arrives. I'll be going from a Opteron 146 @ 2.4 GHz to a Opteron 165 which should have no problem hitting 2.4 GHz, and I will likely be mobo limited at ~300x9=2.7 GHz before the chip limits me (latest ones from Newegg reviews show good overclocks).

So at the 1680x1050 I game at, it is unlikely to see any performance boost. But it is possible I'll end up with a slightly higher clock speed from the 165, so I'm not loosing anything. The 165 was $94 shipped minus $35-40 (est.) for selling my 146, so a cheap upgrade still. I fully am aware to not expect really anything in the majority of games I play, but this upgrade is so that with a new video card, I will be able to play Crysis and other games. Hell, Shadowrun requires a dual core processor already.

Another reason that I upgraded my 939 system is that it is unlikely that 939 chips like the Opteron 165 or lower X2s to drop that much more in price (unless you consider used). There is still a demand for them. Since I won't be able to afford a new C2D or other system AND a new video card in the next 6+ months, I figured a cheap dual core to take advantage of upcoming games (and not lose any performance in non-dual core games anyway) along with a new video card (8800GTS will drop in price in the upcoming months, while a dual core 939 like the 165 is unlikely to drop much more) will hold me over for about a year.

 

[MarcVenice]

People seem to be forgetting that the current K8 chips are still pretty darn fast processors. Core 2 duo is where the top performance is at, but the only read affordable high end processor there is the e6600, which runs at 2.4ghz and compares to roughly a 3ghz x2 xxxx cpu. So a opty 165 at 2.6 or higher is still very competitive, or a x2 3800+ toledo at 2.6ghz or higher.