What is the difference between an X2 3800+ and a plain 3800+?

[InsiderGamer]

I'm in the market for a new gaming PC and heard lots of great things about the AMD 3800+'s, but am not sure which is more suited to my needs (or is just plain "better"). At the website I'm building my PC at, the difference between the two is $5, so price is rather a negligible issue. For my new PC, I'm looking to simply do some gaming or do some graphic editing. Multi-tasking would be nice, as that's what the X2 seems to tout as its strong point, but if the plain vanilla 3800+ is faster at gaming, I'd go with that.

So can anyone break this down for me? The X2 3800+ seems to run at 2.0 Ghz while the 3800+ runs at 2.4 Ghz (however the cache for the X2 is twice as large). What do those differences translate to when talking about games or multi-tasking?

Thanks.

~IG

 

[atybimf]

x2 is dual core. vanilla is single core.

 

[InsiderGamer]

Sorry, I didn't quite make that clear. I know one is dual core, but for gaming and other applications, what would be the real difference in terms of performance? Is the X2 better at multi-tasking and the 3800 better for gaming? Does one triumph over the other for *everything*?

Thanks again.

~IG

 

[stevty2889]

For just gaming, the single core 3800+ will have the advantage at stock speed, but to me, the few frames per second differance isn't that important. The graphics card is more the limiter anyway, unless you play at low resolutions. The X2 is far superior for multi-tasking. There is a good chace your graphics editing software can take advantage of the second core, which will give you a huge improvement. After having a dual core, I could never go back to a single core for my main rig. My 4200+ X2 runs great overclocked to 2.618ghz.

 

[InsiderGamer]

Thanks so much, stevty! That really helped, but now I'm tempted to go for the 4200+...

~IG

 

[richardrds]

Even though the X2 3800+ is clocked at only 2.0Ghz, it can easily reach 2.3-2.5Ghz If you OC it. Even if you run it at stock, you can have one core run your game while the second core runs all the PC's backround tasks. Plus drivers from Nividia GPU'sare optimized to allow the second core to help with running the game even if the game is not coded to support multitasking.

I would definetely go with the X2 3800!!!!!! You will get great gaming performance now and even better when the next generation of games are written to take full advantage of the second core.

 

[MrDudeMan]

definitely get the X2. no debate here.

 

[Geomagick]

Originally posted by: Bigsm00th
definitely get the X2. no debate here.

What it loses in clockspeed it more than makes up for in flexibilty. Dual core is one of those things you can't understand why you ever needed it but once you've got it you can't understand how you lived without it.

 

[Markbnj]

[What it loses in clockspeed it more than makes up for in flexibilty. Dual core is one of those things you can't understand why you ever needed it but once you've got it you can't understand how you lived without it]

:thumbsup:

 

[theMan]

definately the X2 3800+.