whats more important for video games?

[otispunkmeyer]

i was just wondering as to what games benefit from the most when it comes to CPU and Memory

looking at Athlon XP in particular

would a game benefit more from.....

1) a large cache like on the bartons? (would an equally clocked barton out perform a equally clocked thoroughbred?)

2) raw speed.....which would mean a cpu with good overclocking ability

3) FSB speed

also what about dual channle ram set up?

taking the above into consideration would you choose a XP2500 barton or barton mobile? or for the same price as the mobile......a XP2600 with 333FSB (thorougbred)

 

[Corporate Thug]

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1783&p=12

the 2700+ and the 3000+ are clocked the same, but the 3000+ is a barton and as you can see from the benchies, it outperforms the 2700+ in every gaming test

as for dual channel, not very important for AMD unless you are using onboard graphics (in which case i assume gaming isnt even a priority)

 

[VIAN]

i was just wondering as to what games benefit from the most when it comes to CPU and Memory

looking at Athlon XP in particular

would a game benefit more from.....

1) a large cache like on the bartons? (would an equally clocked barton out perform a equally clocked thoroughbred?)

2) raw speed.....which would mean a cpu with good overclocking ability

3) FSB speed

also what about dual channle ram set up?

taking the above into consideration would you choose a XP2500 barton or barton mobile? or for the same price as the mobile......a XP2600 with 333FSB (thorougbred)

1) An equally clocked barton outperfroms an equally clocked thoroughbred because the performance rating is higher. The extra cache does work to provide more speed. However, if you get a equal performance ratings, but one is clock higher than the other, then it is about equal in wins. Some tests one would win and vice-versa. The tests where the clock speed would win would be the tests where Intel is more successful. Integer tests and things like that. Stuff that we don't care about. The cache is better for gaming.

2)The lower the clock speed with the higher the performance rating is better. XPs only clock to about 2.3GHz as the highest. So the Barton with 400FSB is probably the better overclocker. I don't overclock, so wait for more posts to confirm this.

3) FSB speed is always good to have. FSB speed is the total system performance. I would rather have a higher system performance than just one piece perform great. Dual channel set up is useless in some motherboards since the XPs don't have FSB speed higher than 400MHz. With the Nforce2 board however, they have a sort of data prediction thing on it's northbridge which gives decent speed boosts and utilizes some bandwidth. In this case is where Dual Channel would be of some help. Plus if you have an integrated graphics chip. That is another reason.

I would try to get the highest cache and FSB speed for the XP over the higher clock speed. Highest cache is 512kB and Highest FSB is 200MHz, 400MHz effective.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

so a xp2500 barton would be a better choice gaming wise over a 2600 thoroughbred both 333fsb
what bout the 2500 mobile? or is that not a barton?

 

[Gagabiji]

You can overclock the 2500 Barton to 3200 speeds, if that helps...but what do I know.

 

[high]

I use my 1700+ @ 2.4 in my gaming rig and my 2500+ @ 2.3 in my storage rig.

 

[VIAN]

so a xp2500 barton would be a better choice gaming wise over a 2600 thoroughbred both 333fsb

The only reason the 2500 barton is better than the 2600 is because it has high overclockability in the unlocked versions. There are locked versions although I don't know the specifics on that.
The performance rating of the 2600 is higher, ultimately beating the 2500.
Only if the performance ratings are the same is where you can declare that the chip with the cache would win.

 

[McArra]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
so a xp2500 barton would be a better choice gaming wise over a 2600 thoroughbred both 333fsb
what bout the 2500 mobile? or is that not a barton?

You can achieve great overclocking results with 2500 mobile, far better than with non-mobile. People is getting 2,5ghz+ overclocks with ease. The best purchase you could do for a not expensive rig, but as good performer as very few are. Take a look at CPU/overclocking forum to see it yourself.