Worth it to upgrade from 3500+ to 4600+ X2?

[Mackie2k]

Right now my box is stricktly a Vista Media Center box. It's going to be doing a lot of encoding and ripping.

I have a 3500+ with 1 gig of Ram. I'm installing a Dvico HDTV tuner card, so I'll be ripping a ton of HD and encoding.

I can pick up a 4600+ X2 for $200.....which seems like a fairly reasonable upgrade path. The 4800+ and FX60 are $350 and $450 and the performance difference isn't much.

Thoughts?

 

[myocardia]

Well, you'll definitely see the benefits of having two cores, when ripping and encoding. If that's worth $200 to you, then get a 4600. You'll see hardly any benefits in single-threaded apps, though, since it's only 200 Mhz faster, and has the same amount of L2 cache.

 

[Kromis]

I bet someone's gonna mention Core 2 Duo any moment now...

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: Kromis
I bet someone's gonna mention Core 2 Duo any moment now...

It would have been mentioned 15 times already, if he had posted at 2 pm, instead of 2 am.:laugh:

 

[DrMrLordX]

Originally posted by: Mackie2k
Right now my box is stricktly a Vista Media Center box. It's going to be doing a lot of encoding and ripping.

I have a 3500+ with 1 gig of Ram. I'm installing a Dvico HDTV tuner card, so I'll be ripping a ton of HD and encoding.

I can pick up a 4600+ X2 for $200.....which seems like a fairly reasonable upgrade path. The 4800+ and FX60 are $350 and $450 and the performance difference isn't much.

Thoughts?

Sounds like a decent upgrade plan to me, though if you can stomach overclocking, you could probably pick up a slower X2 and save yourself a little money in the process.

 

[Mackie2k]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: Kromis
I bet someone's gonna mention Core 2 Duo any moment now...

It would have been mentioned 15 times already, if he had posted at 2 pm, instead of 2 am.:laugh:

DOn't want to do a full motherboard/proc/ram upgrade.....otherwise I would get a Core2 Duo.

The system I have is plenty decent and a $200 a proc upgrade will put it in the same "ballpark" as a lower end Core 2.....for 1/3 of the upgrade price.