yeah another question about dual core processors x.x

[Arkane13131]

Just another dork that needs to buy a new system. My radeon9800pro died..and my comp is junk anyway at this point...its ancient..so..... time to buy a new one.

This dilemma has been adressed time and time again, i have spent literally hours hunting through posts and searching benchmarks ect ect....but a very simple thing I have yet to find.

Im looking for a benchmark, compairing 3800+ venice and 3800+ x-2
while running something like quake4 where i can literally see benchmarks for the single code version and the version with the dual core patch.

How much faster would an X-2 be of the exact same listed speed as the single core if the game had both options available?

All benchmarks i see compaire dual core to dual core...and dual core running single thread version to dual core running with the new patch...but for the life of me i cannot find a single one that shows a straight up compairison like this.

I know Oblivion is coming out, and its supposedly written for dual core cpu's to be able to take advatange of their potential...but i am trying to get a rough idea of what that will translate into, by looking at titles released now.

When I game, I don't run other things in the background, the opposite infact...i ctrl-alt-delete and shut down every single process thats unecessary so most would say get a single core....but on the otherhand, if 4 months down the road all the games are writted for dual core systems....how much benefit are we talking between a 3800+ venice and a 3800+ x-2

Also....

eVGA 6800gs the one thats 490mhz core and 1100mhz ram

out the door for 180$

is this worth it? i hear all this about unlocking pipelines and things i dont know anything about. im pretty frightened of overclocking since i dont have alot of money, if i fry something im just screwed forever...

and my final question...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813123251

this is a cheap sli board, im a pooor dude...is something wrong with this board?
why is it so cheap?

thanx for helping me with getting a new system

 

[Bobthelost]

You want a comparison between a single core 3800 and a dual core 3800?

Look here: http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=249&model2=237&chart=70

The simple fact is that for SMP games dual core will help a lot, with the X2 thrashing the single core. But for non SMP games the 3800 single core will be faster because of the higher clock speed.

If you want good gaming performance then remember that graphics card is far more important than CPU. My mate has a 6800 with a barton XP2500 and he can play BF2 with a decent amount of the eyecandy on.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Even a game written for dual-core might get very little speedup depending on how much the bottlenecks are in the video card or the hard drive (loading levels).

Also, a game doing some parallel processing (2+ threads working on a task) still might not be doing so in the parts that matter most, because it might have been too much work to build and test or because there is no good way to do it.

So don't expect much value from Oblivion's dual support until you see benchmarks, and don't expect any other game to get much use from the second core any time soon.

 

[Arkane13131]

I go to that page and i see the 3800+ venice doing 83 fps
I see the 3800+ x-2 doing 80.8 fps

So looking at this, i would think the venice to be better because its faster and cheaper... does this really make use of the dual core? the 3800+ x-2 is junk unless you overclock it?

 

[Arkane13131]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Even a game written for dual-core might get very little speedup depending on how much the bottlenecks are in the video card or the hard drive (loading levels).

Also, a game doing some parallel processing (2+ threads working on a task) still might not be doing so in the parts that matter most, because it might have been too much work to build and test or because there is no good way to do it.

So don't expect much value from Oblivion's dual support until you see benchmarks, and don't expect any other game to get much use from the second core any time soon.

hmm so it is going to vary greatly from game to game depending on the coding.
i guess with oblivion right around the corner ill just have to wait and see. looking at that doom 3 benchmark bob showed me, because i dont have alot of money, it would make sense just to get the single core, and throw the extra 40 or 50$ or whatever into the video card


any thoughts about that motherboard or the video card i already chose?

 

[fire400]

just get an Athlon 3400 for the socket 754 for 150 bucks if you want the operating frequency of 2.4 as opposed to getting a lower MHz rate for the same price and get only 1.8 GHz for a socket 939 series. 1000 MHz bus versus 800 MHz bus and 512kb versus 1mb cache shouldn't be a huge difference on performance and price.

the motherboard, around a hundred bucks for a good pci-e mobo.

6800GS will do very well if you're on a budget

PSU - 50 - 70 bucks for a +400w PSU from something like Fortron should do the trick

 

[Bobthelost]

Priotority 1) Graphics card, 6800 or 7800GT, once you hit the 7800GT then you're laughing your head off for gaming @ 1280x1040 (i still am)

Priority 2) CPU and motherboard. Even with a 754 system the important bit is the graphics card. Dual core is worth it if you can afford it, if for no other reason than epenis waving and for futureproofing (the same thing at times), but not at the expense of the graphics card.

What's your budget for the parts, it's probably a lot simpler to give us the raw numbers and for us to recomend builds.

 

[Arkane13131]

i dont plan on overclocking so since i can get a 3800+ for 939 why get a 3400+ for 754?

really thinking about it, since current games like doom3 show the ever so mild 2fps loss to a dual core vs a single core i think that when games come out written specifically for dual core... we are going to see a good enough increase...i think i will have no regrets buying the x-2

 

[Arkane13131]

well, i have about 700$ to throw into the motherboard videocard cpu and the case+ psu

the rest of the parts i have are solid enough so 100$ case + psu 200$ videocard 300$ cpu and 100$ motherboard... approx

i know the graphics card would be better at 300$ for a 7800gt but, they are gonna drop in price, and ill go through more graphics cards than cpu's so get the better cpu early and then when i have enough cash to get a better graphics card everything will be cheaper

 

[TheRyuu]

X2 3800+
7800GT
Epox or MSI non-SLI mobo (forgot the model #'s)
FSP PSU

So how's that? (too bad I can't remember the model #'s)

 

[Arkane13131]

the epox board i found is 108$ and its sli... plus shipping kinda screws me in the end from getting the 7800gt so i decided that evga's 6800gs to be fair enough...considering if you look the regular 6800gs is 425mhz and that one is oc'd to 490mhz straight from the factory. and in all the benchmarks ive seen its the best 6800gs there is.

 

[Arkane13131]

i appreciate all the suggestions btw, ive never posted on a forum like this so being able to discuss things is a luxury im not accustomed to.

 

[Arkane13131]

here is a link to that video card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814130265

 

[Bobthelost]

There's an offer @ newegg on eVGA 7800GT with a bundled motherboard for $350 i think. An excellent buy.

 

[Arkane13131]

hmm that is a sweet deal.. here it is http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130277

350$ (mobo+ video) + 300$ cpu = 50$ for case and psu..well even if its not pretty if its fast as all hell its worth it right lol?

 

[DaveSimmons]

> 50$ for case and psu

You can ruin the other $650 in parts by attaching them to a crappy power supply. I'd suggest coming up with another $50 or so and looking in the other rig threads for case/PSU suggestions.

 

[Effect]

Agreed. I'd suggest a good (cheap) FSP 450W, i think that's the one most people suggest ($50 if i'm not mistaken). Skimp on the PSU and you'll (more likely than not) have troubles later on.

 

[kyotousa]

So the only difference between dual core vs single core is multitask?
what other type of programs will it affect?

 

[NaOH]

I get about 2x more performance while encoding dvds using CCE SP since it is multi threaded. I believe divx encoder is now multithreaded also, and most other dvd codecs. Photoshop also has multi processor support. But besides multi tasking and video encoding it really doesn't make all that much of a difference. I like to play games and alt tab out to chat, encode, run bitlord, etc. It's pretty nifty. It runs games fairly well even at 2ghz if you have a decent graphics card. My 3dMark03 score is 16000 with it overclocked to 2.4ghz so im satisfied.