If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
AMD Single Core vs Dual Core
I am looking at about a 325 dollar budget for a new processor. I am
looking at the x2 3800+ (Dual Core) S93.9 CPU and the AMD 4000+ (Single Core) s939 CPU. So far on various web sites they do not do a side by side or verses comparison with the AMD X2 and single cores (or at least these 2 particular cpus). I do mostly web surfing, some mp3 ripping, playing games like UT 2004, Doom 3. I don't do a lot of big digital picture editing but would like the flexibility if needed. Speed is a big factor. Overclocking is not necessary. Right now I have a Dell 400SC 3.2Ghz. That PC is almost 3 years old now. Any thoughts as to which direction I should go? Dual core or single core. Maybe a 1MB Cache Dual core AMD?? |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
AMD Single Core vs Dual Core
Oops forgot that 325 dollars is not total budget. I am getting a PCI
Express Vid Card and SATA II 300 Hard Drive with 1 GB RAM wrote in message m... I am looking at about a 325 dollar budget for a new processor. I am looking at the x2 3800+ (Dual Core) S93.9 CPU and the AMD 4000+ (Single Core) s939 CPU. So far on various web sites they do not do a side by side or verses comparison with the AMD X2 and single cores (or at least these 2 particular cpus). I do mostly web surfing, some mp3 ripping, playing games like UT 2004, Doom 3. I don't do a lot of big digital picture editing but would like the flexibility if needed. Speed is a big factor. Overclocking is not necessary. Right now I have a Dell 400SC 3.2Ghz. That PC is almost 3 years old now. Any thoughts as to which direction I should go? Dual core or single core. Maybe a 1MB Cache Dual core AMD?? |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
AMD Single Core vs Dual Core
On Sun, 16 Apr 2006 18:10:27 +0000, mcapaldo wrote:
I am looking at about a 325 dollar budget for a new processor. I am looking at the x2 3800+ (Dual Core) S93.9 CPU and the AMD 4000+ (Single Core) s939 CPU. So far on various web sites they do not do a side by side or verses comparison with the AMD X2 and single cores (or at least these 2 particular cpus). http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html? -- Want the ultimate in free OTA SD/HDTV Recorder? http://mythtv.org http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html Usenet alt.video.ptv.mythtv My server http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/cpu.php HD Tivo S3 compared http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/mythtivo.htm |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
AMD Single Core vs Dual Core
On Sun, 16 Apr 2006 18:10:27 +0000, mcapaldo wrote:
I am looking at about a 325 dollar budget for a new processor. I am looking at the x2 3800+ (Dual Core) S93.9 CPU and the AMD 4000+ (Single Core) s939 CPU. So far on various web sites they do not do a side by side or verses comparison with the AMD X2 and single cores (or at least these 2 particular cpus). I do mostly web surfing, some mp3 ripping, playing games like UT 2004, Doom 3. I don't do a lot of big digital picture editing but would like the flexibility if needed. Speed is a big factor. Overclocking is not necessary. Right now I have a Dell 400SC 3.2Ghz. That PC is almost 3 years old now. Any thoughts as to which direction I should go? Dual core or single core. Maybe a 1MB Cache Dual core AMD?? Get an Opteron 170 instead of an X2 3800+. The Opteron has 1M of cache for each processor. |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
AMD Single Core vs Dual Core
Not only do some games now support dual processors or cores but more are
coming fast. AND even if a game does not support it, if you have all the latest BIOS & video drivers, (a) You will have no problems in games; and (b) you'll still get some or even many benefits from having two processors. There is a lot of background stuff going on that can be taken care of by processor #2. FYI Windows XP *home edition* supports one dual core processor but not two physical processors. So... more than one CPU is useful *for me* in many many more ways, even gaming! When I first built this system (and it is my third dual processor box) I left the taskmgr open over on monitor #2 so I could watch CPU usage. In every game I play I either see: Situation 1 (single-threaded games): CPU#1 pegged at 90 to 100% (by the game) CPU#2 bouncing around from 2% up to x% (other processes, background and apps I may be running like firewall, burning, ripping, iTunes, Teamspeak, FRAPS, etc) Situation 2 (multi-threaded games): CPU #1 and CPU#2 kind of "in sync" both bouncing mostly from like 40% to 90% and sometimes dropping "out of sync". And you can use taskmgr to tell some app to use only one processor or the other or both. It's called setting affinity. Over the last couple years I've realized just how CPU dependent many games can be when I used to think they used very little processor and mostly video card. Wrong. THEN there are those many background processes, including virus & spyware checkers, etc., which can sap your FPS. Even if each app only affects a bit, they all add up. And then, when not playing games, there is the everyday opening & closing apps, moving apps around the screens, compiling, image manipulation (especially batch!), DVD burning (Nero is dual core/processor aware! Meaning the part that Nero does before your burner starts burning - the longest part - takes half as long now with dual processors! That's cutting 35-40 minutes down to 15-20 (on a dual 2.6ghz, 64-bit system with 4gig RAM) if you tell Nero "high priority" and walk away from the computer. Or keep it at "normal" priority and keep using your computer as you normally would without slowdown while Nero does it's thing), editing large sound files, 3D rendering, realtime 3D rendering if you have a scene open, for example, and you have fifty 3D objects in that scene, and instead of looking at them wireframe, you'd like to see them at least partially "fleshed out" and/or showing basic shadows and moving the camera and/or lights around in realtime before doing a full render. I'll tell you that I could NEVER have enough processing power when playing around in 3D design software. And then RENDERING in 3D oooh that sucks processor power like crazy! I'm sure you've heard of how those big 3D animated movies have at times required 100's of computers all working together to render scenes. Well, I don't do big movies, heh, but even little 1-minute 3D 640x480 or even 320x240 animations with atmosphere, lots of objects with textures, lights, shadows, etc., can take a lot of power/time to generate. Back to gaming. Ever try to run something called FRAPS while you game? There is a free version you can check out. It allows you to capture & save movies of your game. And if you want to capture something better than 320x240 without slowing your game down big time, you need a high end system. And all the other things you can run in the background while you play. I really like to have iTunes going in the background. And add in ripping or burning a DVD, which can be kinda time consuming and I'd rather not do it and have to stop my work or play. I found in my last dual box, when I dropped from two Opteron 250s down to one because my CPU#2 was having heat issues, I could no longer do a lot of things simultaneously that I was taking for granted. And just everyday Windows use became frustrating. That's how addicted you will become to two cores or two processors! Heck, now that I built this dual Opteron 252, I'm alreadying dreaming about how swapping those two single core procs for two dual core procs would be useful! But hey I'm certainly NOT saying this is for everyone. I'm just mentioning some of the benefits of running more than one processor that some people who have never tried it may not have thought of. AND keep in mind it IS very much the future with all software. Sure, right this second only the forward-thinking developers are coding for multiple threads and heck, 3+ years ago the forward-thinking ones were doing it even then! Sure, it's a very low percentage of software out there NOW that is multithreaded, but the point is, the OS (XP) is multithreaded and running more than one app at once can be nice... or even necessary, depending on your practice. Now regarding X2 vs. Opteron: If I didn't already have an Opteron and ECC memory, I would have gone the route my buddy did (fastest X2 I could afford) instead of the more expensive dual Opteron 252 setup I just got. You would spend more going dual Opteron because (a) they require ECC (more expensive, harder to find, and slighly slower) RAM and (b) 940-pin motherboards tend to be more expensive (and usually don't overclock as much or as easily) because they are mostly workstation/server boards. BUT, there are three benefits: (a) I can make the jump to 4 cores (two dual-core opterons) pretty easily compared to someone with a single-cpu-slot motherboard; (b) Since the ghz ramp is typically higher for less cores, I can stay a bit ahead there. For example, a 2.6ghz single core Opteron costs less and available sooner than a dual core 2.6ghz processor; and finally, (c) NUMA. I've got better RAM bandwidth @ around 11K because of my motherboard having four slots of RAM PER processor. Please understand I'm NOT referring to the Opteron 170, which is a dual core CPU that probably doesn't have the same RAM restrictions I mentioned above. -- Scotter Tyan Thunder K8WE Dual Opteron 252s (2.6ghz) 4 gig Corsair XMS DDR400 RAM XFX 7800 GTX 256 w/VGAsilencerV3 500 gig Hitachi SATA 300 160 gig Seagate SATA 150 Dual Dell 24" wide aspect LCDs 550W Antec power supply X-Fi Platinum Soundblaster - |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Newbie questions - Athlon 64 4800 Dual Core? | comcast | AMD x86-64 Processors | 9 | December 6th 05 09:27 PM |
Athlon 64 Dual or Single Core ? | Magnusfarce | Homebuilt PC's | 7 | October 30th 05 12:32 AM |
64bit dual processor - dual core. Or just 32ai single chip | Nik Simms (Web Developer) | General | 1 | October 25th 05 04:49 PM |
2.8 Dual Core vs. 3.0 Single = Same Price | Al Franz | Homebuilt PC's | 3 | July 22nd 05 08:59 PM |
P5WD2 + 3.2 ghz 840 dual core, second core only runs at 2.8 ghz nomatter the load | doug | Asus Motherboards | 2 | June 26th 05 06:07 PM |