3700+ SD to 3800 X2 worth it for me...

[2Drunk2Funk]

I have a 939 DFI lanparty NF4 ultra D with a 3700+ Diego cpu.
I see the dual core 3800+ on offer this week and wondering whether it will be an good stop gap (prob upto a year) upgrade for me?

I have recently upgraded my gfx to a 8800GTS 640mb to accomodate the new 22" tft.

I feel that the cpu and memory are limiting my gfx card and my enjoyment of games, (mainly WOW and COD2)

Not sure about O/C this unless simple, had no end of problems trying to o/c memory I have which was suppose to be guarenteed to 275 fsb but would not run anything over stock 200fsb even with manual bios settings from the DFI forums.

Will the 3800 improve this greatly over the single core?
Will the 1gb memory still be bottle necking me too much?
Will I have to re-install windows (Which I do not want to do as got just right now)?


Thanks for any advise

 

[helmutcheese]

Should see good gain in new CPU and OC fine

CoD2 was 1 of 1st games to benefit from 2GiG of ram and run high settings mated with a 512MB card

No you should not need redo Windows, but I would actually unistall CPU's from Device Manager as you power it off for last time.

 

[2Drunk2Funk]

ouch
just seen priced of matched 1gb drr sticks, twice the price of ddr2 already

Would love to mobo/cpu/memory upgrade but don't think I can afford it yet so close to the 8800gts / 22" TFT purchases.

Wanted to make this box tick over until at least 2008 but the memory problem is a pain, WOW is hitting the HD all the time

 

[helmutcheese]

Whats is your ram specs, I have rare stick here no longer avail and high price on E GAY if sold.


Corsair TWINX-2048 3500LL PRO

http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/memory/corsair/DDR1/3500ll/


and Corsair TWINX2048-4400 PRO

http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/memory/corsair/DDR1/4400pro/

and Corsair TWINX1024-3200XL (rated for 400-500mhz default @ 2-2-2-5)

http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/memory/corsair/DDR1/3200xl12/


All the above do 500mhz or more no problems in Dual channel and 1T mode.

 

[squiffy]

Buy secondhand RAM, I picked up 2GB XMS Corsair DDR CAS 2 for £60.

 

[Metallifux]

Buy secondhand RAM, I picked up 2GB XMS Corsair DDR CAS 2 for £60.

One word of warning re COD2. I moved from a 3700+ to a 4200+ dual core and now DX9 performance in COD2 is choppy. DX7 is absolutely fine but for some reason DX9 is jumpy. It's not as if the frame rates have dropped either still pushing 40- 90 with my X1800XT.

 

[jaykay]

I think cod2 is jumping over from one core to the other create a choppy gameplay as it has to reload its cache. Though this is a guess.