A64 3500 to S/D 3700 or higher, worth it?

[pieman109]

As title. I'm having a bit of an upgrade spree here and I'm replacing the X800XT with an X1800XT, so now I'm considering upgrading me A64 3500 to something like a S/D 3700 or higher and making use of the extra cache, or even an X2 prozzie. Basically gonna be used for gaming. Wadya think?

 

[Justintime]

The speed difference for single cored apps between a 3500 and 3700 Single cored cpus won't make a significant dent, especially if not overclocked. You'd want a Dual core cpu at the least to consider it an upgrade and the extra cache dosen't make much of a difference with AMD chips thus far.

 

[deadeyedic30]

Def go X2 as no point spending money for a single core cpu that runs at the same speed and only has an extra 1/2 meg of cache. An X2 4400 runs at same speed as a 3700 but has the second core.

Depends on what you are willing to spend.

 

[pieman109]

Def go X2 as no point spending money for a single core cpu that runs at the same speed and only has an extra 1/2 meg of cache. An X2 4400 runs at same speed as a 3700 but has the second core.

Depends on what you are willing to spend.

So a X2 4200 or X2 4400 would be a worthy upgrade then?

 

[deadeyedic30]

Go for the X2 4400 or X2 4800 as the have 1meg cache per core if you can afford it. Other wise I would say get the 4600 unless you overclock.

 

[Tetras]

If all you do is play games I wouldn't bother upgrading at all. Just give the 3500+ a little overclock

 

[pegasus1]

If your going for an upgrade then go C2D.
Asus P5N-E SLi nForce 650 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard 1 £69.99 (£82.24)
Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - OEM 1 £101.99 (£119.84)
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C5 800MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400DC) 1 £94.99 (£111.61)
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri): £8.25 (£9.69)
Order Total: £266.79 (£323.38)
Its been running at 3.4 and was a bigger a jump in performance from my 3700SD at 2.65 than when i went from an Athlon XP2500M at 2.4.
Ive noticed a big boost in COH (only game ive tried) and windows is Uber fast, XP loads complete in less than a minute and CD's rip in no time at all.
Less than £350 and you can sell some of your older stuff.
And thats from a die-hard AMD man.

 

[Killajaz]

is that your actual spec? and you are well pleased with it? Im looking at getting a new setup. The fool inside me is tempted to get a £100 165 opty, a £50 Nforce 4 mobo and 2gb of DDR CAS2 used for £100, simply because I know it will work perfect from day 1 and I will be able to overclock it blind folded

Is that setup you have tedious to overclock? It is only another £100 compared to the above.

 

[pegasus1]

is that your actual spec? and you are well pleased with it? Im looking at getting a new setup. The fool inside me is tempted to get a £100 165 opty, a £50 Nforce 4 mobo and 2gb of DDR CAS2 used for £100, simply because I know it will work perfect from day 1 and I will be able to overclock it blind folded

Is that setup you have tedious to overclock? It is only another £100 compared to the above.

Thats the exact spec i got, put it in Wednesday.
Read the various posts by the guys who,ve had these chips/mobo's for a while.
This mobo is very easy to OC as is the cpu.
To get above 3.0ghz i would recommend that you have good case cooling cos the chipset gets toasty.
Tis the easiest combination of kit ive used when it comes to OCing.