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AMD s939 Question again

drkumar72

drkumar72

drkumar72

Associate
Joined
24 Jan 2007
Posts
17
Hi folks, sorry to re-iterate an old Q but i know the old s939 CPU's are being phased out now and was looking to get one before i lose out.
Have an Athlon 64 3500+ and was looking to upgrade to either the Athlon Dual core 4400 or 4600...just not sure which of the two would give a better performance as once has bigger cache where the other quicker clock speed...
im thinking of the 4400 and then overclocking it.
Hacve 2GB RAM with Vista Ultiamte. Dont want to change me whole rig just yet as it would mean a lot of $$$ for new mobo, ram,and OS.
Opinion appreciated,cheers guys

Doc :cool:
 
Two sweet spots in x2 range


3800 and 4400, all the others are redundant.

Overclocking get the chip with the 1mb cache per core.

4400 in this case.
 
easyrider said:
No they don't

But still the 4400 because of the cache.
Click to expand...

Ok well i shall rephrase in my opinion the 4400's clock better than the 4600's i say this because i had two of each and both times the 4400's beat down the 4600's when it came to overclocking and i know this was also true in some of my friends rigs.
 
braz2kuk said:
Ok well i shall rephrase in my opinion the 4400's clock better than the 4600's i say this because i had two of each and both times the 4400's beat down the 4600's when it came to overclocking and i know this was also true in some of my friends rigs.
Click to expand...


Still worng mate.

It all depends on the stepping and testing two of each is hardly qualified testing.
 
drkumar72 said:
Hi folks, sorry to re-iterate an old Q but i know the old s939 CPU's are being phased out now and was looking to get one before i lose out
Click to expand...
Hi drkumar72, I wouldn't worry about getting a dual-core 939 there will always be a good supply of them second hand and the prices are dropping lower every day, don't panic buy.

drkumar72 said:
Have an Athlon 64 3500+
Click to expand...
Very good processor and most likely as fast as the dual-core you mentioned in 98% of the task you do. I bought a few 'used' Venice CPUs last month and I am very impressed.

drkumar72 said:
Hacve 2GB RAM with Vista Ultiamte. Dont want to change me whole rig just yet as it would mean a lot of $$$ for new mobo, ram,and OS.
Click to expand...
You didn't mention what sorta stuff you do on your PC but I get the impression you have a touch of upgrade bug and fancy spending some money on your computer. Is there any other areas on youir system that you could spash some cash? (new widescreen LCD, what graphics card you got? etc)

If you can make do with what you got until you can afford something like Core2 Duo, that would be a nice upgrade from what you have atm, and the prices on the Core 2 stuff is in freefall at the moment, cheaper everyday, hang in there.

At the end of the day its your money and you do whatever you feel is best but I found the upgrade from a mono core Opteron 146 to a dual-core Opteron 170 very disappointing, although from reading some others peoples opinions here you may think it was amazing, trust me 2 weeks after you done it the novelty is gone, the PC still does the same stuff but that bit of spare cash you had has gone :o

I understand the upgrade bug a lot more now, its stems from having a need to spend some money and also being a bit bored! :D
 
I have a 146 and go through the same daily "should I shouldn't I" battle in my head :p

I have to keep reminding myself that, even as a gamer, I don't really need the extra power. A lot of the games I play are a few years old now, "classics" like System Shock 2 and Alpha Centauri. There just haven't been any recent titles that have excited me.

So I must resist the urge to upgrade for upgrading's sake, and wait till I actually need the extra power to play some kick-ass title. Crysis, anyone? If only it was an RPG :p
 
Big.Wayne said:
At the end of the day its your money and you do whatever you feel is best but I found the upgrade from a mono core Opteron 146 to a dual-core Opteron 170 very disappointing
Click to expand...

Maybe that has to do with the way you use your pc.

For multitasking the dual cores are great and cheap.

There really is no point in having a single core chip nowadays.

The Intel E2140 is coming soon and this will cost 50 quid so the cost arguement pails into insignificance.

x2's are cheap as chips also.

And dual core will make vista a better place to be.
 
im in exactly the same position with a 3500+ which still does me very well.


whats really worrying me, is that when the time comes, ill probablly upgrade my whole pc just to be able to play crysis and one or two other games that are "must haves"


thats a lot of money to pay just to be able to play some games.
 
I upgraded an Opty 146 @2800 to an X2-3800 @2600 and I've noticed a huge increase in responsiveness plus my Distributed Computing client is multi-cpu aware and is now running around 40% faster while running another DC client to eat up any wasted cycles.
 
FoxEye said:
I have a 146 and go through the same daily "should I shouldn't I" battle in my head :p
Click to expand...
I have picked up an Opteron 146 for a spare machine, looking forward to installing it and overclocking it, nice chip.

easyrider said:
Maybe that has to do with the way you use your pc
Click to expand...
Well I have tried to burn a DVD, while playing two games at once, while compressing a DivX movie, talking to my friend on Skype and working on an image in photoshop but its too hard! I'm a man even if a computer can multitask I can't :D

The only opinion we both share here is that a dual-core is a boon for people that are involved in day-to-day media encoding (also F&H and other distributed clients).

Paulus said:
im in exactly the same position with a 3500+ which still does me very well.
Click to expand...
Hi Paulus, you know the score, the mob is fickle ;)

Outside of media-encoding I think you will have a fairly hard time in noticing any improvement moving to a dual-core 939 from a mono core, depends on your situation though, like if you like to have a F@H client running 24/7 then you may find a dual-core worthwhile etc.

If you really wanted to get your hand dirty then there has never been a better time to jump aboard tha Core 2 Duo bandwagon, the prices are very good atm but there only gonna keep falling (well except DDR2 which is really low atm!).

If you got some spare cash, spare time and feeling a bit bored then by all means consider going the whole way and swapping out your CPU, heatsink, mobo, memory and graphics card (mayeb even PSU if its old) and building a new shiney toy, but I think your current set-up is fine.

Always newer stuff coming out so don't fear that you may 'miss out' on something, its the same old same old, new hardware, mass computer press and newsgroup hysteria, products sold, some time later new hardware, mass computer press and newsgroup hysteria, products sold, rinse and repeat.
 
Thanks for all the input guys; will ponder my need over want but i must admit the mono core is serving me well. Just occ get frustrated when i am working with videos and dvd rendering that i cant do anything else...will see. Indeed i want to go to C2D but it would be a lot of $$$ investment so may hold of for a bit until i really need. The 4200 x 2 chips are cheap but again would only notice difference if i oveclocked it, and was multi-tasking. Admittedly dont play many games on the PC secondary to the Xbo & PS3.
Will see....
 
Thinking of upgrading as well, currently a single core 3000, and can't afford to switch to c2d yet. Easyrider, why are the x2's other than 3800 and 4400 redundant?
 
AsLan said:
Thinking of upgrading as well, currently a single core 3000, and can't afford to switch to c2d yet. Easyrider, why are the x2's other than 3800 and 4400 redundant?
Click to expand...

i can only find the 4200 and 3800 x2 in sk939

i got a 3200+ A64 939, and thinking of getting a X2 AMD, cant really afford a full C2D system at the moment so thinking a cpu upgrade would tie me over for a while.
 
Opteron 170 or 165 is what you want if on 939 and pondering to get dual core.
The retail cooler which comes with them is actually really rather nice and of good quality. It can compare to a £20 aftermarket CPU cooler, probably more.

165 fetch £90 these days and will hit 2.6ghz without breaking sweat.
My 165 runs at 2.76 ghz on 1.5v and the stock cooler keeps the CPU under 46 degrees on max load. Does it for me :) And I have a poor stepping...
 
Killajaz said:
Opteron 170 or 165 is what you want if on 939 and pondering to get dual core.
The retail cooler which comes with them is actually really rather nice and of good quality. It can compare to a £20 aftermarket CPU cooler, probably more.

165 fetch £90 these days and will hit 2.6ghz without breaking sweat.
My 165 runs at 2.76 ghz on 1.5v and the stock cooler keeps the CPU under 46 degrees on max load. Does it for me :) And I have a poor stepping...
Click to expand...

are you saying for 939 a opty 165 would be a better choice over a dual core?
 
As a gamer I've not beleived there to be a benefit in dual core processors before however I'm in the process of making the switch an Opti 148 to a 4200 X2 primarily because of Flight Sim X which is due to get dual core support soon. I also understand that some games do run better with dual core chips, Supreme Comander for one and expect that this will become more commonplace. I couldn't afford a whole new mobo / CPU / Memory switch to C2D and would rather wait until DX10 is proven before I do.
 
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