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an AMD X2, are they still good for gaming?

tomanders91

tomanders91

tomanders91

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Is something like a 4600+ X2 2.40ghz still a good proccessor for gaming even though C2D is pretty much killing it. It would be paired alongside something like an X1950XTX or 8800 with 2gb of ram, how long would it last before another major upgrade?
 
in my less than valuable opinion, I would happily pair an X2 4600 with an x1950 card.

However when stepping up to an 8800 I feel a C2D would offer better value and better performance to match
 
Ok thanks, im probably going to go for C2D but im just considering ways to save money on the mobo and stuff, also i looked on toms hardware comparsion charts and its got 4600 Toledo, and 4600 windsor, what do these mean?
 
tomanders91 said:
How well would a 4600+ X2 2.4ghz overclock? would it be ok on the stock cooler or would i need a better one?
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You would need to up the voltage and youw would need to get a better cooler.

If you can go C2D you dont want to bottle neck that 8800 do you.
 
X2's are still very fast processors - just not in comparison to a C2D. Most games these days are GPU limited at the resolutions people like to play so the CPU doesn't matter :)
 
NathanE said:
X2's are still very fast processors - just not in comparison to a C2D. Most games these days are GPU limited at the resolutions people like to play so the CPU doesn't matter :)
Click to expand...

Thats not exactly true:


With so much graphics horsepower onboard GeForce 8800 however, some potential 8800 card owners may run into cases where the card isn’t running to its full potential and won’t see these huge performance scaling increases, the card isn’t able to “stretch its legs” so to speak. This can occur frequently in games that are based on aging game engines. Sports titles for instance are often based on the same rehashed game engine year after year. In some cases, performance can even be held back due to a game that’s poorly coded.

But software isn’t the only aspect that can hold back a next-gen card at launch, another culprit is often the CPU.

Quite simply, with next-gen graphics processors delivering 1.5-2X times more performance than their predecessors at launch, the CPU can become a bottleneck in many titles we test with. After all, the clock speed of new CPUs tends to only increase in increments of 100-200MHz; only delivering about 10% more performance with each new processor release. You can see this in benchmarks where you hit the same frame rate regardless of graphics settings (such as increasing screen resolution from 1280x1024 to 1600x1200). As soon as a faster CPU is inserted, your frame rates increase.

This is a situation you’d like to avoid if you’ve just plunked down $700 on a brand new 8800 GTX graphics card, as you’re not getting the most from your money (although being CPU-limited does allow you to crank up the image quality settings for “free”, as you won’t get the performance hit usually associated with these setting changes).
 
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well i would have thought an 4600X2 plus a GTS would be very good, also you can overclock it to near e6400-e6600 performance anyway i think.
 
Any X2 will be perfectly happy churning through games with any 8800GT-series card. They aren't the best, however, but that makes little difference.

Bottom line is that they will perform admirably and more so when overclocked.
 
They will ok for a while yet, but if I was building from scratch at the moment, C2D is a better choice (and I'm a bit of an AMD fanboi).

After Xmas I'm putting together 2 machines, one will be an C2D (for a mate who has cash to spend) and mine is an AMD (with an Opteron 170 sourced 2nd hand).

I'll clock both, mine will be clocked till it screams, and the C2D will have a moderate clock applied. If this thread is still around (or I can find it) i'll post back some results.
 
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