• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Cache Size

d3moliti0n

d3moliti0n

d3moliti0n

Associate
Joined
11 Aug 2007
Posts
1,662
Hey there

Well I plan on upgrading my CPU from a single core Athon X64 3200+ to a dual core Athlon X2 and was originally planning on getting the 3800+ but they seem to be out of stock everywhere I look now so I have settled for getting the 3600+ (unless I can find the 3800+ again somewhere). The biggest difference seems to be that the 3600+ has a 2x 256MB L2 Cache and the 3800+ has a 2x 512MB cache but they both run at 2.00GHz. What I want to know is does it make that big a difference if the cache size is lower on how the PC peforms, especially when gaming as thats what I'm going to be using the PC for.

Thanks for your help and time.
 
Is this AM2 or 939? If it's 939 you're going to struggle to get a 4400 as they were the ones with the larger 2x1mb cache that fetch a packet now.

The older AM2 4400 with the windsor core had the same 2x1mb cache, the newer brisbanes have the 2x512kb cache.
 
It's a socket 939 Athlon X2 that I need, thats why I said it's the money thats a problem as the faster 939 chips such as the 4200/4400 are expensive to buy second hand aswell. Thats why narrowed my choice down to a 3800 or a 3600, but in any case, could anyone answer my original question of does the cache size matter and have a big impact on performance?

Thanks for your help and time.
 
In all honesty, the difference won't be huge. I've used 1mb, 512kb, 256kb and 128kb based AMD Athlon 64's and it was only on the 128kb L2 CPU's I could really notice the consequences of less cache. Of course your mileage may vary depending on what you do.

At £31 it's definitely a good deal unless you can find a used Athlon 64 X2 elsewhere. I personally wouldn't want to spend any more than that on a 939 CPU anyway. Do you intend on overclocking at all?
 
I may overclock, I haven't fully decided on that yet as I want to get everything first and put it all into the PC and see how it runs games, if it runs them well enough on stock settings I'll settle for that, otherwise I may overclock. I intend to be playing games such as Crysis (which I know I won't get any higher than medium settings), CoD4, UT3, BF2142, BF2, Hellgate London, WoW, Bioshock, Oblivion, GoW, Stalker and some upcoming titles like Age of Conan and Warhammer Online. The spec of the computer will most likely be :

Athlon X2 3600+ (2.0GHz, 2x 256KB L2 Cache)
2GB DDR Ram
Radeon HD3850 256MB GPU
 
d3moliti0n said:
Hey there

Well I plan on upgrading my CPU from a single core Athon X64 3200+ to a dual core Athlon X2 and was originally planning on getting the 3800+ but they seem to be out of stock everywhere I look now so I have settled for getting the 3600+ (unless I can find the 3800+ again somewhere). The biggest difference seems to be that the 3600+ has a 2x 256MB L2 Cache and the 3800+ has a 2x 512MB cache but they both run at 2.00GHz. What I want to know is does it make that big a difference if the cache size is lower on how the PC peforms, especially when gaming as thats what I'm going to be using the PC for.

Thanks for your help and time.
Click to expand...

I'll have a X2 3800+ going on to MM this week if you can wait?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom