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DualCore Quick Rundown please!

mojojoejo

mojojoejo

mojojoejo

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
3,787
Location
The Viking Hideout
Hey guys and gals,

basically my system is currently as such:

3500 Venice Core 939
2x512 Crucial Ballistix 3500 stuff
Gigabyte K8N NF4 Sli Pro mobo

and I'm pretty disappointed by the performance, mainly as I'm used to a P4 and the HT goodness that it provided. Since I'm about to get a load more spending money I'm looking at swapping out my CPU and possibly my memory.

Reason for memory swapout: if I use all 4 banks I get a significant performance drop going from 1T to 2T do I not? Can someone elaborate on this one a tiny bit maybe?

Also for the CPU upgrade, I'm thinking of either getting an X2, but not sure which one. Logically I'd want something like a 4400 as it's got the 1 meg cache on it, but will this make a lot of difference as oposed to a lesser one with less cache? I do a fair ammount of stuff, from gaming, photoshop work, web design, and I like leaving my PC to crunch stuff for distributed computing - but I've never Overclocked anything and frankly don't want to tempt fate.

So, if anyone could help make some suggestions as to what CPU I should be looking at, and any good memory advice would also be appreciated.

There is a slim possibility that I'll get a new mobo as well, but mainly because it's a bit "dodgy".

Cheers for lookin
 
In response to the 4 slots of ram using 2t and 2 slots being 1t - then that is my understanding as well. And I believe that the performance loss is meant to be noticable, although I can't add much more than that I'm afraid.

With regards to the extra cache on the 4400, I believe I have read that going from 512k to 1Mb is equivalent to adding an extra 200MHz to the processor speed. I'm not sure exactly how acurate that is, but it should give you a rough idea of what to expect. Also there may be a slightly different rule for dual core - as I "think" that applied to single core AMD's.

I'm not sure if this really answers your questions - but I'm sure someone will be along to correct me - or at least fill in the gaps ;)
 
It depends on budget.

Either get a x2 4400 or an x2 3800 or an opteron 165 or opteron 170.

Like anything else if you are not overclocking get the fastest you can afford.
As for memory some good quality ram, like a 2gig kit of geil value will be fine because you are not overclocking.
 
With the drop from 2T to 1T is really does depend on what you are doing but overall it's not that great (IIRC around 3-5%) that I would let if affect a purchase.

The same can apply to the 1meg cache over 512Kb, it really does depend on what your are doing i.e for Photoshop work the extra cache doesn't really affect things much but with games then yes it can make more than a 200Mhz difference.
 
Looks good what you have, but I understandhow people can get bored etc!

I would say, grab yourself a dual-core and see how you get on with it. Once you play with it and work out your overclocks you will be in a much better position to choose your ram. . .
 
Id get my self a 165 Opteron. Its Dual Core and 1MB. 1800MHz stock.

Even though if you havnt overclocked before, with a little help from the members of OcUK forums, you shoud be able to get some more from the 165 safely overclocking it.

What cooling have you got or plan to use with the new CPU?
 
My 165 gets to 2520MHz, 280HTT, on standard volts. I can get it to 2700 but @ 1.45V and it gets to 55C with 2 primes going, so it's a little too hot for my liking.

You'll need a good board to get those high HTT speeds, apart from that it's really easy to achieve
 
opteron165.jpg


Just a quick prime run to show it's a bit stable, but it's fine for days at that speed.
 
It was just to show that it was more than just 'boot to windows' stable is all.

I use it for folding now, when i'm not using it, hence the sig. I run it 24/7 with 2xF@H clients and it perfectly stable at that configuration, anything over 2565MHz(285HTT) and it requires more volts - then it starts to heat up really fast.

It certainly is a good chip, I'm very pleased that i got it in the end :D
 
lol - leave this alone for a day and look at this threadjack!

What is the main point in chosing an opteron over an x2 if you don't want to clock it - or is it just that with clocking you can get a much better deal as the initial outlay is lower than what the performance you can generate?

[edit] It occurs to me I wasn't overly clear on this one - what I think I mean is what is the best all round dual core chip I can be looking at which will perform well with my 7800GT that I don't have to overclock to get the best out of.[/edit]
 
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mojojoejo said:
what I think I mean is what is the best all round dual core chip I can be looking at which will perform well with my 7800GT that I don't have to overclock to get the best out of.[/edit]
Click to expand...

the fastest one at stock with 2x 1mb cache :)
the fastest one wihin your budget :)

easy
 
The main point of choosing the opteron over the X2 was the larger L2 cache, than the 3800+, and the cooler running cores. The higher HTT wasn't an issue for me as i knew my board could run over 300MHz.

I was surprised how much better the memory controller was on the opteron over my old 3000+ winchester, I now run my ballistix 4000 @ T1 rather than T2 with my winchester - and at CAS 2 and slightly tighter timings aswell!

I'd say the sweet spot for the X2's would be somewhere around the 4400+, depending on your budget, but they all seem to overclock to around 2500MHz+ with no trouble at all, so why not say yourself a few pounds and overclock a slower one ;).
 
Considering that he said he wasn't going to overclock that is why I think the 4400 is a good idea its faster than the 165 and 170 at stock but also has the 2 x 1mb of cache.

I agree the better chips are the opterons and these beg to be overclocked.But in this case an x2 4400 would be a good choice
 
There is little to no difference except in price between the X2 4200 and the 4400. I recently bought a 4200 after weeks of searching around and research. The 4400 is a waste of money. The extra cache just produces extra heat.
 
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