FX60 and 4000+ San Diego

[Vault5ChOnG]

Hello,

Ive been on about this for awhile now and im still not clear on a few things. Firstly my setup is:

MSI RD480 Neo2
2x 1GB Geil Dual Channel RAM
Connect3d X1900XT-X 512MB
RADEON X1900 Crossfire Edition 512MB
AMD64 4000+ San Diego
FSP Sparkle 700W PSU

Now ive been told that having top of the range gfx and that cpu is bottlenecking my system. Which i would agree where ive spent over £700 on gfx and havnt updated my cpu. But i was on asking here before and was told that the FX series would be a waste of money and would not notice a huge performance difference.

Im thinking of going for the FX60, ive spent so much on the rest of my pc i would like to finish it off.I mainly use my pc for gaming and video editng.

So my question would be, Should i go for the FX60? Is my +4000 holding back my gfx? Could i maybe get a Intel CPU which outperforms the +4000 under the price of the FX60 as i would need a new mobo.

Thanks for your suggestions

 

[Explicit]

Should i go for the FX60?

Don't do it! You just need a mild overclock to get that last 200MHz. The only benefit would be dual core.

But then if you can afford an FX60, you can afford to switch to Conroe which would be better altogether.

Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-128-IN)
£252.57
Asus P5W DH Deluxe WiFi (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-152-AS)
£176.19
G.Skill 2GB DDR2 HZ PC2-6400 (2x1GB) CAS4 Dual Channel Kit (F2-6400PHU2-2GBHZ) (MY-013-GS)
£173.84

Total inc VAT: £602.06

 

[Eliot]

Hello,

Ive been on about this for awhile now and im still not clear on a few things. Firstly my setup is:

MSI RD480 Neo2
2x 1GB Geil Dual Channel RAM
Connect3d X1900XT-X 512MB
RADEON X1900 Crossfire Edition 512MB
AMD64 4000+ San Diego
FSP Sparkle 700W PSU

Now ive been told that having top of the range gfx and that cpu is bottlenecking my system. Which i would agree where ive spent over £700 on gfx and havnt updated my cpu. But i was on asking here before and was told that the FX series would be a waste of money and would not notice a huge performance difference.

Im thinking of going for the FX60, ive spent so much on the rest of my pc i would like to finish it off.I mainly use my pc for gaming and video editng.

So my question would be, Should i go for the FX60? Is my +4000 holding back my gfx? Could i maybe get a Intel CPU which outperforms the +4000 under the price of the FX60 as i would need a new mobo.

Thanks for your suggestions

oh dont upgrade believe me, a 4000 is no bottleneck, loadsamoney is running a 1900xt on a 3500 i think, and hes fine

 

[Vault5ChOnG]

Thanks for replys.

Im not in the knowhow of overclocking so default clock speeds will have to do for me .

Explicit: That im not an overclocker would buying a conroe be silly to do also?

The whole thing confuses me tbh. That a fx60 is only 2.6Gz 1mbCache and my 4000+ is 2.4gz and 1mbCache and the price difference between them is huge.

If i was only using this for games, would a X2 4800+ 2.4Gz 1MB L2 cache outperform my 4000+ 2.4Gz 1MB L2 cache as they are same speeds?

Thanks for helping a confused man out

 

[Explicit]

Explicit: That im not an overclocker would buying a conroe be silly to do also?
And would that Mobo your posted support Crossfire?

Well, it is said that the 2.66GHz E6700 beats the FX60 by around 10-20% so I assume the 2.4GHz E6600 would be 'as good as' the FX60 if not better. I'm not so sure whether it would be worth it if you're not going to overclock. And if you're not going to overclock, you wont need the expensive PC2-6400 RAM listed above. PC2-5300 will do.

Yep, the Asus mobo is Crossfire ready.

The whole thing confuses me tbh. That a fx60 is only 2.6Gz 1mbCache and my 4000+ is 2.4gz and 1mbCache and the price difference between them is huge.

Well, the FX60 has an unlocked multiplier which is an overclockers dream. Don't forget your 4000+ is single core and the FX60 is dual core.

If i was only using this for games, would a X2 4800+ 2.4Gz 1MB L2 cache outperform my 4000+ 2.4Gz 1MB L2 cache.

In single threaded games, there would be absolutely no difference.

 

[Vault5ChOnG]

Thanks for clearing that up for me m8 Think ill just wait till the dual core games come along and then think about it again.

PS: I go through stages like this every month btw (wanting to buy something). So if you spot me going to do stupid things just slap me back down to earth again .

Thanks again.

 

[Booner!]

lol , i understand where your coming from! So can anybody name any games coming out which are multi-core threaded? or even if they will release patchs/hotfixs to improve performance in games...or are dual cores only useful in benchmarks and desktop performance?

 

[Corasik]

Oblivion is multithreaded, there are several threads for the havok physics engine, threads for the AI, and even the graphics engine has a couple of threads (like a separate engine for calculating detailed looking trees etc).

Oblivion gets quite a good boost from any dual core processor, and it seems to love conroe, getting massive gains in minimum FPS.

Everquest2 is multithreaded as well, but in a much more limited fashion. Although it runs in 10 threads, the majority of the graphics engine is in a single thread, so performance gains are much less obvious than oblivion.

More and more games will be threaded as time goes by.

 

[FrankJH]

If you want to get anything I would personally go for the X2 4400 OEM- you will get better windows performance as well as apps running smoother and you could sell your 4000 to recoup a little of the £250 inc vat it would cost you (1/2 price of the FX60)

before long its rumoured that all 1mb cache AMD chips will disappear and there will be only 256k & 512k cache options per core , so I would get in quick as I think 1mb cache is worth it (as I myself went from a X2 4200 to my Opty 170)

I am a firm believer in dual core usage - in essence leaving windows / AV / multi monitor / background aps running in background all on one core and having the whole other core using the foreground app running at full tilt - both seem a lot smoother to me and I would never go back to single core now

 

[Global_Inferno]

Right now if you are looking at replacing you CPU, I would agree with the first post and go all the way to Conroe, except i'd save some money on the RAM, and possibly go the next processor up! (if u have the cash + dont O/C)

 

[Vault5ChOnG]

By going down the conroe route, would i see a noticable performance difference in games(FPS)/video editing(rendering movies) compared to what i have now?

And that X2 4400 OEM is only 2.2Gz and my 4000+ is 2.4 so would i be right in saying i would loose performance in my games(single thread)?

With my gfx running at 1280x1024 and DX7/DX9 with x4 antianalising on in call of duty 2 i get frame drops to 40ish in smoke/dust etc. This is where i want the extra performance gain. coz even 80fps i can feel the choppyness i love the smoothness feeling of high frames per second.

I always thought when i got my crossfire setup i would be able to crank all my settings up full and run any game with high fps without no dips in framerate. So this is making me think its my cpu holding my gfx back from there potential performance. Am i right in thinking this? or is 70fps considered high and playable when talking about these kind of things?

Cheers

 

[Explicit]

By going down the conroe route, would i see a noticable performance difference in games(FPS)/video editing(rendering movies) compared to what i have now?

There will definitely be an improvement, especially in video rendering. Remember, the above spec will get cheaper when you change to PC2-5300 RAM (as you're not overclocking).

And that X2 4400 OEM is only 2.2Gz and my 4000+ is 2.4 so would i be right in saying i would loose performance in my games(single thread)?

In single threaded games/apps (and assuming you won't overclock) yes you're right.

 

[Vault5ChOnG]

Thanks once again . Am i better waiting still they are released? or should i pre-order?.(the conroes).

 

[Explicit]

NP

I think you should wait, there's lots of confusion about motherboards at the moment.

 

[Vault5ChOnG]

Ah, what kind of confusion? You would think the ones thay say "support next gen intel" should be ok.

Ill wait off anyways, by that time ill probably finished paying off my last upgrade LOL

 

[Explicit]

Well, we're not sure whether the Asus P5W DH supports Conroe out of the box or whether you need a different 775 CPU to carry out a BIOS upgrade to enable Conroe support.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17596676


And then there's the Intel Bad Axe mobo. Apparantly OcUK are only selling the OEM version even though the retail version costs the same elsewhere, which has left a few people disappointed to say the least.
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17593123&page=4

It's all up in the air at the moment, so I would wait.

 

[FrankJH]

In single threaded games/apps (and assuming you won't overclock) yes you're right.

I would disagree and I will try and explain (explicitely) why

With one core - every thread and app whether its windows or a/v or the game is using up a % CPU cycles and this will all slow down the resultant performance.

With two however in essence all windows and background programs can use one core and the game you are actually playing can use a whole other core - thereby increasing frame rates and "smoothness" etc.

From a playability point of view I very much doubt anyone would ever notice the 200 mhz without the aid of benchmarks( and remember even a badly clocking cpu can claim that 200mhz back if you choose to go that route)

Admittedly for approx £200 more ( the price of an Intel Conroe board inc VAT) plus any additional cost on the CPU above what you would spend on the 4400 of course you will get a huge performance hike - but for that kind of money you should.........just my opinion mind

BTW I would like to add that even though I know dual core CPU's dont work exactly like this - this is a reasonable basic explanation - just incase anyone wants to be pedantic

PPS I believe the DFI Conroe board is AOK though - as far as I have heard but confusion there is regarding older boards esp - I guess as there sometimes is with Intel's backwards compatability necessities.

 

[Vault5ChOnG]

K thanks a lot lads, Ill wait till theres more info on this and post back soon to see whats happening

 

[Explicit]

I would disagree and I will try and explain (explicitely) why

With one core - every thread and app whether its windows or a/v or the game is using up a % CPU cycles and this will all slow down the resultant performance.

With two however in essence all windows and background programs can use one core and the game you are actually playing can use a whole other core - thereby increasing frame rates and "smoothness" etc.

From a playability point of view I very much doubt anyone would ever notice the 200 mhz without the aid of benchmarks( and remember even a badly clocking cpu can claim that 200mhz back if you choose to go that route)

Admittedly for approx £200 more ( the price of an Intel Conroe board inc VAT) plus any additional cost on the CPU above what you would spend on the 4400 of course you will get a huge performance hike - but for that kind of money you should.........just my opinion mind

BTW I would like to add that even though I know dual core CPU's dont work exactly like this - this is a reasonable basic explanation - just incase anyone wants to be pedantic

PPS I believe the DFI Conroe board is AOK though - as far as I have heard but confusion there is regarding older boards esp - I guess as there sometimes is with Intel's backwards compatability necessities.

Now who's being pedantic?

What you said is not necessarily true. Some games get picky with dual core and you have to set the affinity which means you're effectively back to having everything running on one core. Also, in terms of playability, nobody would notice the difference anyway. Besides, an upgrade to a 4400+ is an utter waste of money IMO because 1) it doesn't offer a substantial noticeable increase increase that the OP wants in gaming 2) Conroe offers better performance and can easily slaughter an FX60, let alone a 4400+ 3) The OP has enough money to buy an FX60 which means he can afford to switch to Conroe.

Of course this is all in my opinion, no need to get pedantic about it Frank

 

[aztechnology]

Oblivion is multithreaded, there are several threads for the havok physics engine, threads for the AI, and even the graphics engine has a couple of threads (like a separate engine for calculating detailed looking trees etc).

Oblivion gets quite a good boost from any dual core processor, and it seems to love conroe, getting massive gains in minimum FPS.

cut
....

Can I ask where you saw this, or whether this is from personal experience.

I did see some review that did indicate that Oblivion got about a 10% boost from Dual core, but only at low resolutions. Once a more realistic resolution is chosen and some eye candy, Oblivion gets limited by GPU's so you won't see the real benifit. (unless you are counting idle time )