Is going dual core worthwhile for me?

[IT Troll]

Would a dual core AMD be a worthwhile cheap upgrade for me in light of the reported price reductions? I am currently running an Opteron 146 @ 2.7 GHz which is primarily used for gaming, image manipulation (PaintShop) and video encoding.

From what I have read, only video encoding would currently benefit from dual core. Games and PaintShop will not - at the moment. I would hate to go dual and then find that my current gaming performance had suffered as a result. On the other hand, would going dual prove better for the future (e.g. Vista)? Will new games be more dual core aware?

I would probably be looking at an X2 3800 or Opteron 170. However my voltage and therefore overclock is limited by my motherboard.

 

[vanandjuanunited]

Unless the game is optomised for dual then your gaming will be affected. Have a single core and dual core and video encoding is much faster on the dual core chip. Depends whether you want to save time or not also more games should be optomised for dual core over time.

Might be better and waiting to see how far prices fall when conroe comes out.

Your decision. Personally I wouldnt be without my dual core.

 

[keef]

do you know that you can do a voltage mod on that board and take the vcore through the roof?
if ya want i can send you some info on it.

 

[IT Troll]

Been doing a bit more reading and it seems unlikely that the Opterons will get a price cut, so I guess it would have to be an X2 3800.

I know I can volt mod my motherboard but I would prefer not to. I only volt modded my 7900GT because 1.4v is what it is intended to run at.

 

[BoomAM]

Disregarding the gaming, definatelly for the other two.

I found with dual core that i was very underwealmed at first by the performance in windows.
But when i realised that i could do many intensive things at once without slowdown, i was amazed.
For example, on my X2, i can re-encode a video in TMPGenc, using both cores, encoding in under 2 hours, whilst still using the system to browse the web without the slowdown that my old single core did.
Or, i could listen to some music, burn a DVD, defrag my C: & move some files around without any of those tasks taking longer than if they were run on their own.