Overclock or A64 3000+ or get a X2 4200?

[Gimpymoo]

I know my Venice 3000+ can do 2.5Ghz+ on air.

I can get a X2 4200+ for peanuts.

The 4200 at stock is 2.2Ghz per core.

Running Vista x64, within games (older and newer games, PES specifically) would most games use both cores, in which getting a new CPU is a no brainer or will they just use the 1 which would make me better off just overclocking.

Thanks all.

 

[dbmzk1]

I've been looking into this too. Most/all X2's now sold will easily reach over 2.5GHz so there really is no competition. Most new games include some kind of dual-core support and it will only get better.

 

[Sean_UK]

Good move if you want to extend PC life, agree with dbmzk1.

 

[Gimpymoo]

Forgot to mention is a Socket 939.

What about older games, can you set the affinity to both cores?

 

[GeForce]

A single threaded game can & will only make effective use of one core. Games and apps have to be designed to be multithreaded to make use of more than one core.

There are quite a few around already, and has been said, this number is only going to go up.

With a (new) 4200+ X2 you're pretty much guaranteed 2.6Ghz, some will do 2.8Ghz quite happily. Even with 2.6Ghz, that's a substantial performance gain! As with all of the A64 series, raw clock speed will give you a bigger real-world performance boost than anything else.

Jon