single 3700 vs dual 3800

[perplex26]

Hello,

I have heard quite a few times to get a dual 3800 amd over a single 3700.
The reason for this being that the 3800 will run future games *better*/allow more multi tasking/not a massive price change.

I am a *normal* user. When i say normal, i mean, i dont automatically have to have the BEST technology, and have the FASTEST computer ( i use an athlon 1200/512 sdram/64mb gfx card) to play current games, and am fine playing on low settings. I do programing, but am used to having one window open at a time. Im not an overclocker (i have heard both chips are good for overclocking, but this is not an issue here).

I would like to know if a single 3700 chip would be fine for me to use, for 2 - 3 years. Sure it might be a few seconds slower with xp64, or i might have to play a future game with lower settings, but i can cope with that!

Anyone believe a 3700 would be suffice?

regards,

perplex

 

[vanandjuanunited]

If thats the case the a 3200+ would probably suffice.

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-131-AM)
AMD's Athlon 64 is the latest evolution in the desktop computer industry. With its revolutionary 64bit architecture this CPU is fully compatible with future 64 bit operating systems and offers blistering performance in current 32 bit applications. With AMD's new HyperTransport technology and a massive 512KB L2 cache. Venice core incorporates SSE3 technology into the Athlon 64 platform which increases performance levels.

Previously sold for £85.95 +VAT




Price: £80.95 (£95.12 Including VAT at 17.5%)

Do you have a budget in mind? Ie do you need mobo cpu gfx and psu etc?

 

[Defcon5]

Yes it will definatly.

Dont believe anybody who says you will NEED a dual core in the next few years.

Bear in mind the only people who actually own dual cores are enthusiasts who are a small proportion of pc users.

If software were coded to need dual core then it would alienate the vast majority of people and as such not sell enough.

It would be usefull, but not necessary.

 

[perplex26]

hello and thankyou for your reply.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - 190
Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) - 20
Asus A8R-MVP Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard - 80
Corsair 2GB DDR Value Select PC3200 CAS3.0 Kit (2x1GB) - 110
PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - 260
Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Case - 450W Smart Power PSU - 80

is my origonal setup i hope to get.
wanted to change from x2 to single to spend the £50 elsewhere!

regards,

perplex

 

[vanandjuanunited]

The 3200 at £95 would still be more than adequate. The rest of the spec looks fine. Upgrade the processor later when prices are better.

 

[Soul Rider]

Are you planning to go to crossfire set-up?

If not, and you don't overclock you absolutely cannot go wrong with the asrock boards. The asrock dual sata is only £50 and has support for 2 Sata drives and 1 SataII drive. It has a PCI-e slot and an AGP slot.

Definitely save yourself £40 and get the 3700+ over the 3800+, but you might even want to consider the 3500, as you won't be overclocking.

That would save you between £70 and £90, but hey, it's really up to you.

You do not need a dual core CPU, even in 3-4 years you won't NEED one, but there will be software to take advantage of them.

 

[Andrew_McP]

I just bought a x2 3800 CPU, but *only* because my amateur movie making and editing (no, not *that* kind of amateur movie, sadly) can make use of the spare core. Otherwise I've seen nothing whatsoever to convince me dual core is worth worrying about yet. Nice to have yes, but not really value for money for most of us. Heck, if folk want to burn DVDs at the same time as playing games they could just about build another PC for the price difference, especially with the faster CPUs.

In the future multi-core will be mainstream, because processor speeds aren't going up much. But it will be a long time before most software has useful (rather than merely token) multithreading capability. Multithreading is not a simple process by any standards, and games already eat development time for breakfast.

Right up until the day I ordered my processor a 3700SD was fighting with the x2 3800 for a place in my shopping basket. The x11 multiplier and 1Mb cache are worth the money over the cheaper options IMO.

FWIW the following picture may help in your decision. (Ignore the detailed, specific flight sim related stuff at the bottom). I benchmarked my mobile Barton against the x2 3800, using the same AGP vid card (X800Pro flashed to XT) and 5,2,2,2 Corsair RAM. So it's a fairly safe bet that what you see in the figures is entirely down to the new CPU architecture. PCI-E would probably boost things a little more, but that's another variable in the equation which doesn't really help with CPU choice.

http://img67.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mcpbench22ko.jpg

Andrew McP