single or duel???

daviebhoy · 24 Feb 2006 at 15:27

HI there, wondering if anyone can help?
I'm just about to buy a new cpu,
My budget is around £250 so I'm looking at an Athlon 4000+ or a duel core 4200.
I will be using the system for mostly for playing games so which one would you guys recomend?
I will be using a DFI LanParty UT NF4 SLI-D (Socket 939) motherboard and
Corsair 2GB DDR XMS4000PT TwinX (2x1GB) ram.
my graphics card is a Gainward BLISS GeForce 7800 GT "Goes Like Hell" 512MB.
Any help would be greatly apprecated.

Raikiri · 24 Feb 2006 at 15:41

For the love of god it is DUAL NOT DUEL

I would say get the 165 opteron and overclock it or the OEM 3800 X2 and get a better cooler.
Also, get the x1800xt 512mb for the same price as the 512mb 7800GT it is faster.

the.m · 24 Feb 2006 at 15:45

Unless you want to multi task go for the single core, you have a decent board and ram why not save some money ant get the 3700+ easy overclock to 4000 speed and a substantial saving, or even an opteron 146. If your not interested in overclocking then go for the 4000.

Kyo · 24 Feb 2006 at 15:51

Yup - entirely agree, depends on what your going for. If you primarly just gaming then i would get a decent single core rather then go dual just for the sake of it. A lot of the games are still single threaded which wouldn't utilise the dual core technology.

Havana_UK · 24 Feb 2006 at 15:59

How long do you want the PC to last you for?

If you're talking about ~2 years then IMO it would be wise to go dual core. The 3800+ OEM plus a good quality cooler is the best bet since it's the same chip as the 4200+ but with a x10 rather than x11 multi. A lot of 3800+ are seeing 2.5GHz (250 x 10), and some are even getting to 2.6GHz.

Sure, you won't get as much single-threaded performance as you would with a 3700+ at 2.9GHz, but you're set for the future, and now that multi-core CPUs are in wide availability, and processor manufacturers have stated that multi-core is the way forward more and more games and other applications will be coded to take advantage of having multiple processors available in the system.

Hav

Kyo · 24 Feb 2006 at 16:06

Well it depends of what you percieve to be future proofing. Your probably correct that it will take advantage of this technology without upgrading when it will be available but from past experience more often that not you could end up being disappointed.

Who knows what will happen in the future as there could be better deals or advancements that you could be missing out which in my thinking it will save you a lot of hassle to just upgrade to a dual core of when it needed as no doubt there always better, quicker products available further down the line at a realtively cheaper cost. But that me of course

deadeyedic30 · 25 Feb 2006 at 10:42

Well said Raikiri, i am tired of all this pistols at dawn nonsense. What is with this fighting talk anyway ?

ACESHIGH · 25 Feb 2006 at 18:28

I would suggest going dual core, as it is the way of the future, more programs & more games coming that will use it. If you multitask it is also the chip to go for.

Explicit · 25 Feb 2006 at 18:38

ACESHIGH said:
I would suggest going dual core, as it is the way of the future, more programs & more games coming that will use it. If you multitask it is also the chip to go for.

Fully agree,

It would be silly not to get dual core with your £250

I would recommend an opteron 165 or a 3800+

easyrider · 25 Feb 2006 at 18:47

Kyo said:
If you primarly just gaming then i would get a decent single core rather then go dual just for the sake of it. A lot of the games are still single threaded which wouldn't utilise the dual core technology.

But a lot more games will be dual core optimised in the near future.

COD 2 has a dual core patch out already.

In a few months down the line these single core gaming systems will be left on the shelf being overtaken by dual core performance.

So at £250 the opty 165 with its 2mb cache is the only choice.The extra cache will help in games too.

Get a good clocker and FX speeds are not out of the question

mrochester · 25 Feb 2006 at 18:48

For the sake of 200/400mhz slower than the 4000+, the dualcore 3800+ and 4200+ are going to see FAR greater benefits now and in the future in comparison to an extra few hundred Mhz.

matt100 · 25 Feb 2006 at 20:31

dual dual dual dual dual...

in fact, if you don't I might have to challenge you to a duel.

Welcome to the forums

juno_first · 26 Feb 2006 at 12:19

I would say that currently you need to opt for a faster GPU or GPU's rather than dualcore, maybe UT2007 or Stalker will use dualcore properly but atm more speed per buck can be obtained with singlecore.
There are rumours of COD2 and Quake4 being patched for multi threading but I have seen LITTLE difference running single or dual.
Then there is the patching and driver problems with dualcore, yuk !.

Get a dualcore and mediocre graphics card and play at 1024 or singlecore & good graphics & play 1280 or do you want to transcode a video and play a game at the same time ?.

mrochester · 26 Feb 2006 at 12:51

This issue here isn't whether to get a good graphics card and a single core CPU OR a dualcore CPU and mediocre graphics card. He already has, or is intending to get, a 7800GT. The £250 is the CPU budget alone, and in this respect, the money is best spent on a dualcore CPU.

easyrider · 26 Feb 2006 at 13:12

juno_first said:
I would say that currently you need to opt for a faster GPU or GPU's rather than dualcore, maybe UT2007 or Stalker will use dualcore properly but atm more speed per buck can be obtained with singlecore.
There are rumours of COD2 and Quake4 being patched for multi threading but I have seen LITTLE difference running single or dual.
Then there is the patching and driver problems with dualcore, yuk !.

Get a dualcore and mediocre graphics card and play at 1024 or singlecore & good graphics & play 1280 or do you want to transcode a video and play a game at the same time ?.

I would read the OP's thread before adding a comment.

He has a 7800 GT and he has £250 for a cpu.

So he should get a 165 cpu.

I have had no problems with dualcore with regards to driver problems and patches either.

juno_first · 26 Feb 2006 at 13:13

It is my experience that 1x7800gts is not quick enough to play COD2 at 1280 2x aa max, at over 60fps, even with an fx57 @ 3.1ghz.
So the question should be whats the best combination of CPU/graphics to play a game at a desired resolution/fps then go from there and if that means selling a 7800gt then so be it.
Should be able get descent CPU for 250 though

easyrider · 26 Feb 2006 at 13:15

juno_first said:
It is my experience that 1x7800gts is not quick enough to play COD2 at 1280 2x aa max, at over 60fps, even with an fx57 @ 3.1ghz.
So the question should be whats the best combination of CPU/graphics to play a game at a desired resolution/fps then go from there and if that means selling a 7800gt then so be it.

Thats not what he is asking :confused:

He wants to know what cpu to get with the chosen components listed.

He as £250

So he should get the 165 or better still spend the £50 more an get an opty 170.

Dr Who · 26 Feb 2006 at 18:18

juno_first said:
I would say that currently you need to opt for a faster GPU or GPU's rather than dualcore, maybe UT2007 or Stalker will use dualcore properly but atm more speed per buck can be obtained with singlecore.
There are rumours of COD2 and Quake4 being patched for multi threading but I have seen LITTLE difference running single or dual.
Then there is the patching and driver problems with dualcore, yuk !.

Get a dualcore and mediocre graphics card and play at 1024 or singlecore & good graphics & play 1280 or do you want to transcode a video and play a game at the same time ?.

Dual core wont give hardly any increase in benchies as the cpu is merely blatting through the program code, however, in the real world, when you are running a USB controller, lan card, sound etc etc, the dual core cpu will enable the game to run more smoothly without those other items sharing the load...

Too many people rely on benchies for the be all and end all of results, if benchies were the most important thing I would still be running single core on windoze 98...

Drefsab · 26 Feb 2006 at 18:29

I can strongly recomend the opty 165, I bought one and have it clocked to 2.7ghz per core. As for single core vs dual, even at the same stock speeds as my old a64 the dual core totally trounced this single core, multitasking comes to life, swapping between multiple 3d games with ease, encoding video while keeping a fully responsive pc, im not going single core again