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Socket 939 4200+ Dual Core

fastwunz

fastwunz

fastwunz

Soldato
Joined
12 Jul 2005
Posts
3,983
Right just bought one - its my final upgrade for my 939 system before i go intel. Question is:

Ive read the reviews and they all seem good. Im upgrading from a single core 4000+ - will i see much of a difference? Other people are suggesting that i will, but im a little more cautious. Still, it should be a decent final upgrade.

Thoughts?
 
Was the single core overclocked, and do you plan on overclocking the dual?

Both at stock, the single core would bear the dual in any single-threaded tasks, as it has a higher clockspeed and greater cache on a single core.

Multi-threaded apps and general multitasking will be much quicker with the dual.
 
And in terms of gaming performance? Im hoping for an increase in FPS really. Is it relatively straight forward to clock the dual cores? i heard they got to 2.7 gig on air!

My 4000 wasnt overclocked at all. A decent performer though.
 
oh and one other thing - will i need to update my BIOS to make the new chip work? ive heard this is a minefield!! any help would be appreciated.
 
anybody got any thoughts on how the performance will be with this new chip? ive got it sat on my desk in front of me and im itching to plug it in and run a benchy. Friends of mine are saying that in games it will be faster - is this correct?
 
fastwunz said:
anybody got any thoughts on how the performance will be with this new chip? ive got it sat on my desk in front of me and im itching to plug it in and run a benchy. Friends of mine are saying that in games it will be faster - is this correct?
Click to expand...

In most games no.

The 4200+ X2 is 2.2Ghz and 512k cache per core.
Your 4000+ is 2.4Ghz and 1MB cache

Very few games utilise multiple cores, so it would be just one of them, running at 2.2Ghz with half the cache of you 4000+.

Which is why you need to overclock it ;)
 
Should have asked these questions before buying really ;)

Anyway, I did a similar upgrade, 4000+ A64 to 4400+ X2 and didn't notice any games running noticeably slower even though each core was clocked 200 MHz slower than the 4000+. However some games were definitely faster - SupCom being the main one. Oblivion too was definitely quicker, FSX too. Pretty sure Bioshock supports dual core too.

More and more games support dual core so it's still a decent investment and will add 6 months of extra life to your 939 system. The games where you really need the extra CPU power (ie new games) are the one that are most likely to have dual core support.

FWIW my 4400+ X2 was a poor overclocker, it would get to 2.4 but not much further on my NF4 board.
 
ah ok - will i need to do anything to my BIOS though? ive got an: Asus A8N-SLi SE nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard at the momment.

My worst nightmare would be that this chip actually slows my PC down - but surely that wont be the case? lol - nervous!
 
fastwunz said:
ah ok - so if i overclock it will it be quicker? may sound like a silly question but im beginning to regret my investment in this chip
Click to expand...

The 4000+ CPU's were not known for overclocking, whereas the X2 4200+ CPU's have good reports for overclocking. Also games are being patched to utilize dual cores & upcoming games are being made to run on dual cores so the X2 4200+ will have the advantage there as well. Also the dual core X2 4200+ is better for mutitasking. So all in all it was a good choice i would say. :)
 
fastwunz said:
ah ok - will i need to do anything to my BIOS though? ive got an: Asus A8N-SLi SE nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard at the momment.

My worst nightmare would be that this chip actually slows my PC down - but surely that wont be the case? lol - nervous!
Click to expand...

See link, but it shows that the Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4200+ revE4(Socket939) is supported by all Bios versions & the Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4200+ revE6(Socket939) is supported since Bios version 0203. I suspect you should be fine, your mobo will likely have a Bios 0203 or above.


http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=A8N-SLI SE
 
The E4 variant 4000+ was a pretty good overclocker, the CG one was not so good (130nm process, so more volts, so hotter). Still, some people got good results out of them.

If it's a new 4200+ X2 I would put money on it being an E6 revision. There were very, very few E4 4200+ X2s.

In single threaded games (ie. most, at the moment), the highest clocked CPU will usually perform best. With the A64 series, raw core clock gives a bigger "real world" performance boost than anything else, so if you can get the 4200+ X2 clocked above 2.4Ghz, it will be quicker than the 4000+ in most things you throw at it, despite lacking the extra 512kb L2 cache per core. Games don't utilise that cache all that much anyway :)

The Manchesters usually clock higher than the Toledos, so I reckon you'll gete 2.6Ghz minimum out of your 4200+ ;)

Jon
 
well ive just installed her and run 3dMark 05 - my score has gone up by 500 points! haha!

Now to try and overclock the old girl. Wish me luck!
 
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