Some Advice Needed on 64 x2 CPUs

[nheather]

I've just seen the 'This Week Only' offer on the Athlon 64 x2 3800+ CPUs and was wondering whether it would improve my current system.

My current CPU is an SD 3700+ which I have overclocked at 255 x 11 (2.8GHz).

My memory runs on 11:14 (200MHz).

My HT is running on x4 (1020).

My memory is not special (Geil Value) and is good for 225MHz but no more.

My motherboard is an ASUS which I beleive has a limit around the 270MHz mark.


If I got the x2 3800+ with its x10 multiplier the best I could imagine is

CPU - 270 x 10 = 2.7GHz
RAM - 270 x (10:15) = 180MHz
HT = 1080 (x4) or 810 (x3)

On the face of it, this looks worse than my current set up but I have no idea what difference having dual cores makes.

Can anyone offer any advice.

Cheers,

Nigel

 

[Amonlym]

depends what your doing,

if your mostly playing games that are not dualcore aware, your worse off.

if your mostly encoding videos etc and use programs/games that are DC aware, then you will see a benefit.

myself, i noticed some improvement, but i also got a higher clock rate from my 4800+ than my 3700+.

i got much more from going from 1 gig to 2 gig of ram. so might be worth doing that if you havent already!

 

[nheather]

Thanks,

Pretty much what I expected. I checked when I got home and the 3700+ is running faster than I thought

CPU Speed = 265x11 = 2.9GHz
HT = 4x265 = 1060
RAM = 265x(11:14) = 208MHz

I accept that I would see an improvement in Windows but this is really an issue at the moment (nor are the games really).

I'm not going to get close to this with the 3800+ X2, would have to go for the 4200+ X2, which is more money without any major advantage.

So I'll pass on an upgrade for now and wait a year or so to do something more significant.

Cheers,

Nigel