simonnance said:
what are they using them for? If its mainly windows stuff and basic games, then you prob dont need to bother..... the'll be a difference, but not massive.
If its more intense stuff than that, there may well be an advantage in upgrading, but if its gaming based then more likely than not it'd be a better upgrade to improve the GFX than the CPU.
In the end, if you arent overclocking, then the really low end C2Ds prob arent worth it as an upgrade from an already half decent PC.... as a NEW pc for someone that doesnt have one.... yes..... but i dont think you'll see the improvement you might expect.
I upped their GFX last month. They are on 6600GT, 6800GT and 7800GS, all are capable cards, with perhaps the 6600 showing its age for Doom / Quake 4 etc but still capable all the same.
Yes, its mostly for gaming. At the moment, the most use really is UT2K4, however, after having my own copy reserved since October 2005 of UT2K7 ( UT-III ) I have now gone and bought another 4 copies for the kids and one spare for the LAN sessions, and the GFX may well be another deciding factor once again, btu from UnReal Tourneys past, Im not going to waste money when what we already have will play the game. You must remember that these are 8 and 9 years old and are just as happy playing at 800x600 as they are at 1600x1200... Although maybe not Joshua anymore, but he has the 7800 and thats a good enough card.
oweneades said:
If you don't overclock the C2D's then they will be no quicker than either of the setups* you already have. (the E4300 is roughly equivilant to a X2 4200+)
*In dual core optimized apps the Ooteron woud get left behind due to being only a single core chip.
Oh, I dont know... It holds its own in all my games and in fact when experimenting with Vista, I found that just on desktop use, the Opteron was many many times more responsive than the 4200.
As I said however, the main use of the PCs is really gaming and so Dual or single core does not really make me worry all that much at all.... Not yet, and not for the kids at any rate.
Munky1080 said:
I went from a P4 3.0Ghz with 1gig ram and an x1950 pro AGP to the e2160 and my 3dmark score more than doubled, even at stock...
best £50 I ever spent
My first foray into Dual core, was actually when I got fooled into thinking that HT was Dual core and I got a 3.6Ghz Prescott and when I compared it to an AMD, I found that the Newcastle 3000 clocked to 2.4Ghz in the DFI LanParty 250GB UT S754 board was pretty much on the P4's button.
Similarly, when I went from an AMD3800 to the E6300, I found no real boost as such until I dug deeper into the wound and found with a bit of clocking, the E6300 could clock till its twice the speed of the 3800 ( SuperPI from 39 down to 19 ) however, even at stock the E6300 was what? 30 Seconds?
Mattus said:
I highly doubt your eight-year-old is gonna notice the difference between an X2 4400 and an E4300
Dont you believe that for a second.
Joshua knows every time I put grease on his mouse ( to slow him down )
He knows when I change the settigns ( to cause him to lose against me )
And he knows when ANYTHING has altered in any way ( usually me trying to ruin his chances of wasting me at UT once again cos Im a bad loser )
He will notice.
Mattus said:
but then again, something tells me these aren't just for the kids to play with
OFFS no!
Hell, dont get me wrong, they are my PCs... The kids just have permission to use them when I want to play UT in the LAN room... Hell if they want to play on a computer I bought them a laptop that they can wreck, but the desktop systems, they know they DONT TOUCH!
