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Worth buying a 3800 X2 (939)?

FoxEye

FoxEye

FoxEye

Caporegime
Joined
17 Feb 2006
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For gaming, that is :)

Atm, I'm only using 1680x1050, and my 7800 GT is doing fine (except in Crysis :p). I don't think I'll upgrade that until R700/G100 next year.

At that point, I'll have a choice of sticking with my current 939 setup, or ripping it out for an Intel solution.

So basically I've got three options:

1. Stick with my Opty [email protected], then switch to Intel next year
2. Stick with my Opty 146 even after upgrading GPU
3. Buy an X2 3800+ now and don't switch to Intel next year

This is purely from a gaming perspective. I don't do a lot or RTS (currently the most CPU intensive games??), FPS and RPG mainly. Most stuff is probably going to be GPU bound... but whether my 146 will still cut it with an R700/G100 I have no idea :D
 
I'd say it's worth it, sell off the Opty to recoup some of the costs and it is a good upgrade that will drag out your system a bit longer. :)
If you can get an alright overclock the 3800 is still a nice chip to have.
 
I dunno, I have a x2 3800+ now, and I'm looking to upgrade to a Quad core in the coming weeks/month or so. I'd just stick with what you've got and then do a proper upgrade. Afterall the x2 3800 is stock 2.0Ghz.. I'm not sure how they overclock, as I never bought the cooling for it. On stock heatsink mine idles around 35 and when I'm using it.. it goes upto 48.. With decent cooling I'm sure you could knock 15 degrees off this so I guess theres plenty of headroom possibly?

Personally I'd wait, but its upto you :-).
 
Later ones were hitting ~2.7/2.8 easy enough a few months back, it'd definately keep you going till the next wave of CPU's hit...
I'd still maybe upgrade next year but you'd be able to get away with doing it a little later.
Say you can get ~£25 for selling your Opty, then you're only really spending about £25 on the X2, and it shouldnt drop too much in value over the next few months as when they're gone people will be scouring round for them.
 
Bare in mind crysis seems heavly bias to SLI. Claiming SLi is their priority and they said they would get better AA quality on a review and they make no metchen of crossfire or helpign ATI. Could be a while for ati to get drivers on their own out. Cheap play by crysis and nvida
 
I got a number of systems, and I have to say, that for gaming, there really isnt all THAT much in them to be honest.

For the price of the 3800, you are going to double your cores sure enough, but you will lose out in the cache Does not mean much at all to go from 1M to 512K, but the 2 cores will )

When you say you are poo at overclocking, this is most likely down to the RAM and/or the Mobo. The CPU will hit 2.3 even if its a bad one.

Mine is currently at 2.5 but it does 2.8 fairly easily, it just that I am running all my AMDs at 2.5 as its a nice round figure and I have done some comparison tests with them.

So, sure, go for the 3800 but dont expect your gaming to suddenly mke a big jump because its simply not going to do that.

The Least spec PC I have, is the DFI LAnParty 250UT running a Newcastle 3000 @ 2.5 and that runs all my top games every bit as good as my main PC ( DS3+E6600 ) and although the Intel does edge out in front, its only noticeable if you compare them... Otherwise, people who say that the Intel will kill the poor lowly AMD are just total liars.

Although I have not yet tried my very latest games ( COD4, Hellgate, GOW, UT3 ) on any of my LAN PCs
 
I did buy the x2 3800 in the end. And a Freezer Pro 64 to go with it. AMD's 939 HSF are anything but quiet if mine's anything to go by. ;)

Will stick the Opty 146 on the MM when my x2 gets here :D

Now it's time to sit back and wait for R700/ G100 :o
 
I got a Freezer 64... I got a Pro and a non-pro.

Glad you did it.

The dual core will give you a boost no buts.

Just dont expect your PC to double in speed though, because thats not how dual core works.

It runs at the same speed.. It just does it twice!

If thats sounds stupid, it works like this :-

You do a job, it takes 1 hour on a single core PC.

Well it still takes an hour on a dual core PC, but you can do 2 of the same job in that hour.

Of course this is not the case for every program because if a program is dual core aware, then it will use the power of both cores.

Anyway, you will see what I mean... Run some tests now and again when you have the new CPU.
 
If you do one process, and it loads one core, your system isn't dog slow so you can continue to use it. Ie run CPU burn in and play a game. On a dual core you can do this without slow down.
 
I recently moved from a 3000+ to a 3800x2, really glad I did the move. Clocked easy at 2.9 (on air @ no more then 32load) and im sure it has the potential to go more. I let it run normally at 2.7.
 
XanderThal said:
i realise youve already bought yours but just in case others are looking to do similar, you can get X2 3800`s on 939 from a popular auction site for £41 inc postage from very reputable sellers. :)
Click to expand...
That's slightly more than I payed for an new E6 stepping OEM chip. Including the Freezer Pro it came to £50.

Only thing I'm concerned about is the less cache on the X2 3800 as opposed to my 146... How much difference that will make in single-threaded games, I'm not sure.
 
I have a question:

I have a 3200+ (single core) on an Abit A8N-E with a GeForce 6600GT. It is, understandably starting to struggle a bit.

I don't have the cash to replace it all, but I could splash the cash for AMD X2 4000 (or faster) socket 939 and a 7 series GeForce.

I take it this should be OK for most modern games? Don't need 100fps+ just playable games.

If it isn't good enough I'll save the cash and spend it on console games instead.
 
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