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worth changing Opteron 146 to 3800?

helpimcrap

helpimcrap

helpimcrap

Soldato
Joined
13 Jan 2004
Posts
12,761
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Leicestershire
i have an Opty 146 @ 2.8ghz and feel that maybe i should start looking at dual core processors as most games seem to be heading that way now and it would maybe give a nice boost on newer games.

however...

my opty has clocked reasonably well so would it be worth getting a 3800 and trying to clock that knowing that it may not go as well as my opty except in dual core stuff?
 
MadMossy said:
Hold on for a couple weeks and see what AMD's new quad cores have in store for us.

What ever happens they need to priced competatively with the Q6600 or they wont last long.
Click to expand...

All new AMD CPUs are going to be SoAM2 or newer (SoAM3?).

The OP is talking about So939 here, waiting for the quads is a tad pointless.

In answer to the OP's question, yes it's worth the £40 or so. The 3800+ X2s have recently been hitting ~2.6Ghz on stock voltage, then ~2.8Ghz and up with a little more Vcore. No guarantees of course, but you should be able to get a fairly substantial speed increase.

In dual core apps/games the dual will wipe the floor with the single. And you'll notice a nice boost in general Windows responsiveness and multitasking.

Bear in mind, however, that for single threaded apps or games, the 3800+ will perform worse than your Opty 146 unless you can get it to an equal (or higher) clock speed. Ie. The new 3800+ will need to run at ~2.8Ghz minimum to equal perfomance with your 146 in single threaded apps.

Jon
 
Because your 146 runs at 2.8GHz I personally would not bother. A Skt 939 X2 probably won't overclock that far so what you gain with multi threaded apps you may lose with single threaded.

Save your money for a while and see what happens with the new AMD and Intel processors. At the very least you can expect to get a cheap Conroe and Mobo combo around £80 to £90 within the next 3 months. This would comfortably outperform an X2 3800.
 
I'm in the middle of a cheap upgrade for my S939 (new cpu and gfx.)
Just bought an Opteron 165 Dual core that's a good clocker to replace my Opty [email protected]. Can pick one up for around £50.
That and an X1950pro will keep my S939 system going well into next year for my needs.
 
Maybe but getting a new 3800 and clocking it would save you tweny quid and maybe go as high. As has been said new 3800s are clocking really well.

I went from a 146 @2.75 to a 3800 @2.5 and it's noticeably faster and much more responsive,
 
hmmm cheers for that guys, so on the whole it should be a worthwhile upgrade for me.

the only thing thats putting me off an upgrade currently is that my next upgrade (it seems with every upgrade...) is that i would have to replace mobo/cpu/cooler/memory and even possibly the PSU. i already have decent kit in place like DFI NF4/2gb ram and a nice quiet enermax 480w coolergiant so i dont want to spend hundreds when i can get a decent boost in multithreaded games with a dual core.
 
As has been said, it is a good 'last' upgrade for your 939 - will give a nice performance boost for very little cash. You won't be disappointed. I'd definitely look at either a 2nd hand 165 with a 'guaranteed' clocking history of at least 2.7 or a new x2 3800 as they do appear to be performing well ;) You won't be disappointed.
 
i wouldnt bother doubt you'll see enough difference ( i went from 146 to 6300 c2d).

save the money toward the next upgrade.
 
I have written something like this before...

My Opty 146 will run somewhere between 2.6 to 2.8, depending how warm it is. At the moment it is at 2.7.

I built an Intel Dual rig up running at 3.0Ghz with the same amount of memory, 2GB, and tried my 8800GTS card within it, the computer was for my father in law.

I saw absolutely no difference at all when using the Intel rig over my AMD one. Whilst I'm sure there are some application that will take advantage of the dual core Intel I do not use those as my primary need for a computer.

In a way I was disappointed with the lack of difference but then again I was kind of happy that I'm not missing that much in this latest generation of hardware.

I too considered looking at the 3800, especially for the cost. However after building the above rig I decided that it just wasn't worth it.
 
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hmmm some conflicting stories here...

thanks for the replies.

ok then, to narrow it down to the types of stuff i'll be doing....

a) clocking the hell out of it.
b) running WOC on it (supports dual core)
c) running multiple apps like on occasion photoshop for editing
d) using internet
e) using multiple versions of powerpoint etc for my mums presentations.

so bearing that in mind... sometimes my system grinds to a halt a bit (or doesn't run as well as i'd expect) so that's the reason for considering it.
 
rulocal said:
I am in a similair position, although my 146 only goes to 2.5. I presume this upgrade is a no brainer for me.
Click to expand...
Even my old x2 3800 that cost me £100 August last year did 2.5GHz on stock volts, you'd have to have a really bad chip to not hit at least that :)
 
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