Check my upgrade please.

[MiGSY]

Ok, I've finally decided to upgrade from socket 754:

HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X - £323.07

Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) - £70.44

AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Venice 90nm - £170.32

Crucial 2GB (2x1GB) DDR PC4000 Ballistix Dual Channel Kit - £176.19

Total: £742.02

Any changes that you would suggest to this selection of hardware? Especially performance wise for the same price or less.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Monstermunch]

I'd go with the following with your budget. I know it's a few quid more but better mobo, Miles better CPU (dual core) and better ram IMO:

CP-152-AM AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-152-AM)
£162.95 £162.95
MB-046-MS MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-046-MS)
£64.95 £64.95
MY-000-MK Mushkin 2GB DDR XP4000 Extreme Performance Dual Channel Kit (2x1GB) CAS3 (991483) (MY-000-MK)
£139.95 £139.95
GX-047-HT HIS Excalibur ATI Radeon X1900 XT-X 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-047-HT)
£271.95 £271.95
FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£12.95 £12.95
Subtotal £652.75
VAT £114.24
Total £766.99

Also with that mobo and ram you can expect to get quite good overclocks if you want to go down that road

 

[ACESHIGH]

Would agree with the above spec, going dual core is worthwhile imo.
The rest of the gear is good.

 

[MiGSY]

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated

Think I'll go with that spec Monstermunch, sounds good to me

 

[MiGSY]

I've just been looking into some reviews and benchmarks for the AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+.

I use my machine primarily for gaming, and it appears that the AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Venice outperforms the dual core version on every single gaming benchmark performed. I'm not too bothered about multi-tasking performance to be honest. Think I'd be better off going for the AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Venice over AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+....

 

[bustburr]

MiGSY

How do you get your BF2 stats as a signature at the bottom of your post??

 

[MiGSY]

MiGSY

How do you get your BF2 stats as a signature at the bottom of your post??

Register at http://www.bf2tracker.com

From the User CP create a custom signature. You can't use the pre-made signature since it's over the 400x75 size limit for these forums.

And next time email me about such matters instead of taking the thread off-topic.

 

[ACESHIGH]

You would be correct for current games, but more are being patched for dual core, or will be created with dual core in mind. So if you want a longer term solution X2 is the way to go imo. Having said that with current games a fast single core CPU is great.

Recently someone did post getting a 60% increase in Quake 4 with the dual core patch.

 

[MiGSY]

I've gone with the single core processor. I'll probably be upgrading at the end of the year anyway.

According to Quake 4(With the dual core patch) benchmarks by firingsquad.com when running at high resolutions(1600x1200+) with high levels of AA and AF the difference between the single core and dual core processor is a matter of a single FPS.

At low resolutions with little/no AA and AF the difference is huge, but I won't be running games at these settings.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/quake_4_dual-core_performance/page4.asp

 

[bustburr]

Sorry about taking the thread off subject before...

From what i've gathered single core is still better value and performance for gaming.

Though, looking at the at the stats from several websites its clear that dual-core is better for windows processing (multimedia, programming, running several programs at once, etc)

It really depends what purpose you intend to use your pc, and to be quite honest the differences are very marginal. Once you load your pc full of the usual c**p you wont notice a blind difference.


Edited to add Toms hardware (good website for looking at benchmarks)