Athlon 64 3800x2 or 4000+?

[dpaige11]

I in the market for a 939 processor to drop into my new A8N-SLI Premium. I narrows down my search to the Athlong 64 3800 x2 and the Athlong 64 4000+. The prices are very similar $330 range. I am a gamer and would like above average preformence in gaming and I would to run multiple apps at the same time. Many people say if you a multitasker (cd/dvd-ripping, itunes, and MS Office at the same time) go for the 3800 x2. If I just want a gaming PC for 4000+. Is that the best way to decide?

I heard dual cores will be a big deal in a few years but it isn't there yet but getting one now may extend the life of my PC later down the line. Any info would be great! Thanks.

Dante

 

[Clob]

Look at it this way... Do you mind waiting and dealing with lag when running multi apps. and games?

 

[endyen]

multitasker (cd/dvd-ripping, itunes, and MS Office at the same time)

Not much of a multitask, could be about the same on either chip. Tossing in BF2 would be, but who wants to type a word document, or work on an excel spreadsheet while gaming?
Dual cores are best for people who have always needed a dual core setup. They are helpfull to people who have a start menu that reads like a NY phone directory, or dont know about spyware.
Get the 4K, but only game while you are gaming, or get the X2 if you like background apps running, and are trying to save your pet virus.

 

[dpaige11]

I think i typed my statement wrong. I'm not going to play a game and run word at the same time. What I meant to say is I want a CPU that can handle today's games.

It would also be great to be working in Adobe Acrobat Pro, Photoshot, itunes, MS OUtlook, and and burn a dvd at the same time (without a game running). In this case would I be better off with the 3800 x2

 

[ltcommander_data]

In a multi-tasking environment like that a dual core processor would be better. Photoshop is a multi-threaded program and would be able to use both cores at the same time for performance increase. The latest version of Acrobat Pro is likely multi-threaded as well.

When playing games, the performance difference between a X2 3800+ and a AMD64 4000+ is not that great. Games are usually limited by the graphics card anyways. Unless you have an extremely fast graphics card you won't likely notice much difference. In addition, games are starting to take advantage of dual cores, ie. Quake 4, Serious Sam 2, and Call of Duty 2.

I would recommend you go dual core. It'll work out better in the long run anyways.

 

[endyen]

The new multitasking list is still not a shoe in for dual core. If you set priorities in taskmanager, you can accomplish the same results only slightly slower with the 4K than with the 3800.
In gaming, the difference is like between a 3200 and a 4000. My own feeling is that that's a massive difference.
There is talk though that the nvidia 7800 drivers enable the second core to do some of the graphics calculation. My feeling is that it is a floptimization, woth visual costs, but I have no proof.

 

[Gimpy]

I went with the AMD Athlon 4k! Will get it today and tell you what I think of it. I did a post like this also. Look in here under Althon FX-57. This is what I went with:

Case
CASE LIANLI|PC-V1000APLUS RT

Mobo
MB ABIT AN8-SLI NF4 RTL

CPU
CPU AMD 64 |4000+ ATHLON 64 939P

Dard Drive
HD 300G|MAXTOR 16M SATA 7L300S0

RAM
OCZ 1Gx2 D400 OCZ4002048PFDC-K R

Video Card
VGA EVGA|GF 7800GTX 256-P2-N525-AX

Sound Card
SOUND BLASTER|AUDIGY 2 ZS PLTM

PSU
PSU SEASONIC|S12-600 RT

Headset
HDST eDIMENSIONAL|AUDIOFX GAMING

Mouse
MOUSE LOGITECH|G5 LASER USB

Hope it helps.. Also a big time gamer!!!

 

[slvr_phoenix]

and are trying to save your pet virus.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

It doesn't get more bluntly truthful than that. A lot of people will see an advantage to dualcore CPUs, and many times it'll be for this reason alone! Now we just need to sell them on a second ethernet and/or DSL modem for their spam mailer virii...

There is talk though that the nvidia 7800 drivers enable the second core to do some of the graphics calculation. My feeling is that it is a floptimization, woth visual costs, but I have no proof.

Actually, I do a little DX and OGL programming myself, and you'd be surprised how much of the DX engine especially sucks up the CPU. 🙁 It's really a bad design. And that's not even counting how many other times the graphics drivers shunt data to the CPU to do things like format it. I could easily see where with the right version of DX and the right graphics drivers you could see even as much as a 20% performance gain by throwing all of those kinds of DX/GFC driver CPU-intensive tasks onto the second core so that the first core can continue to concentrate on the game code itself.

And then there's the actual floptimization that you talk about, which theoretically, if done right, could boost the graphics performance by basically making the second CPU the GPU's slave. Since the highest res of graphics is still 32bbp (meaning 8 bits per individual RGBA channel), even a 32-bit CPU should be able to handle x86FP without a noticable change in quality, and x87FP, which is what probably would be used anyway, would certainly be great. It'd be slow compared to a GPU though, so even though it shouldn't affect quality, I wouldn't really expect much of a performance gain.

And, of course, if the second CPU is doing any graphics tasks, that means that multithreaded games would probably lose their benefit while those drivers are being used. 😱

 

[Clob]

Well... Then Quad-core is looking good then! God knows what that will cost! (I'm guess 2-3x dualcore!)

Or Dual dual-core Opterons! I have a feeling that im going to max a credit card because I have this desire for more and more CPU's!!!

 

[Rob423]

i don't see any lag in running tons of apps with my xp2800+.. winamp, aim, firefox, dvd burning, downloading bit torrents all at the same time...

people make it sound like it was horribley slow when there upgrading like 2.5ghz systems.

people over exagerate on the slowness i htink.


you said you want a gaming rig.... dude a 4000+ or higher will do wonders.. i play a load of games no problem on a damn 2800+ i don't think you'll be having any trouble with the new x2 4000+

 

[Matisaro]

I had a 3000+ a64 overclocked to 2.2ghz, I went to an x23800+, and even at stock speeds I could tell there was a difference in opening new programs and alt tabbing between open programs.

ONce I overclocked the 3800+ to 2.53 ghz it was no contest.

Nvidias new drivers give between 10-15% better performance across the board on dual core systems, the question one must ask is, is the 4000+ more than 10-15% faster than a single core 3800+, and I dont think it is. Its pretty close, and the deciding factor should be overall system responsiveness.

Many anti dual core people will claim thats a placebo effect, but I dont think so, I noticed the improvement and it was dramatic, and not in my mind.

 

[dpaige11]

Rob,

The apps you mentioned don't cause much stain to many cpus.

xp2800+.. winamp, aim, firefox, dvd burning, downloading bit torrent

I apps I'm talking about are Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, Premire, half the office (outlook, excel power power point), itunes, and dvd encoding at the same time. I can run all the apps you listed on my current 1.4 athlonXP. I really just just making sure I my new rig will play games very well. Gfx card will be Asus 7800gt with either the x2 3800+ or the single core 4000+.

 

[ltcommander_data]

Just go with the X2. You will get much better performance when you are running all those Adobe content creation software.

As I said before, in terms of gaming, the speed of the CPU isn't that critical. Games are inherently GPU limited, so as long as you get a fast graphics card it should be fine. In fact, when running the latest games the performance of the X2 3800+ and AMD64 4000+ is pretty close. Only in Battlefield 2 does the 4000+ take a significant lead.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/28cpu-games.html

In the XBit article they compared multiple CPUs from AMD and Intel. Their conclusion was:

"In other words, in real gaming conditions the performance will still be limited by the graphics processor, and not by the CPU."

and

"So, we can state that games are not the applications you should look at when shopping for the new CPU."

Coupled with the fact that the new nVidia drivers support dual core and games like Quake 4, Call of Duty 2, and Serious Sam 2 take full advantage of dual core processors, the X2 3800+ should be your choice for processor.