Need another opinion!

[3Ball]

Ok heres the deal, I have a few extra bucks to spend, around 250'ish max, give or take a few bucks here or there. I was thinking of getting the Opty 170 and a little better air cooler to OC to around 2.8ghz. Just curious is to if you guys think that the xtra cache (not only 2xL2, but also 2xL1 as well over my 3800+ X2) and mhz on the OC with the opty is worth and upgrade from my current rig in the sig. I dont really have enough at the current time for a full switch to core2duo, and i am a non working college student so I dont have many opportunities to upgrade beyond holidays (this is not something im getting for the holidays). Also I am curious if there is something better in the $30 - $60 range for air cooling over my current arctic freezer 64. 2.8ghz tends to start gettin alil toasty on the A64's and I want to be able to keep it under 55 degrees celcius on load. Thanks in advance for the help!

Here is the 170: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103586

Also this is a gaming computer, if you cant tell. Maybe alil bit of editing every now and then just when I make a few vids, nothing big. I game at 1280x1024 on my 19" LCD Monitor. And play almost every game there is...bf2, cs:s, wow, company of heroes, wc3, aoe3, far cry, unreal, quake, all sorts of mods, halo, rainbow six, tiger woods, etc...

Some tell me that when gaming at that res, that my performance is CPU limited...will this help?!?

Best,

3Ball

 

[4Ryan6]

Dual cores are great if when you're playing your favorite game you want to burn a DVD at the same time, however under your circumstances, if you are really a gamer and are after kick ass gaming performance heres my suggestion.

Edit: I presently own an FX57 and a FX60 and sometimes in gaming the FX57 out performs the dual core FX60, they both have unlocked multipliers and with the CPU cooling you already have you can easily bump the 57 to a 15x multi and be running 3,000mhz rock solid, that Directron offer won't last long, and they're a good company to do business with. Merry Christmas

 

[3Ball]

Well thanks for the reply, but when I had my 3700+ Sandy stable @ 2.86ghz it didn't game as well as my current cpu, so I am hesitant to return to single core! Many of the games...actually most that I play either support dual core or do not really need as much of CPU power: quake 4, AoE 3, Rainbow Six Vegas, Ghost Recon AWF, WoW, BF2, CoD 2 for dual core....then others include unreal 2k4, halo, wc3, and the source games and mods, which valve soon is implementing dual core support, but is not really all that needed. I see alot of performance gain by dumping off windows resources to the 2nd CPU if nothing else. My roommate has an FX-55 Sandy @ 2.8ghz and he also wants my CPU because he likes the feel of it much more...it just feels more consistent when I play...at least on my machine. (lol plus my damn virus scan randomly decides to just run its course all by itself, so it helps out in those times as well. And well I also enjoy my overall system performance increase as well. Not bashing the help just laying down my reasoning for sticking with the dualy.

Best,

3Ball

 

[3Ball]

Well I now may have a friend that is going to buy my mobo, memory, and cpu from me for $300 cause he doesnt have alot of money and needs a new system, so I suppose I can swing a c2d setup now!

Im thinking:
Xeon 3050 (Arctic Freezer 64 Pro)
Abit AB9 Pro
2gb G Skill DDR2 800mhz (4-4-4-12)
(maybe, if all goes well)

Best,

3Ball

 

[4Ryan6]

I only suggested the single core FX57 because you said.

I have a few extra bucks to spend, around 250'ish max,

And gaming wise the FX57 has outperformed the FX60 dual core, in some games not all, but futurewise dual core is the way to go because software is heading that route, congrats if you get to do the C2D build.

 

[69camaroSS]

Wish I had freinds like that