Vote for the best pair for gaming.

[jazzman2]

New build for me yet to choose cpu or gpu. Also can upgrade in the future so keep that in mind when voting. These are around the same price. You comments are welcome. If there are any other options for a AM2 pair for $700 - $800 let me know. I have a Asus AM2 SLI board.
Please look at the two CPU's here first.
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/23/amd_reinvents_itself/page28.html#games__opengl

 

[hball]

Just hold off on the 7950 GX2 for the time being, unless you care to risk buying a card that won't work in your machine.

I, along with at least 4 others that frequent this forum, are waiting for a fix from either nvidia or xfx to the problems we are encountering with our 7950 GX2 cards.

The problem: run stop errors that cause the computer to reboot everytime you open a program.

As for the 3800+ versus the dual core chip; if you're future proofing, get the dual core chip. Otherwise, the 3800+ is an excellent bargain and will run today's games very well.

hball

 

[yourmothersanastronaut]

I disagree. The OP probably won't be harnessing the high-res capability of the 7950, and the 3800+ will bottleneck the 7950 anyway. A more balanced system would be more economical, and the 7900 GT will still let the OP rock any game out there.

 

[nick_000000]

Yes but you tend to upgrade gfx cards more than processors as any top end card now will be old in a year.

I would get the dual core as it will help in the future and when you need to upgade you will just have to change the gfx card.

 

[bigballerdan]

Do you need these parts right now? You probably know this already, but you can get that processor for a hell of a lot cheaper come the end of July. If you need to get it now I'd say get the better processor because it will certainly last you longer than a top of the line video card.

 

[gOJDO]

New build for me yet to choose cpu or gpu. Also can upgrade in the future so keep that in mind when voting. These are around the same price. You comments are welcome. If there are any other options for a AM2 pair for $700 - $800 let me know. I have a Asus AM2 SLI board.

The bad is that you allready have the mainboard so you are limited to sAM2.
For me s939 is better choice than sAM2, but Core2 Duo is much better than both. If you can wait for a while, at Core2 Duo release the prices of all K8 dualcores with 512kB L2 per core will be lowered by 20-45%. You can than get the X2 3800+ for the price of 3800+(singlecore) today.
For gaming the most important is the graphics card becouse it bottlenecks the FPS most. You will not notice any significent difference if you use twice as fast CPU, but you'll notice a lot of difference if you use twice as fast graphics card. There are other factors on which the graming performance may depend, tha RAM capacity.

 

[nick_000000]

How do you work out 939 is better than AM2 thats just crazy talk.

 

[jap0nes]

Yes but you tend to upgrade gfx cards more than processors as any top end card now will be old in a year.

I would get the dual core as it will help in the future and when you need to upgade you will just have to chane the gfx card.

true

 

[angry_ducky]

How do you work out 939 is better than AM2 thats just carzy talk.

AM2 is just a platform change; the chips are basically the same as the chips for the 939. The only difference is that AM2 uses DDR2 RAM, and has 940 pins, rather than 939. Because the CPUs are carried over, the performance is basically the same. Once lower-latency DDR2 is available, AM2 will outperform 939, but not by a huge margin.

 

[nick_000000]

Yes but am2 is more future proof than 939 and ddr2 uses less energy and is genrally cheaper than ddr.

 

[jazzman2]

I disagree. The OP probably won't be harnessing the high-res capability of the 7950, and the 3800+ will bottleneck the 7950 anyway. A more balanced system would be more economical, and the 7900 GT will still let the OP rock any game out there.

Do you really think the 3800+ will bottleneck after reading this?
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/23/amd_reinvents_itself/page28.html#games__opengl

 

[Morph]

Until games are optimized for dual core operation, that single core is as good or better than the dual. So then you have the vid card, and we all know which one is better.

 

[gOJDO]

How do you work out 939 is better than AM2 thats just crazy talk.

1. DDR400 CL 2 2-2-5 CR1 is cheaper than DDR2-800 CL4 4-4-10. With these types of RAM you will get equal performance on sameclocked s939 and sAM2.
2. There are so many good mainboards for s939 that have been proven as best performers and overclockers. That is not the case with sAM2 becouse there are few types available at the moment and we don't know how decent they are.
3. The s939 mainboards are less expencive than sAM2 with the same features.

 

[Neofight]

Interesting discussion, but I think Salma Hayek has the best pair for gaming.

 

[rman3349]

I think what you should take from this discussion and poll is that they are both great. What people say depends so much on their personal experience and may not be true for everyone (guilty, there's nothing wrong with that). I voted for the 7900 and the 4600 because i'm a big beliver in the 3 month rule for new products like the 7950. However, your system is gonna be a winner either way. Have fun.

 

[jazzman2]

Interesting discussion, but I think Salma Hayek has the best pair for gaming.

Who is salma do you have a link to reference it. Thanks everyone!!! 😀 Does anyone have another $700-$800 pair for CPU and GPU? I will wait for the price drop in July.