28 replies to this topic

[2005]

Well, just figured to see what kind of repsonse I got for my question here.

Im building a new high end gameing rig in about 6 weeks. It will be decked out.. PCI-E 7800GT GPU 500GB HDD ( 2 x 250GB ) new 16x +/- R 8x DVD+R DL 16x DVD-R DL writer.

What I was wondering is if it was worth it to go with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (Manchester but Tolchester really) or an AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (San Deigo)

The dealio is that the Manchesters being sold today are really just toledo core CPU's with half the hardware cache physically disabled. What this means is that while the limited cache (mainly L2) blows... the CPU will OC much nicer then a true manchester.

The San Deigo (A X2 Toledo is basically 2 San Deigo cores) is a very nice OC'er and has alot of cache... but multi tasking still leaves something to be desired. Meaning transcodeing something in nero while playin COD2 will be noticable in performance for each app.

Inono...

[zamiel]

Bah, US and their cheap hardware

[arbitriter]

well yeah the multi tasking thing is true - but how often do you really need to do so? If not from a pure gaming perspective the san diego cores are much stronger, plus you can get a 4000+ for about 50 - 75 bucks more.

Also, im hoping if you're going true gaming that you are going all Sata - HD's as well as disk drives in a mobo with multiple on-chip Sata points and SLI.

[2005]

The only advantage of the 4000+ over the 3700+ is a slight boost in clockspeed which is easily atainable with modest OC'in.

I feel that the X2 (I think all the manchesters now use SD cores with half the cache disabled) would be worth it because I do alot of work with my PC. Be it burning or transcoding DVD material, burning music or things like that.

I also look at it another way.... This P4 based celeron (northwood) which is the worst version they ever made is only 2.0 ghz (a FSB of 100mhz and a multi of 20) and has a very meager 8kb L1 cache and 128kb l2 cache. Each core of the X2 has 8x the L1 cache and 4x the L2 cache... not to mention that its FSB is 200mhz with a mutli of only 10.

This computer im posting from (one with northwood celeron) can take a CSS protected DVD and run it through DVD Shrink and put out a copy of the movie in an average of 30 min.. sometimes as much as 10 min lower.

I was also transcodeing some epps of Family Guy from .avi into dvd using nero vision express 3. Takes about 3 hours to transcode 5 epidsoes (which comes out to like an hour and ten min of footage). Not very good.. but not bad for a CPU that was crap the day it came out.

[MaLing]

I should agree with Arbitriter, and also you have mentioned that you are going to build a high end gaming machine.

[Big Dave]

If you decided on going dual core, you might want to considor and opteron 170, its pretty much the same as the 3800 x2 but it has more cache and overclock's very well, some people say they can reach FX speeds without much of a volatage increase.

I do a fair bit of 3d rendering/encoding and it was a great perforance boost! (over my old 3200)

[2005]

The Opteron is quite a bit more then I wanted to spend really.... Its basically a toledo X2. Maybe the voltages are alittle lower on the Opty but much the same and atleast 100$ more then I wana part with for the CPU. I think an X2 3800+ would do wrather nicely.

Gotta consider im going from this

Northwood celeron 2.0ghz 128 L2 cache
40GB HDD
Radeon 9200 LE (with 128 bit mem interface which makes it suck more)
No AGP slots on the compy at all
No firewire, barely usb 2.0
512MB Crappy slow ram with crap timings

To

X2 3800+
500+ GB of HDD
BFG 7800GT
SATA 3.0
Very nice DFI board (nice for overclocking)
1024MB ram from OCZ with 2-2-2-5 timings.

[Big Dave]

In the UK the opterons are similar prices to the x2s, or at least they were when I got mine

Your spec looks good except that maybe you should have a look at 2gig of Ram as the likes of FEAR and COD2 need it for the best settings.
As you said you are going for a high end rig

EDIT: just seen the new opteron prices, gone up about £30 since I got one

Edited by Big Dave, 09 February 2006 - 08:50 PM.

[KingSpeedy]

Depending on what you'll be playing, you might want to consider getting an extra GB of ram. Some games, such as World of Warcraft, can be quite the memory hogs. Also, if you can, try to stretch for the 4400+. You'll get the Toledo core, as opposed to the Manchester, which will only help.

[2005]

Will do on the 2GB of ram... just dont know about the 4400+...

The X2 3800+ ( which are being shiped with Toledo cores now anyways... just half the physical cache disabled) are 296$ on newegg. The X2 4400+ is going for 462$. Its only real strength is the extra cache... its only 200mzh faster then the 3800+ clockspeed wize. I just dont know if the extra 512kb L2 cache is worth 200$

[Jito463]

Actually, the 3800+ took so long to come to market because they were creating a new core that used fewer transistors. The 4200+ through 4800+ use the same core, just with varying speeds and levels of cache, it's the 3800+ that uses fewer transistors and is a completely different core. Having said that, the 3800+ is the equivalent to two of the 3200+ which I have in both of my machines, and they play games quite well. With my 6800GS I can play EQ2 with most settings cranked up very well. But regardless of which chip you choose, I would do as suggested and get 2GB of RAM. It makes a world of difference.

[2005]

The X2 3800+ is a manchester core (basically like you said Jito 2 veince cores). But from what I've read on several forums, the X2 3800+'s are now shipping with the toledo style cores ( 2 San Deigo's ) but with half the cache disabled. A toledo is really just too expensive to justify, like I've stated above an X2 4400+ is nearly 200$ USD higher then an X2 3800+.

When I compare hardware, the first and foremost aspect is price/performance ratio. If I had a big enough bank account I would have 2 X1900XTX's in crossfire and the fastest opty out there.

[Jito463]

I wouldn't trust some random post in some forums. Rumors get started and sometimes spread before they can be quashed. It wouldn't make sense for AMD to create a low-cost core for the X2 3800s, just to replace it with the higher coster core instead unless they were having production issues, which I haven't heard anything about. I would just assume for now that they're the Manchester unless you see otherwise. Having said that, the 3800+ is supposed to be fairly overclockable so it's not a bad chip in any case.

[2005]

It is really, it can handle up to 400mhz OC with stock cooling alone. With good aftermarket cooling you can overclock another good 300-400mhz. The clockspeed is the big deal really when it comes to AMD's

2.0ghz is the stock I belive for a X2 3800+ which costs just about 300$. Go to an X2 4800+ which the only difference is 400mhz clockspeed and you now have a 552$ processor.

Have you had any problems with cool and quiet jito (do you overclock). Because my friend had an issue where if C&Q was enabled it would revert the chip back to factory FSB.

[Jito463]

I haven't bothered with OC'ing my CPU yet, but I always disable C&Q. The reason being, that I always tend to push my CPU and don't want it reverting back to slow-mode even for a moment. Not to mention that it has been known to causes issues with certain games, causing them to appear to run at super-fast speeds.

[ptolomeus3]

Just bought a AMD 64 X2 3800+. It says on the box "Manchester" so it should be one ...

[2005]

look at the last two digits... they will tell you

there should be some long digits... if the last two are BN is a manchester if the last two are CD then its a tolchester

[arbitriter]

Well it sounds like you've got the processor side of things down, so lets look at the rest of the set up. For instance what MB are you planning to use? Specifically what chipset does it run. At the moment there are very few MB's out there that support true 16X PCI-X SLI. The best at the moment are ones running on the C51D chipsets.

Secondly im hoping that you are going all SATA - meaning HD's as well as disk drives and that the MB you are considering has enough SATA headers.

Memory is looking good other than the upping it to two gigs like everybody has already said. If i remember right though the OCZ 1gb modules have different latency ratings (2-3-3-6, but i could be wrong) so you might want to decide if you want 4x512 or 2x1gb.

Lastly, you have yet to say anything about PSU. again im hoping you are using something bigger than about 500-550w and with dual-rails, cause with the set up you're talking about you're gonna need it.

[2005]

Setup is looking pretty much like this:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819103562

Enermax Noistaker 485W PSU

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817103457

DFI Lanparty UT nF4 Ultra-D

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813136152

Aspire Xploder Black/Silver Steel Mid tower ATX

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16811144103

WD Caviar SE16 250GB SATA 7200RPM 16MB

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822144701

gigaRAM mach1000 series 2GB (2x1GB) PC4000

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820221137

eVGA 7800GT 445/1070 stock

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814130256

NEC ND 2510A IDE CD-R/ DVD +/- R/RW +DL writer



Looks good to me... the PSU does have dual 12v rails but no PFC. The ram I have is nice and fast at DDR 500 (250x2) so I can set my X2's FSB to 250 and get a 500mhz OC and wont need a ram divider. The model # on the website for the manchester X2 is ADA3800BVBOX. The BV (disregard the BOX part) means its a manchester core. If you look at the model # on a Toledo it ends in CDBOX... my friend got a manchester that had the CDBOC end to his model # on the IHS. So its a physically limited toledo core (which OC's slightly better). Im hopeing for a CD and not a BV lol. Video card I picked is awesome, its from eVGA but its clocked higher then any other 7800GT I've seen. The DFI Lanparty MOBO is supposed to be a beastly OC'er but its said that it has a ton of features and settings and isnt noob friendly. I suspect It'll take a good 3 days or so before I know what im doing with it. But it is an nF4 mobo... Hard drive is SATA so thats good, and the larger cache should make it nice but 7200RPM makes me sad. Will add a 10K 74GB raptor later and make the 250GB WB a storage drive.

Plan to OC the X2 from 2.0ghz to 2.5ghz. I wana OC the 7800GT to something like 480/1150. Stock cooling all the way

[arbitriter]

It is looking pretty good - gonna be fun once you get it up a running

Im getting ready to build my own gamer rig in a month or so, when i do i'll probably post her to see if anybody's heard anything bout the stuff i wanna use.

Gotta love OC friendly manufacturers like AMD