I am building a new system(finally...the Celeron is killing me) and I found two processors that both look good, but I'll need your guys's opinions. AMD Athlon 64 3800+ Venice Core===512KB L2 Cache, 2.4Ghz ===$139 AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego Core===1MB L2 Cache, 2.2Ghz ===$205 First of all, is the extra 512KB L2 cache really going to show in games(I dont care about burning times etc... only games) And if yes, then is that worth the extra $66? Thank You for your opinions!
If you can,wait until the 24th of this month.Intel plans on the Conroe release and Amd is rumored to be dropping their prices. You should be able to pick up a 3800x2 for about $170.00. Not bad if you want a dual core,the prices of their other processors will drop also but not nearly as much. http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2800
Firstly you need to look around on the prices, I can get both the 3700 and 3800 for the same prices in the UK, so I can't see why you're getting such a price difference. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Socket_939.html £94 http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/88104 £96 But basically for gaming you'd be better off using the higher speed CPU over the higher cache, although you should be able to overclock the 3700 to 2.4 easily. The cache would be more use if you were doing more CPU intensive operations such as encoding and compiling. For gaming the extra cache may give about 5% extra performance, there are various bench tests showing the results of tests, one is here: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=219&num=1
You obviously mean 1MB of cache not 1GB of cache. The cache is definately 512KB not 1MB here is the direct product spec from AMD http://www.amdcompare.com/us-en/desktop/details.aspx?opn=ADA3800DAA4BW
Thanks a lot guys, I think I'll be going with the 3800+ because when I saw how little performance was gained in games from that extra cache(Thanks BigDK), I truly didn't think it was worth the extra $66. @Boxwrench the 3800+ dual core is way outperformed by its cheaper single core versions(In single thread apps that is), and I dont say defrag my HD at the same time when I play games, so I'd rather get more performance from the single core. Also, I was gonna wait till' July 24th, but notice how the special price of the AMD Athlon 64 3500+ is $109 and the 3800+ is $139(in the DailyTech article), and notice how Newegg and ChiefValue are selling those processors at the July 24th price already! I like that. Thanks a lot guys! I'll be getting the 3800+ comes Thursday.
boxwrench thanx for thr tip of the amd dual core price drop i was just going to buy one for my new system im buliding think i will wait a little bit now
3800+ x2 is 1mb of l2 cache sorry bout that big dk thot you were talking about x2 processors socket 939
yeah, x2 3800 has 512 for each core which adds to 1mb. when conroe comes out all the x2s will drop alot. with 4800x2 for $300, Im considering upgrading from my 3800
4800+ X2 is gonna be $645. The 4600+ is gonna be $301. That looks really stupid, because then no one is gonna buy the 4800+, extra $345 for 200Mhz....
but the x2 4800 has 1mb l2 cache thats all i want i fucked up and got x2 am2 socket 4200+ 512mb cache
