I was wondering which is better for gaming. The Amd 64 X2 3800 or the AMD 64 4000? I have the Radeon X800XL and I want to build a great gaming PC. Which ones does people recommend and what motherboard. Price is not a big issue but trying to keep the CPU and mobo under $600.
The x2 line is all dual core, which is better for like media type applications. If you want to build a good gaming pc stick with the 4000+. Here is some proof http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20051121/the_mother_of_all_cpu_charts-23.html#opengl
Current games are 99% single core, but that will change in 2006 and even more in 2007. Many of the current games must be set to run on just one processor in a dual core system (it's called setting the "affinity") since they weren't written with dual cores in mind, but that's a fairly trivial issue. The only REAL issue for current gaming is CPU core speed, the faster the better. The 3800 x2 runs at 2.0GHz, the 4000+ runs at 2.4GHz. The 3800 x2 has 512KB L2 cache, the 4000+ Sandy has 1MB L2 cache. So the higher clock speed (mostly) and the larger L2 cache (a little bit) means that current games will run about 25% faster on the 4000+ Sandy. Now of course MY 3800+ is running at 2.5GHz and is at least as fast as any stock 4000+ on current games and will smoke them when next years dual core enabled games hit the market.
In reply to your post I would recommend once again sticking with the 3800 due to money issues. The best bang for your buck. I have a 3000 and i am at the bottom of the food chain according to the review on TOms Hardware. WEll 3 from the bottom. but for 130 not to bad huh
