Phenom II x4 + 2GB Ram or Phenom II x3 + 4GB Ram?

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djzikario

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I got a budget of $90 and a Phenom II x2 555 CPU (Did not unlocked :( ) that I can return for $105 credit, I have installed in my pc 2GB Ram (XP 32Bit) and I might install Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bit or stay with XP32(if I don't purchase the extra ram). With the credit and budget I can either get a 3.2GhzQuad core alone and stay with xp or a 2.8GhzTri-core+2GB Ram Stick combo and upgrade to 7 64bit. What is the best choice for gaming? Important Note: Got an XFX Radeon HD 5770 installed on the rig but seems it needs a better processor or ram to make it to the fps shown in some reviews. Also my 550W psu is good with 30A in the 12V cpu rail, and it had the video card cable too so I think is not really the psu.
 
As I've read numerous times you rarely use more than 2 cores gaming and almost none use more than 3 so I would say get the x3 and the 4gb try to unlock the fourth core and just save up for win 7 or wait till you can afford all 3
 
I'm not 100% sure on this, but I've heard you can unlock the extra core on the x3's. I know you can on the x2's, but not he x3's.
 
If you get lucky you have the possibility of having a x3 with an unlockable 4th core but it's luck of the draw and even if you can it may not work to the full potential of the other cores
 
Thanks for the advice, ye I got the kingston ddr2 667mhz ram and will buy the same, also I think I will have the extra $55(ram cost) for tomorrow so I might buy the quad plus the ram :)
 
If you are using the computer strictly for gaming and nothing else,you would benefit much more from a dual core even now,than you would getting a quad core. Although your system will run a bit quicker all around with a quad,unless you're doing media encoding, you wont see much difference in gaming performance,and in some cases worse. There are a few games that are multi-threaded that would benefit from the extra cores,but even that would be counter-productive if you planned on doing any overclocking because the clock speeds you can attain with dual cores more than make up for the multi-threading advantage you would get with a quad.this information applies to intels chips (TBH i know little about amd processors) xD i hope that doesnt completely invalidate my points =P. Not meant to discourage, just had to give my two cents as i was in your position not too long ago weighing the i7 quads and the new dual cores. If you are strictly a gamer and want the best performance i would go for a high end dual core and overclock it to your hearts content :thumbsup:. a decent video card can take care of the rest. I know this is quite the novel but i just had to add in before you think about going to 64 bit ask around,maybe try it out first if possible. I see 64 bit os as the oxymoron of performance. It runs very sluggish unless you have excessive amounts of ram, which makes overclocking quite the pain (for intels anyways?) . Basically you want 64 bit OS for the same reason you would want a quad core (media encoding) except the 64 bit OS kills gaming performance,whereas the quad doesn't. if you are going to game go windows 7 ;). Well i think ill go get this published,my longest post to date xD.
 
wow thanks for the data bro, so instead of upgrading my cpu i should return my video card from radeon 5770 wich is ranked 20 in a site to the radeon 5850 that is ranked 5 in the same site and seems to almost double its performance for about $120 more? ($300 mine costed $185)
 
Most definitely :). I was thinking of buying that same card recently,seems like a good price/performance upgrade. From what I've read rts' like starcraft and warcraft are the only types of games that are driven by the processor,not the video card ,but other than that I think its all video card. Correct me if i'm wrong I've always wondered =P.
 
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