Economical and proactive thinking for a new PC

[Flanker2]

Its the Athlon 64 FX, not Athlon FX. The Athlon 64 FX series are basically high-end (2.4-3.0GHz) Athlon 64 CPUs. The only thing different is that they have their multipliers unlocked, unlike regular Athlon 64s who are "top locked." They just gave them the "FX" name because they wanted to distinguish them, and the name sounds kinda cool.

Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core CPUs are like simply having 2 single-core Athlon 64s in one PC. Your clock speed won't double. You'll simply have two cores to use, instead of one. Its the same principle as having two different processors on one motherboard, except this is better. The benefits? As far as gaming goes, only a handful of games are even STARTING to support Dual-Core CPUs so basically, you'll only see the performance of one core in games. As far as other tasks go, however, multitasking will become incredibly smooth. For example; you'll be able to run 4 games at a time , something you couldn't even dream of on a regular single-core.

Incase you haven't noticed yet; AMD DOES have Dual Core CPUs. What more, they blow away Intel's Dual Core. There is NOTHING that Intel Pentoim-Ds excel in compared to Athlon 64 X2s. There are a couple of reasons for this, including that the Athlon 64 X2s don't have to go to the Northbridge to talk to eachother, and that they aeren't starved for memory bandwidth like Pentium-Ds.

HyperThreading is like fake Dual Core. Yes, it ends up having the same effect as Dual Core, but not quite to the same extent. HT is more like 1.5 cores actually, ask Intel themselves. Basically, no one comes close to the computing power of the Athlon 64 X2s.

Can you afford to buy a new processor in the future? If so, do as chickenfoot said and buy a Athlon 64 Single-Core, then upgrade to a Dual-Core in the future (yes, Socket 939 supports them both). If not, then how much CAN you spend right now? Depending on that, go with as high of a Dual-Core CPU as you can.

Bleh, one more thing I guess I should mention; Intel Pentium-Ds are cheaper than Athlon 64 X2s, but like I said, they're no match for the Athlon 64s.

 

[Thresh]

Looking to spend no more than 250 for a CPU, which is about 1 step down from the best Athlon 64. But it sounds like X2's would be a great investment once apps and games start supporting it, but of course it's 3 times more expensive then what I was wanting, I'll be holding off on that one. Thanks for the info, both of ya.

 

[Flanker2]

...You know there is more than one Athlon 64 processor right? $250 would get you a 3500+ (2.2GHz, 512KB L2 cache, $219). The 2nd best Athlon 64 processor is the FX-57 (2.6GHz, 1MB L2 cache, $811).

The cheapest X2 processor is the X2 3800+ (Dual 2.0Ghz, 2 x 512KB L2 cache, $347).

You already have a 3400+, why do you want a new processor?

 

[Thresh]

right I knew that, excluding the fx and x2 is what I meant...

Im thinking about 6 months into the future here, just getting an idea of what im going to be looking for.

 

[Trotter]

I was thinking about getting a fast graphics card (like 1 step down from the best) and a mobo that supports SLI and just buy the same card again once it gets slow for cheap about year or so down the road,

With the new drivers released by nVidia, you don't have to have the exact same cards for SLI.

There are a couple of threads about this in HW Off Topic.

 

[Thresh]

Would be a waist of money if you think about it, the gpu from those two could only go as fast as the slowest one which is a waist of the newer graphics cards power.