AMD 3800 or AMD X2 3800

[chrismetalrock]

Im looking at the amd 3800 and amd x2 3800 cpus. the x2 is only 3 dollars more.

the 3800 is 1Mb cache and single core

the 3800 x2 is dual core with 512mb x2 cache.

i mainly use my computer for gaming. which cpu should i go with?

 

[Ste]

Well since the 3800 X2 is only 3 dollars more Id go with it, cause games right now won't use the second core but so what, games in the near future will so why not future proof now. Not only that but Dual cores are great for multitasking and encoding So i think its definitly worth the 3 more $$.

 

[FghtinIrshNvrDi]

easy choice... dual core. It'll get all of your single core applications done just fine, and it's the 'newer' wave of processors. It's what you want.

Ryan

 

[chrismetalrock]

what about it would be worse than single core? all the games will only get 512mb of cache on the 3800 x2 and they would get the 1mb of cache on the 3800 single core. but how much of a difference would that make?

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

Any of the recent 3800's only have 512 of cache.

However the old 3800's have 1 meg of cache, are years old in design, run very hot, use alot of power ect.

 

[vaderpro]

what about it would be worse than single core? all the games will only get 512mb of cache on the 3800 x2 and they would get the 1mb of cache on the 3800 single core. but how much of a difference would that make?

Yeah, it'd be nice to see some benchmarks on this.

 

[CrimsonGX]

Dual core 3800, better for the near future.

 

[gaara]

Yeah, it'd be nice to see some benchmarks on this.

Cache makes a significant difference in applications where the same process is repeated numerous times...afterall cache is simply dedicated memory that the CPU uses to store information it thinks it will need to access quickly numerous times

So to the answer your question, larger cache size won't make a large difference in games since you're constantly dealing with new processes...this is another reason why Intel processors with larger L2 cache perform better in rendering/encoding as you're accessing the same file over and over again

Should also be pointed out that the X2 3800+ only uses one of the two L2 caches during gameplay...games are not multithreaded therefore only one core is under load during games and since processors can't share cache you're only using the 512KB found on core #1

 

[vaderpro]

Thanks Gaara.

 

[chrismetalrock]

thanks for the info, that cleared up everything. i will just go with a 4400 x2 for now.