[p-zero]

Ok so I finaly broke down and started piecing together a powerhouse system. For the motherboard I decided to go with the Asus A8N 32 -SLi deluxe, for power I got the Antec smartpower 500w 2.0, Im also getting the Asus Vento case. Im going to be getting a Western Digital SATA 16mb cache drive, and (more than likely) 2 Georce 7800GTX, 2 gigs of some REALLY nice ram (hyperx, OCZ, etc) and Im going to be putting in the Sound Blaster X-Fi card in it.
So heres my main question which processor to go with? I mainly use my comps for gaming. Ive heard a lot of conflicting stories about the dual core processors and gaming, that some games can run ONLY off of one core then I hear if you get the hotfix, it fixes all of the problems. Whats the deal here? Would it be better to get lets say a 3700+ or a 4400+? And is the price difference REALLY worth the extra cash in performance? Seeing as the 3700 is about $225 and the 4400 is $458. I plan on overclocking later and have read that a lot of people have gotten the 3700 to 2.8 stable. ANY advice is helpful, Thanx.
-Pete.

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Ok so I finaly broke down and started piecing together a powerhouse system. For the motherboard I decided to go with the Asus A8N 32 -SLi deluxe, for power I got the Antec smartpower 500w 2.0, Im also getting the Asus Vento case. Im going to be getting a Western Digital SATA 16mb cache drive, and (more than likely) 2 Georce 7800GTX, 2 gigs of some REALLY nice ram (hyperx, OCZ, etc) and Im going to be putting in the Sound Blaster X-Fi card in it.
So heres my main question which processor to go with? I mainly use my comps for gaming. Ive heard a lot of conflicting stories about the dual core processors and gaming, that some games can run ONLY off of one core then I hear if you get the hotfix, it fixes all of the problems. Whats the deal here? Would it be better to get lets say a 3700+ or a 4400+? And is the price difference REALLY worth the extra cash in performance? Seeing as the 3700 is about $225 and the 4400 is $458. I plan on overclocking later and have read that a lot of people have gotten the 3700 to 2.8 stable. ANY advice is helpful, Thanx.
-Pete.

Dual core will last longer and it will multitask alot better. Its mostly the older games only that you might run into a problem running the game with 2 cores. Just think about it, back then dual core wasnt even out or available and the games were made for only 1 processor or 1 core. If you run a dedicated multiplayer server its totally different as you dont actually go into the game to run it.. (just an example) As this isnt the same as actually playing the game with dual cores. In other words the technology wasnt ever out until now.

If you want to play an old game on your dual core pc, just go into the task manager and set the affinity to either of the cores, not both and wala you can play it.

[jrm20]

Ok so I finaly broke down and started piecing together a powerhouse system. For the motherboard I decided to go with the Asus A8N 32 -SLi deluxe, for power I got the Antec smartpower 500w 2.0, Im also getting the Asus Vento case. Im going to be getting a Western Digital SATA 16mb cache drive, and (more than likely) 2 Georce 7800GTX, 2 gigs of some REALLY nice ram (hyperx, OCZ, etc) and Im going to be putting in the Sound Blaster X-Fi card in it.
So heres my main question which processor to go with? I mainly use my comps for gaming. Ive heard a lot of conflicting stories about the dual core processors and gaming, that some games can run ONLY off of one core then I hear if you get the hotfix, it fixes all of the problems. Whats the deal here? Would it be better to get lets say a 3700+ or a 4400+? And is the price difference REALLY worth the extra cash in performance? Seeing as the 3700 is about $225 and the 4400 is $458. I plan on overclocking later and have read that a lot of people have gotten the 3700 to 2.8 stable. ANY advice is helpful, Thanx.
-Pete.

Dual core will last longer and it will multitask alot better. Its mostly the older games only that you might run into a problem running the game with 2 cores. Just think about it, back then dual core wasnt even out or available and the games were made for only 1 processor or 1 core. If you run a dedicated multiplayer server its totally different as you dont actually go into the game to run it.. (just an example) As this isnt the same as actually playing the game with dual cores. In other words the technology wasnt ever out until now.

If you want to play an old game on your dual core pc, just go into the task manager and set the affinity to either of the cores, not both and wala you can play it.

[p-zero]

Sounds good but how long until the new games can actually utilize the 2 processors? Also, as far as the L1 and L2 caches go, is a 2mb cache better or a 2 x 1mb? Or do they actually run about the same?
Thanx,
-Pete.

[Hammm]

it's about the same, have a look at AMD Opterons, the 165 or 170, they use the same core as the 4400+ which is two 3700+ cores. but they have extra silicon in them to help them keep cooler because they are server chips and are designed to stay on 24/7. some guys can get 2.6GHz from a 1.8GHz with a nice FSB. some people just up the multipler and call it quits but this never generates as good results as a high FSB and high RAM

[p-zero]

Thanx ham, thats very helpful, Im not sure which one Im going to go with yet, but I know for sure its going to be 2000 FSB. As Ive come to find out that the "speed" of the processor is not as important as people make it out to be. Whats the MOST important (in my opinion) is the front side bus speed, sigh still dont know know which one to get. Get a cheaper 3800 and get 2 bad [bleep] video cards or get a 4400(or better) and only get one for now. Decisions, decisions.......

[warriorscot]

I wouldnt get two 7800s now you would be wasting your money(its a waste anyway if you dont have a super high res monitor) DX10 is coming out and a whole new set of rendering technologies.

[p-zero]

Thanx for the tip Scot, guess Ill just get one mediocre card for now, so I might as well get a better CPU. And the monitor that I will be using, just because I love em, is my good old Dell P991 CRT flatscreen. This monitor can actually display really high resolution, it has more dpi than most monitors. I think Dell calls it a m991 now. Check em out.
-Pete.

[Hammm]

same here for the gfx card thing, when i do my PC build(eventually) i'll get the 6800GS ad then swap it when the time comes check out them 6800GS or X800GTO

[warriorscot]

Yeah, if youre in the UK or Europe the x1800s are a good ineterim card as they are cheaper than the 7800s but as powerful with some better features for VIVO and stuff like that. If youre somewhere else the 6800GS or one of the GTOs are a good idea, i wouldnt call them mediocre they will all play most games on high.

[Hammm]

well i'm now a defect, i have officailly joined ATIs group because the X1800XT is now cheaper than the 7800GTX. for me it's all about money(maybe i'm the next Mr. Krabs). i've been waiting for the X1800XT to drop lower and it has!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[p-zero]

Yeah Ive heard good things about the ATi cards, but I also heard there were some compatibility issues with nforce4 chipset. Which is whats on the MB(Asus A8N32-sli) that hopefully will get here soon. You guys might wanna check out the BFG tech geforce cards, theyre pretty sweet and OC'd out of the box. Little on the pricey side though.

[warriorscot]

There is no offically or on here unofficial incidents of incompatibilty of ATI cards using nforce 4 chipsets. If there was it would be a serious problem with the chipset and would have meant nvidia deviated from the set standard of the gfx interface.