is the extra cache worth 100 bucks?

L

Light1984

Gawd
Joined
Dec 31, 2004
Messages
616
title says it, seems my general cycle is about 2.5 years for an upgrade, and im due. Currently Im running an Athlon XP 2800 OCed to 3200, 1gig, 6800gt. Dont get me wrong, everything runs well, but I am a speed freak, so.... Is the extra money worth the extra cache from the x2 4200 to the x2 4400. Had my eye on the 4400 for awhile, been afraid to pull the trigger though, cause my list is almost 3 grand. I can post it if you like.
 
Light1984 said:
title says it, seems my general cycle is about 2.5 years for an upgrade, and im due. Currently Im running an Athlon XP 2800 OCed to 3200, 1gig, 6800gt. Dont get me wrong, everything runs well, but I am a speed freak, so.... Is the extra money worth the extra cache from the x2 4200 to the x2 4400. Had my eye on the 4400 for awhile, been afraid to pull the trigger though, cause my list is almost 3 grand. I can post it if you like.
Click to expand...

Why would you buy anything other than a dual core opteron if you are willing to to even consider a 4400?
 
please extrapolate, granted I plan on watercooling, but i dont think i am gonna do an insane overclock, so i just want a mild overclock and i want it to run very cool. i dont know all that much about opterons, how they compare, architecturally, when people post stuff like i got "CCB1E 0050VPMW" etc etc. I dont want to wind up with something that isnt as good as another chip due to which week is was produced and whatnot. That whole luck of the draw thing doesnt suit me. Guess i need to go read up about the steppings eh?
 
If you're only looking for a mild overclock, then I wouldn't worry too much about the stepping, pretty much any amd processor right now has no problem with a "mild" overclock. The opterons offer the same amount of cache as the 4400, 4800 and FX60 and generally come from better silicon. This is why everyone is flocking toward them now. The opteron 175 is comparable to the 4400, so you can also take that into account when looking at pricing.
 
Light1984 said:
please extrapolate, granted I plan on watercooling, but i dont think i am gonna do an insane overclock, so i just want a mild overclock and i want it to run very cool. i dont know all that much about opterons, how they compare, architecturally, when people post stuff like i got "CCB1E 0050VPMW" etc etc. I dont want to wind up with something that isnt as good as another chip due to which week is was produced and whatnot. That whole luck of the draw thing doesnt suit me. Guess i need to go read up about the steppings eh?
Click to expand...

Do you mean extreme voltage or extreme clocks? Unless you want to shrug off clocks the chip has hiding any of them will be good. You know how it is, they are all the same cores so they can all do about the same clocks with a little bit of correlation between max OC and model but not enough to bother. Only dif is that if you get a 165 you may need a mobo that can do fairly high HTT to push really high. And no I still dont mean getting crazy with the voltage, the cores just have that much room to move up.
 
cool cool, thx for the replies, maybe ill consider one of those 165s, they are quite a bit cheaper.
 
for me I couldnt justify the extra $100 bucks for marginal gains.
i just bought a 4200+ and am currently seeing how shell OC at stock voltage :)
im at 2.4ghz so far and Im not let down one bit..and saving $100 bucks was a plus for me too :)
 
Light1984 said:
cool cool, thx for the replies, maybe ill consider one of those 165s, they are quite a bit cheaper.
Click to expand...

please do, its a great value and fast as all hell, but keep in mind you need an overclocking friendly motherboard, power supply, and cooling, although many people are getting pretty good results with stock cooling because these Opty's arent needing alot of voltage to get high clocks......
 
the cache is generally overrated, but in the case of the opterons it comes at the low-end x2 price but has the cache too, and easily overclocks to the higher end x2's, so its win-win. although the prices have gone up :(
 
NO...the extra cache is NOT worth $100. You will NEVER see $100 worth of extra performance out of the cache.
 
the cache might have mattered a bit on the single core chips (people said windows felt "smoother" with 1mb) but it wont make a lick of difference with dual core... you might get a couple frames higher with a 2mb (1 per core) chached chip, but all in all, i dont think its worth the price premium.

im running a 3800 X2 at 2.45ghz, and it is very fast. so fast that i am in no hurry to upgrade it at all, and before i generally always looking at some way to make my system faster.
 
kirbyrj said:
NO...the extra cache is NOT worth $100. You will NEVER see $100 worth of extra performance out of the cache.
Click to expand...

It depends on how much $100 is worth to you. I know for me it wouldn't be worth an extra $100 but then I got my opty 165 for $278 and I definitly couldn't have gotten a low x2 for $100 cheaper than that.

Post the specs of what you're building. $3000 seems like a lot. I spent about $1300 on my sytem and I think it rocks.
 
I think the opty 165 is the best deal out there. I know they have gone up, but when I got mine ($316 from zzf) and oc'ed it to 2.4. Basically got a 4800+ X2 for less than half the price. 2.4 is generally the bare minimum these chips are pulling, anything above that and you can compare yourself with the FX-60. But at that point you really should be looking at the 170 for the 10x multi
 
I love my 165, 2 x 2.5ghz x 1mb - cant beat it for 300 bucks! Go opteron, you wont be disappointed.
 
AssMan said:
Post the specs of what you're building. $3000 seems like a lot. I spent about $1300 on my sytem and I think it rocks.
Click to expand...

LOL, here what I got so far...

2x eVGA GeForce 7800 GT 256mb DDR3 (Retail Box) $600
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ $497
Corsair 3500LLPRO 2GB $300
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium $170
PC Power & Cooling 510W Turbo Cool SLI $220
xFi Xtreme Music $120

Techflex Wire Sleeving kit (UV Yellow) $15
Sunbeam CC UV $21
Lian Li PC-75 USB Black Aluminum Full Tower Case $240
Thermochill PA120.2 $105
12V DD-D5 Pump $77
Danger Den Single 5 1/4" Bay Reservoir $30

54047 Tygon® Medical/Surgical Tubing 7/16" ID x 5/8" OD x 3/32" Wall 10ft $28

Swiftech Storm water-block $174
Swiftech MCW55

Samsung 244T 24” LCD $1400
 
Why the samsung LCD over say a Dell...save yourself $600 right there.
 
from what ive read the samsung is marginally better, and it has the hdcp or whatever for vista. if i spend even 800 on an lcd, its gonna have to last quite some time. if dell comes out with their rumored 2407, then im all over
 
I'd also look at the G.Skill HZ RAM or whatever it is instead of the Corsair. Corsair seems a little bit overrated at $300 :(.
 
ooo ooo ooo.. i like the suggestions, what else you guys think i should change, if i could get this system down to under 2000 (minus montior) that would be cool.
 
you could go with a 4200+ if you had to. I still don't think it's worth the extra money :). Or find an opty 170 somewhere.
 
kirbyrj said:
Oh well...gone are the $350-375 days :(. That was a good price ;).
Click to expand...
yeah.. the opterons aren't really worth it anymore.. esp with how the X2's are priced and the 3700+ is clocking
 
(cf)Eclipse said:
yeah.. the opterons aren't really worth it anymore.. esp with how the X2's are priced and the 3700+ is clocking
Click to expand...
what, are the 3700+'s picking up the slack? how high are they going nowadays?
 
Soymilk said:
what, are the 3700+'s picking up the slack? how high are they going nowadays?
Click to expand...
i've seen a few break 3ghz on air.. XS is down, so i can't show you :(
 
Light1984 said:
LOL, here what I got so far...

2x eVGA GeForce 7800 GT 256mb DDR3 (Retail Box) $600
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ $497
Corsair 3500LLPRO 2GB $300
ASUS A8N-SLI Premium $170
PC Power & Cooling 510W Turbo Cool SLI $220
xFi Xtreme Music $120

Techflex Wire Sleeving kit (UV Yellow) $15
Sunbeam CC UV $21
Lian Li PC-75 USB Black Aluminum Full Tower Case $240
Thermochill PA120.2 $105
12V DD-D5 Pump $77
Danger Den Single 5 1/4" Bay Reservoir $30

54047 Tygon® Medical/Surgical Tubing 7/16" ID x 5/8" OD x 3/32" Wall 10ft $28

Swiftech Storm water-block $174
Swiftech MCW55

Samsung 244T 24” LCD $1400
Click to expand...

$500 for a dual core? Not worth it. Get an opty 165 off newegg, $325 I think.

7800GT SLi is also not worth it. Get a x1900xt, same performance or better. Stupid to gimp yourself w/ 2 old cars instead of 1 new card.

The corsair is a waste of money. Corsair is an absolute P.O.S. for overclocking past their specs. Get Crucial (plain) ram. Probably run you about $240.

what is that xFi crap? $120 for sound? You an audiophile or something? Cause if not the 6 channel onboard audio should work fine.

And DON'T pay $100 for a rad. $174 for storm?!!?! I seriously hope that is a typo.

Here's your watercooling:
http://www.jab-tech.com/Swiftech-H20-APEX-Extreme-Liquid-Cooling-Kit-pr-3041.html
$260.

+ http://www.jab-tech.com/Swiftech-MCW55-VGA-waterblock-pr-3080.html (Swiftech MCW55) $38

Simple, and you get everything at once. Not a bad price for a kit either.

And if you get a x1900xt you only need one waterblock. Thats another $40 saved.

That will easily put you under $2000.

edit: o yea, and since you are overclocking and watercooling, get teh DFI SLI-DR. They are the best at OCing.
 
sweet, i may end up getting a 3700+ instead of an opty when i upgrade :p

...god thats still like a month away, stupid sn21g5 releasing in march instead of sooner :(
 
(cf)Eclipse said:
yeah.. the opterons aren't really worth it anymore.. esp with how the X2's are priced and the 3700+ is clocking
Click to expand...


Glad I got mine when I did!
 
Thx Russ for the advice, the 174 was for all the watercooling stuff. including a chipset cooler from swiftech, i just never updated prices, so yea, it should be lower. i may have to hold out till the end of feb march for nvidia to release their new card. i was thinking about the 165, but it is only 1.8ghz... am i garunteed to get up to around 2.2 with an overclock, do most people do that well without upping voltage. i dont know a too terrible amount about overclocking, so i would rather stay away from do a ridiculous amount, so that may be worth the extra money to me to not have to bother with it, but then i guess thats just laziness and i should do my research, lol.
 
yea, but UV yellow would look pimp :p but youre right, if im trying to shave pennies i should shave all the bling for now...
 
Soymilk said:
sweet, i may end up getting a 3700+ instead of an opty when i upgrade :p

...god thats still like a month away, stupid sn21g5 releasing in march instead of sooner :(
Click to expand...


the 3700+ at 3Ghz would get obliterated by any 2.6+Ghz dual core chip
 
misenthrope said:
the 3700+ at 3Ghz would get obliterated by any 2.6+Ghz dual core chip
Click to expand...
in a general basis, yes. but keep in mind two things:

1) 99% of what i do on my computer is play games.
2) im keeping myself on a pretty strict budget, which dual cores just dont fall into. im going single core for now, and then when it feels like i need to upgrade, ill buy a dual core. they'll be cheaper by that time, too.
 
Soymilk said:
in a general basis, yes. but keep in mind two things:

1) 99% of what i do on my computer is play games.
2) im keeping myself on a pretty strict budget, which dual cores just dont fall into. im going single core for now, and then when it feels like i need to upgrade, ill buy a dual core. they'll be cheaper by that time, too.
Click to expand...

Quake 4 onward is probably gonna be multithreaded. Q4 has SMP, and I'm sure all future games will too.

400 mhz OC on an A64? Easy as pie.
 
I'd get a cheaper PSU that performs just as good...

Antec, OCZ, Enermax...? idk im a nubie

::Drools for SLI 7800gt's::
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top