Ballpark estimate on % improvement

[dderidex]

Current rig:

• AMD Athlon64 X2 '4400+' (89w, 2.2ghz, 1mb-cache-per-core)
• 2gb OCZ Platinum PC4000 (DDR 500 CL3-3-2-8)
• Radeon HD 3850 512mb
• WD Caviar SE16 (250gb, 16mb cache, 7200rpm)
• Shuttle ST20G5 XPC

Proposed ($1k) rig:

• Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 (65w, 3.0ghz, 6mb-cache)
• 4gb OCZ Titanium PC2 6400 (DDR2 800 CL4-4-4-15)
• Radeon HD 4850
• WD Velociraptor (300gb, 16mb cache, 10000rpm)
• Shuttle SG33G5 XPC

Questions would be:

1. I know regular DDR cited it's throughput in the rating. So...PC4000 + PC2 6400...is that really only basically a 50% boost in throughput? REALLY? Given the latency hit for it (CL3-3-2 to CL4-4-4)...I mean, yeah, it's more, but...can't be that enormous a difference, no?
   
2. Obviously, the Core 2 Duo is a hell of a lot faster than my 939 X2. Clock-for-clock it's faster, it's 3.0ghz-per-core instead of 2.2ghz-per-core, and 6mb cache total vs 2mb cache total is nothing to sneeze at. How big a difference will this make in CPU-limited games? I'm looking at you, Valve titles (HL2:Ep2, etc)
   
3. Ditto the Radeon 3850 to the Radeon 4850. Decent jump, but...what if I did just this upgrade to my current system? As in, current system vs current system + Radeon 4850 vs proposed build up above. In games I am currently hitting a wall in (for example, 'Oblivion' is the only thing I play right now that runs iffy*), how do these compare? Would it be...baseline, baseline + 50%, baseline + 100%? Or baseline, baseline + 80%, baseline + 90%? In which case, I'd just consider the video card upgrade, as it gets me most of the way to where I want to be.
   
4. Finally, as an OVERALL jump, how would this improve things? I do a lot of image editing and graphics design (big files - some, indeed, a gigabyte or so with all layers), watch movies on the system, and do gaming...but nothing REALLY modern. As noted, the only thing I play that really hurts the box now is Oblivion*.

* Worth noting settings I would prefer to play at:
1680x1050 resolution
All in-game sliders maxed
4xAA with 'Edge Detect' (12x) and Transparency/Adaptive AA enabled.
16xAF

...it's actually almost playable like that, now. I'd say framerates are in the mid-to-high teens. For a slower-paced RPG, that's workable. And it sure looks gorgeous, but...well, let's not kid ourselves, that sucks for performance. 90% of the time, I'm playing flight or sub sims (IL2: Sturmovik, Silent Hunter 3, Silent Hunter 4) or Valve's shooters (Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life 2 and episodes, Portal, etc), which can handle those settings perfectly fine. But I'd LIKE to be able to play those in 'Oblivion', too.

Which is kind of the final question, and only real important one. I WANT to play 'Oblivion' at the above settings with 30+ fps; Half-Life 2 with much lower level load times; and less disk thrashing when working with epic file sizes. That's the goal. How much of the above upgrade would I need to do for each of those objectives?

 

[Joe Average]

The whole damned thing, really. Just do it, and get it over with.

A bazillion times faster. That good enough?

The C2D will eat that old X2 alive, top to bottom, front to back, and 3x on a Sunday.

 

[Dangman]

Joe Average's response best sums it up the whole situation .

1) That's a 62.5% increase in thoroughout. However, it really doesn't matter that much. Intel Core 2 Duo based systems do not benefit from from having their RAM and FSB at anything higher than 1:1. So technically, you can just use DDR2 667 RAM with that setup and you'll still see the exact same performance as DDR2 800 RAM and even DDR2 1200 RAM.
2) Roughly 40 to 60% faster give or take.
3) Just look at any review where they include the HD3850 and the HD4850 together. That should already tell you how good the HD4850 is compared to the HD3850. Use the HD3870 if you can't find a review with the HD3850. Since the HD3870 is faster than the HD3850, that should also tell you how good the HD4850 is compared to the HD3850.
4) It's a pretty big improvement.

 

[taylorwilsdon]

Where's the $1000 coming from? I build my new rig, with an e8500, 8gb OCZ SLI DDR2800, xfx 8800GT Alpha dog, Gigabyte ds3l, Sony DVDRW, Seagate hdd, Antec Sonata III case and Earthwatts 500w psu for just under $650.

The only thing you've listed that might cost a little more is the hard drive (velociraptor) but everything else appears to be on par or even less expensive than the stuff I bought...?

Sounds like you may want to shop around a little more.

 

[Nenu]

I did a similar jump from a x2 4200 (2.7GHz) + X1800PE to E8400 + 8800GT (760/1945).
The performance difference was staggering.
I tried the GT in the AMD machine and with the CPU clocked to 2.7GHz, it couldnt drive the GT to its potential, overclocking the card was pointless.
After putting the GT in the Intel machine and overclocking the card, I got 50% better performance in Crysis!
You can expect a larger performance increase probably without clocking!

 

[Dangman]

Where's the $1000 coming from? I build my new rig, with an e8500, 8gb OCZ SLI DDR2800, xfx 8800GT Alpha dog, Gigabyte ds3l, Sony DVDRW, Seagate hdd, Antec Sonata III case and Earthwatts 500w psu for just under $650.

The only thing you've listed that might cost a little more is the hard drive (velociraptor) but everything else appears to be on par or even less expensive than the stuff I bought...?

Sounds like you may want to shop around a little more.

The Shuttle he listed is roughly $270 assuming he's going with the B version (SG33G5B). Add the cost of the Velociraptor, E8400 and HD4850 ($290, $170 and $180 respectively) and that's $910 for all four parts. Add the RAM and you'll get roughly $1000. And that's before rebates are counted.

And taylorwilsdon, are you including the rebates on your parts into that $650?

 

[dderidex]

You can expect a larger performance increase probably without clocking!

Worth pointing out that I don't overclock. Used to. In a big way. Heck, had an amazingly badass evaporating watercooling tower I scratch built. Couple things changed my mind:
1) It takes a staggering amount of work to do properly, and for so little performance gain vs just buying better hardware.
2) Stability. Even with a slight (<10%) overclock, you have the occasional system crash. Rare, granted, but it happens. With my entirely 100% stock clocked box, Windows hasn't crashes in 2 years. Indeed, I routinely go 4-6 weeks between reboots.
3) Power management. I like that the CPU throttles down when it's not needed, and I have the S3 idle state configured properly - impressive 90% power drop averaged over a month vs an overclocked system.

The Shuttle he listed is roughly $270 assuming he's going with the B version (SG33G5B). Add the cost of the Velociraptor, E8400 and HD4850 ($290, $170 and $180 respectively) and that's $910 for all four parts. Add the RAM and you'll get roughly $1000. And that's before rebates are counted.

Exactly right.

The two 'possibly more expensive than they are worth' components are the Shuttle XPC and the Velociraptor. But, then, I value having a very, very tiny footprint - the PC sits tidily in the corner of my desk - and the hard drive promises some amazing disk performance (from the reviews I've read on it).

3) Just look at any review where they include the HD3850 and the HD4850 together. That should already tell you how good the HD4850 is compared to the HD3850. Use the HD3870 if you can't find a review with the HD3850. Since the HD3870 is faster than the HD3850, that should also tell you how good the HD4850 is compared to the HD3850.

I guess that's what I was building on. I have seen those reviews, and an HD 4850 is a stunning amount faster than a Radeon 3850. Only thing is that ALL of them are either using a very highly clocked Core 2 Duo (even faster than what I'm potentially considering) or Core 2 Quad.

Not a Socket 939 CPU.

So...looking at the raw performance jump - especially with FSAA (which is the factor that gets my attention), the HD 4850 over the HD 3850 would probably be enough for me, for now. But, again, that's with a system that takes everything else out of the picture as a throttling risk. What's the story with a 939 CPU? No idea!

 

[Dangman]

1) It takes a staggering amount of work to do properly, and for so little performance gain vs just buying better hardware.

Took less than 24 hours for me to setup and overclock my Intel C2D. As for little performance gain, on average, most Intel C2D based CPUs can OC 1GHz or more over their stock speeds. That basically ensures that you will not be bottlenecked at all with most current games

2) Stability. Even with a slight (<10%) overclock, you have the occasional system crash. Rare, granted, but it happens. With my entirely 100% stock clocked box, Windows hasn't crashes in 2 years. Indeed, I routinely go 4-6 weeks between reboots.

Done right, an overclocked system can be 100% stable. With my own personal system, I have yet to see any crash that was directly or indirectly related to my OC.

3) Power management. I like that the CPU throttles down when it's not needed, and I have the S3 idle state configured properly - impressive 90% power drop averaged over a month vs an overclocked system.

Ok, you got me there. However do note that you can throttle the CPU even when there is an overclock.

What's the story with a 939 CPU? No idea!

Just expect to see lower framerates compared to Intel C2D CPUs. However, this article does include the X2 4850E, which is faster than your current 939 CPU:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scaling-in-games-with-quad-core-processors/1

With the exception of one game, the X2 4850E was totally outclassed, outperformed and outed by the Intel C2D CPUs. So considering how horrible the X2 4850E did in comparison, your 939 CPU might see even lower FPS.

 

[dderidex]

Ok, you got me there. However do note that you can throttle the CPU even when there is an overclock.

True, but it doesn't work nearly as well. And I should note that I have always used the 'Minimal Power Management' in XP, with the S3 suspend state set in the BIOS - so that could well be the cause of my overclock issues. Even a 10% overclock will fairly reliably have issues coming back from 'suspend to ram' state too often for my taste.

With 'stock' clocks, everything just always works.

Just expect to see lower framerates compared to Intel C2D CPUs. However, this article does include the X2 4850E, which is faster than your current 939 CPU:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu-scaling-in-games-with-quad-core-processors/1

I wouldn't actually say it's faster. It's AMD's new 65nm core, which had performance issues compared to the 90nm cores of the same clock speeds (something to do with the L2 cache lookup). And then my chip has 2mb of cache vs that chip's 1mb - which games seem to be particularly sensitive too. Granted, it's clocked faster, but overall I'd call them a wash in performance.

So...these charts become very illuminating, thanks! However, given I'm gaming at 1680x1050 (close enough to 1600x1200 on those charts), there really are few games that the CPU seems to make any difference at all in.