Socket 939 Upgrade or Dump?

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The Chairman
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May 8, 2006
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On a long enough timeline i will be dumping this 939 system,

With that said.. A lot of the newer games are starting to own my 3700+ (crysis annd COD4)

i have still a decent video card 7950GX2.

The question is with the relativly small price to get into a X24200 or even a X23800... is it worth it? will i notice a big difference, especially in gaming? the price is about as much as a video game so it seems like it should be worth it.. Thoughts?
 
I wouldn't build a brand new computer around an X2 right now, but if this is just a simple swap out for a new chip everything else being the same, then yeah it's worth it.

I wouldn't spend a bunch of money on it but going from single core to dual core is like turning night into day. If you can find a cheap dual core, then hell yeah do it.
 
duby229 said:
I wouldn't build a brand new computer around an X2 right now, but if this is just a simple swap out for a new chip everything else being the same, then yeah it's worth it.

I wouldn't spend a bunch of money on it but going from single core to dual core is like turning night into day. If you can find a cheap dual core, then hell yeah do it.
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yeah im def not going to build a whole new pc around it, just a simple swap for my 3700+. they are like 60 dollars for a 939 x2 proc.
 
An upgrade like that would probably hold you until Phenom has price drops. I'm sure both games you listed were made to take advantage of multiple cores, so a 4200 would seem pretty nice. Looking at your OC you must have a pretty nice mobo, so just grab an X2 and crank it up! :D
 
I'm doing pretty much what you are looking to do.
I have a x2 4200+ (Toledo) on S939. Its clocked to 2.8GHz and is easily fast enough for everything I've thrown at it.
Currently I'm running an X1800PE which has held up fantastically but will be getting an 8800GT very soon to use with the same system.
Your GX2 should outperform my X1800.

The only thing I want more of is Ram as 2GB is not enough for The Witcher!
The X1800PE runs it brilliantly at 1280 res everything maxed fyi.
 
Going to dual core and staying on 939 is a comparatively dirt cheap upgrade for which I see no downsides, unless in a few weeks you'll suddenly be able to afford a new motherboard, RAM, and CPU.

If you think that upgrading to Penryn/Agena based on the outcome of the upcoming launch is a possibility for you, hold off on your upgrade for now. If not, go for it.
 
The crysis demo runs fine on my old 939 motherboard. I see no reason to upgrade, although I am not a big time gamer at all. The graphics card is the big issue with crysis. Also, performance memory seems to make a difference too.

My CPU is opteron 185 (2.6 ghz), 2gb OCZ memory, 8800gt video.

If I were building now I'd go with c2d for sure.
 
going duel core is a no brainer, with no downside and a very cheap price.

I have a 4400+ and planning to upgrade soon, nothing 393 really worth it. If you are not planning to build a new com soon, get the fastest 393, because its the last 393 cpu you will use.
 
i just checked newegg.. the 4200+ x2 Toledo is gone ... first the 4400+ now the 4200+

i got a 4200+ X2 Toledo last week from them for $69.99 .. stock 2.2ghz .. have it at 2.75Ghz now

i'm doing fine .. will hold up for a lil now .. and see what will come up next year ...

the manchester x2 4200+ is this there for 65.99 ..

i dunno but I could have gotten the fastest opterong 185, but why spend $229 on a cpu for this system now? I bought the $70 cpu, is doing it's job just fine.. am happy with it..
 
Swap your CPU for an X2 and overclock that sucker. You'll be all set.
 
IMHO, S939 still has a lot of life left in it. Look how long Socket A was (and still is) around..

Then again, going by my sig, I'm a junkie. :)
 
A lot of life? When I think about have just about the fastest s393 cpu, theres no room for upgrade, and looking at C2D and its OCability...
 
well i ordered today, it will be here Monday.

Ill post back with my findings. Thanks for the encouragement.

Any suggestions on things to do to Prep?

I shouldnt need to reformat or do anything special, just pop it in right?

and i know there use to be kicking around some sort of dual core performance patch from windows, is something like that still required? Any and all help would be awesome, thanks.
 
Faction said:
well i ordered today, it will be here Monday.

Ill post back with my findings. Thanks for the encouragement.

Any suggestions on things to do to Prep?

I shouldnt need to reformat or do anything special, just pop it in right?

and i know there use to be kicking around some sort of dual core performance patch from windows, is something like that still required? Any and all help would be awesome, thanks.
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You can just pop it in, if you know what your doing. But the best advice I can give you is to format and do a clean install. I know it sucks, but you'll be glad you did afterwards.

If you choose not to clean install you'll have to change the ACPI driver from the uniprocessor driver to the multiprocessor driver. Then you'll have to install AMD's processor driver, and the dual core timing fix. Keep in mid though you'll still likely have some problems with it. On the other hand if you do a clean install, and then install the processor driver and the timing fix, it'll work flawlessly.
 
I just picked up an 939 X-2 4200 from newegg. its rock solid with two sticks of ram, 3x multi for the Hyperthreading, 133 memory divider (not fancy memory) and 1.425v on the CPU with the 11 multiplier x 269

so that's 2.959ghz and the memory divider = 400hmz for the memory. I'm uh....pretty happy :D and that's just from quickly throwing some settings around. gonna see if I can do that on 1.4v.
wish I had some better ram. this stuff is only good for about 30mhz out of spec.

oh, this is on air btw, a thermaltake golden orb II.
 
I'm actually in the same boat, and will probably be picking up an X2 4200+ from newegg shortly, (along with an 8800GT or ATI 3870HD).

I think my current proc has 1MB L2 cache though, will I notice any difference in day to day tasks (web browsing, some math software for school) in dropping down to 512K caches on the manchester cores?

Also, the giant thread with all the gaming problems on dual cores is a little scary. Has this been fixed completely? Or are people only getting these horror stories when they don't do a clean install?
 
Mexicorn said:
I'm actually in the same boat, and will probably be picking up an X2 4200+ from newegg shortly, (along with an 8800GT or ATI 3870HD).

I think my current proc has 1MB L2 cache though, will I notice any difference in day to day tasks (web browsing, some math software for school) in dropping down to 512K caches on the manchester cores?

Also, the giant thread with all the gaming problems on dual cores is a little scary. Has this been fixed completely? Or are people only getting these horror stories when they don't do a clean install?
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Yeah, it's essentially a non-issue now. Just install the driver, the dual core optimizer, and the Microsoft hotfix and you're all set.
 
Same boat, got an A64 3200, Venice core, overclocked to 2.7Ghz on water, Geforce 6800 GT. Bioshock demo pretty much brings it to its knees.

I'm trying to decide whether to build a new system around a Core2 Duo or just make due with a cheap Manchester for another year or so.
 
duby229 said:
You can just pop it in, if you know what your doing. But the best advice I can give you is to format and do a clean install. I know it sucks, but you'll be glad you did afterwards.

If you choose not to clean install you'll have to change the ACPI driver from the uniprocessor driver to the multiprocessor driver. Then you'll have to install AMD's processor driver, and the dual core timing fix. Keep in mid though you'll still likely have some problems with it. On the other hand if you do a clean install, and then install the processor driver and the timing fix, it'll work flawlessly.
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Thanks for the information, Fortunatly I tried it without reformatting:
It automatically uninstalled the uniprocessor driver and used the multi... applied the couple patches and it works flawlessly!

I can definitaly see a big difference have it oced at 2.57 currently.

Thanks all who replied and suggested i purchase it.

Q6700 is hopefully less than a month away though (intel retail edge program, im verified and my order is backordered waiting to ship)
 
heh i bit too. grabbed a 4200 for 70 bones....

currently im sitting on a 4000+ single core, but for this cheap an upgrade to dual why not...only downside im not liking is 512kb cache as opposed to 1mb...hopefully its a non-issue gaming wise....

hope i can overclock this some, but i dont think my board is up to it much. probably keep it at stock.
 
I just didn't want to make another thread saying, hey should I upgrade or dump so I figured it would add my question here.

ASRock Dual Sata II with a 3800+X2
2 gigs of ram (4x512)
ATI x1900xt 256

I mostly game but I am not a heavy gamer but I am temped to look into upgrading my system. I have a limited budget (could probably convince my wife to let me use $200) to spend. Would it be better to get a better processor or video card or should I just get over it and overclock it some?
 
If you have not overclocked your processor then I would recommend do that and getting a HD3850 which would fall into your price bracket. However, it would also be nice to know what monitor you currently have as well:D In some way that would help in determining if you might get CPU or GPU limited with an upgrade.
 
Overvolt said:
If you have not overclocked your processor then I would recommend do that and getting a HD3850 which would fall into your price bracket. However, it would also be nice to know what monitor you currently have as well:D In some way that would help in determining if you might get CPU or GPU limited with an upgrade.
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What monitor? I dont get it?
 
Overvolt said:
If you have not overclocked your processor then I would recommend do that and getting a HD3850 which would fall into your price bracket. However, it would also be nice to know what monitor you currently have as well:D In some way that would help in determining if you might get CPU or GPU limited with an upgrade.
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I am currently running two 19' monitors, but the second monitor is used for web browsing and xfire/monitoring softwares.
 
i know i shouldn't post this here but if anyone is getting rid of a 939 socket, i;m in a the market for one. i;m a teenager so running on a very limite budget...like 20 bucks. but if you are willing, i;m here to buy.
 
ipam45 said:
i know i shouldn't post this here but if anyone is getting rid of a 939 socket, i;m in a the market for one. i;m a teenager so running on a very limite budget...like 20 bucks. but if you are willing, i;m here to buy.
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lol. nice try.. get a job
 
I'm about to buy a 4200 X2 to replace my 3700+ San Diego single core. Maybe another gig of ram to round off nicely at 2GB. DDR and S939 are pretty cheap these days!

Put that together with my 7800GT SLI, I should have no issues with UT3 and Crysis. At the moment, I'm not having too many issues, but there's a few things that're getting on my nerves... I think this is a justifiable purchase.

Glad other people are on the same wavelength. Good luck OCing.
 
I've been on an Opty 170 clocked at 2.6Ghz for 18 months, not let me down so far. I looked at upgrading to a better S939 processor but it's not really worth it. The Opty 185 is the best if you can get it (given the FX-60 is stupidly priced), and that's 2.6Ghz out of the box. Sure it could probably clock higher but I don't feel I need a faster CPU right now.
 
SGTFury said:
Same boat, got an A64 3200, Venice core, overclocked to 2.7Ghz on water, Geforce 6800 GT. Bioshock demo pretty much brings it to its knees.

I'm trying to decide whether to build a new system around a Core2 Duo or just make due with a cheap Manchester for another year or so.
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your problem is the video card, not the processor. I ran the demo just fine with a 2.4 venice, but with a 7900GS.
 
I'm running an opteron185 and, based on the latest game demos, I honestly reckon it's still got a lot of life in it before it starts to choke, my 7900gtx is definitely the bottleneck in my system :p
 
I've got an Opteron 170 and it still feels like the SLI 6800 GT's are my main bottleneck. 939 still does me fine for most everything!
 
SGTFury said:
Same boat, got an A64 3200, Venice core, overclocked to 2.7Ghz on water, Geforce 6800 GT. Bioshock demo pretty much brings it to its knees.

I'm trying to decide whether to build a new system around a Core2 Duo or just make due with a cheap Manchester for another year or so.
Click to expand...

Your kidding right? It's your video card man 6800GT cannot run bioshosck well no matter how fast your processor is. I can get 45 fps in Crysis @1920x1080 with everythign set to high except for shadowns and texture detail on med on my ancient Opteron165 @ 2.7ghz and not max out my CPU load. But I have an 8800GT. I'd highly recomend checking your CPU usage with the 6800 before you jump to conclusions like you need a new processor. Jumping from 7800GT to 8800GT was a HUGE dramatic performance, but CPU usage stayed about the same (it increased some but still not maxed out)
 
I run Crysis just fine with an 8800GT and an X2 3800+ overclocked to 2.4GHz.

My framerates doubled going from the 7900GS to the 8800GT. So Socket 939 is just fine for now.

$100 or so to go from a single-core Athlon 64 to an X2 4800+ is a great investment. But upgrade that 6800GT first. Bioshock *really* requires an 8800 card. My 7900GS could not run it well at all. It was unplayable at medium settings with no AA/AF at 1680x1050 and choppy with low settings.
 
kumquat said:
I run Crysis just fine with an 8800GT and an X2 3800+ overclocked to 2.4GHz.

My framerates doubled going from the 7900GS to the 8800GT. So Socket 939 is just fine for now.

$100 or so to go from a single-core Athlon 64 to an X2 4800+ is a great investment. But upgrade that 6800GT first. Bioshock *really* requires an 8800 card. My 7900GS could not run it well at all. It was unplayable at medium settings with no AA/AF at 1680x1050 and choppy with low settings.
Click to expand...

7900GS sucks then, my x1900xt ran it fine (40+ fps) at stock clocks and 170 processor at 1600x1200 maxed out. No AA because i couldn't figure out how to force it.
 
exe163 said:
going duel core is a no brainer, with no downside and a very cheap price.

I have a 4400+ and planning to upgrade soon, nothing 393 really worth it. If you are not planning to build a new com soon, get the fastest 393, because its the last 393 cpu you will use.
Click to expand...

exe163 said:
A lot of life? When I think about have just about the fastest s393 cpu, theres no room for upgrade, and looking at C2D and its OCability...
Click to expand...

939 friend, not 393
 
repoman0 said:
7900GS sucks then, my x1900xt ran it fine (40+ fps) at stock clocks and 170 processor at 1600x1200 maxed out. No AA because i couldn't figure out how to force it.
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Yeah, the 7900GS's weren't much to look at, even in SLi. But if you have a pair of 7900GT KO's like I have then you really don't need to worry about much, at least, not until the 3870's start getting their drivers fixed and nvidia comes out with their new monsters. So far, I can still keep up with most systems today with what you see in my sig.
 
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