Guest maz Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 OK, I'm building a pc for a budy of mine. He is gonna probably use it mostly for gaming and I gave him a choice of amd 3700+ single core vs an AMD Opteron 165. I have the 3700 myself overclocked to 260fbs. I think the single core will probably be better for him if all he is gonna use the pc for is gaming. But on the other hand, if more games take advantage of dual core, then maybe that would be the better route, since it will be more future proof. So, anyways, not sure either way. what are your experiences with either? Do games that are made now take advantage of the dual core? Would they crash more on a dual core system? If money was no option (well, to a certain degree), which would you get, dual or single. Also, which DFI mobo would you recommend for single or dual mobo. Again, my thinking is that he would probably do better with a single core overclocked and a SLI rig vs a dual core cpu and a sing graphics card, but wanted to ask. Thanks Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
vertigofm Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 Future games will utilize dual core, Like Oblivion Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clint Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 Take your time looking for a good stepping dual core, if you pay a little bit more you will get a CPU that will be sufficient for a couple of years. Motherboard to grab is the DFI Ultra-D (easy moddable to SLI)..very reliable and been around a long time enuff. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragoonmanx Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 Go Dual Core simply because it will be more future proof...shoot, Oblivion is reason alone to go dual, but the multitasking is awesome as well. I dont expect to be upgrading my CPU for years. Keep in mind, these dual cores can be ran as single cores as well by setting the affinity through the task manager and turning off one of the cpus...this will come into play with some of the past games that werent meant for dual core...ala Half Life games and GTA:SA. The 3700 is a great chip nonetheless, but dual is the future. As for mobo, the lanparty sli-dr (UT or non-UT, same exact board, but the non-UT comes with lots of worthless extras) or the UT Expert seem to be the top choices if money isnt an issue. The Expert has the PCI-E slots further apart which is nice. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
chynn Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 Later versions of the nVidia drivers, starting with 81.92, will run multi-threaded in SLI mode on dual-core CPUs. That's a good reason for using a dual-core CPU. The bad reason for not using a dual-core CPU is that some of today's popular games were programmed to run in a single-core CPU and do NOT like running in dual-core processors at all. Some of these games have been patched to run properly in a dual-core CPU, and there are ways you can set processor affinity to make a game run in one processor or the other to fake it out. So, if your friend is somewhat PC literate, I would go with a dual-core CPU; if not, then a single-core CPU is the safer, but more future limited, choice. Hope this helps ... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest maz Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 hmm, so for mobo, I'll just get him my mob which is DFI LanpartyUT nF4 SLI-DR. (I heard the expert one has more problems, let me know if I'm wrong, and I'll get him instead). As for dual, opty vs x2 ?? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragoonmanx Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 Rule of thumb...if hes a heavy overclocker, then the optys...if not, then the x2 will suffice, although the 3800 x2 is one hell of an overclocker. Either this or the 4200 seem to be sweet spots as of right now for x2...my chip just has the extra cache, which honestly doesnt really provide any significant difference, but Im hoping it will down the road. The optys require less voltage for overclocking allowing a lot more room to do so and they are somewhat a bit cheaper although prices have risen from what it used to be. Personally, i don't think you'd even notice the difference between the two other then what the numbers will show in cpu-z and the like. Games are not too heavily dependant on the cpu anyways and that extra 10 seconds you save from video encoding or rendering or whatever from a super-overclocked opty is no big deal. You may see a few more frames/sec in games if you overclock the gpu with cpu, but if you're going high end with the gpu, then it really isnt going to matter much. The expert board does have its problems, but with lots of time researching how to fix them here at dfi-street should get you underway. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lairmon Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 I was using the 3700 Sandiego and really enjoyed that cpu on my DFI Ultra-D. However, I must agree with the general concensus about switching to dual core. I've put the Sandiego in my family computer (haha suckers!) and I'm now using the 3800x2 in my computer. I've only had it about a week and I'm really enjoying it. I can easily overclock to 2.6 and may try upping that in a little while. I must have a good stepping. If your friend does experience problems with games he can do the idea mentioned by another poster, set the cpu/game to use one core by doing Ctrl/alt/delete , right click the game name, go to process, set infinity to one core (core 0 ). A while back I was a little leery of the dual cores because of price and being overhyped, but now I'm a believer. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest maz Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 If I get a ram at DDR 500 (OCZ Gold Edition 2GB (2 x 1GB), then do I need to set his fsb at 250 so that he can run at that ddr? Ok, what system would you guys get (CPU, MOBO, RAM) right now with a budget of 1000? The other 1000 will be spent on psu,case,dvd,fans,floppy,soundcard, Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lairmon Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 I'm not sure what the ram would do as I haven't used DDR 500 yet, but I'd go into the bios first to see what it's auto setting is putting things at. Wow, that's a nice budget for the Cpu/ram/Motherboard. $1000.00 just on those 3 components? Nice! Hmm...The question is, what kind of person is your friend. If you're setting up his system I would guess that he's not really an overclocker tinkering kind of person. So..I wouldn't get the cutting edge Motherboard in that case. You want something stable (yet great). So perhaps an Ultra-D or the same board you have for the Mother board. Another question...Will he want to use Dual graphics? Obviously that influnces your choice. In terms of Ram that the OCZ Gold is a good choice, though with that budget I'd go for the OCZ Platinum 4000 Eb, 2x1 Gig definitely. In terms of the Cpu, as you know, the Opterons have more heat going on. That budget would support a Operton 170 I think. I'm happy with my 3800x2 Manchester but then again I am OCing it, so you might want to go higher up to a 4400/4800 or something depending on prices. I hope that helps...man what fun to be putting together a system with that kind of budget. :cool: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest maz Posted March 10, 2006 Posted March 10, 2006 Yeah, I think I'm kinda enjoying it since I'm not the person spending the money, but have the option of putting a really cool pc. He is not much of a tinker at all, I think he just wants a very stable rig for gaming. I'll look into the ram that you mentioned, Ithink I know of it. I was even thinking of another mobo, the one that starts with an A, and ends with S. But I've never owened an as us and have no idea about the hardware compatibility,bios settings, etc etc. So far, been very happy with my mobo with a few wierd exceptions of lan issues and random restarts, but I think they are because of my ram.. Thanks again. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
chynn Posted March 19, 2006 Posted March 19, 2006 If your friend is looking for stability, then I would think CPU, board, and memory would be the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th choices. PSU would be my number one choice ... and as you can see from my signature, I have a bias for the best. Hope this helps ... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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