AMD 64 X2 worth it?

Dooom

Finalisng my new rig specs, and I've decided to go for an AMD Athlon X2 4400+ (2.2ghz with 1MB). Anywho, I was just wondering if it would be worth getting it (was planning on a 4000+)? I've read a few reviews on it, and it seems positive. Mainly using it for games, bit of video editing etc.

Also, anyone have any solid info that the new set of PCI-Ex cards are out this month? That way the 6800 Ultras should come down in price and I was planning on picking up 2 of them. But then there's the ATI Crossfire thing, which could work out a bit cheaper aswell as possibly better?

Computer industry is horrible, but if anyone wants to throw some advice on me regarding release dates etc. it'd be great.
Thanks a mil.

gline

Can you post some links to the reviews of the X2 u read? i wana see if it can be overclocked and if so can it be overclocked well

Dooom

Here - review of the 4800+

Review of the 4400+ - has a bit on overclocking aswell.

Review of the 4200+, pretty in depth and good

Think I read a few more, but I can't find them so I hope that'll do.

gline

yep i read about them, they overclock brialliantly.

the 4800 gets to 2.7ghz with no vcore increase and on aircooling, these run really cool

rsynnott

Erm, if you use it primarly for games, you won't see any improvement, for the moment.

gline

but even 1 AMD core @ 2.7ghz is great for games even if it doesnt use the 2 of them. I think these are shaping up to be a great cpu

Azza

Yeah excellent cpu's but very pricey. They are the wave of the future.
Unless you do alot of multitasking I don't see the value in them yet.

One other thing to note is AMD are doing drop the price of there single core cpu's next month I believe.

In graphics cards I reckon Nvidia are way over priced. €800+ for a 512MB version of the 6800 Ultra is a rip off. I even think there 256MB is too dear and that as a single card solution ATI can't be beat in performance or price. I'm just hoping that ATI's crossfire and Nvidia upcoming 7800 force prices down to a reasonable level for nvidia stuff.

Be interesting to see how ATI's crossfire compares. Looks promising.

gline

Azza wrote:

Yeah excellent cpu's but very pricey. They are the wave of the future.
Unless you do alot of multitasking I don't see the value in them yet.

One other thing to note is AMD are doing drop the price of there single core cpu's next month I believe.

In graphics cards I reckon Nvidia are way over priced. €800+ for a 512MB version of the 6800 Ultra is a rip off. I even think there 256MB is too dear and that as a single card solution ATI can't be beat in performance or price. I'm just hoping that ATI's crossfire and Nvidia upcoming 7800 force prices down to a reasonable level for nvidia stuff.

Be interesting to see how ATI's crossfire compares. Looks promising.

like everything the price of dualcores will drop overtime, i definitly think it is the way to go and sooner rather than later we will need these for decent preformance in games etc

rsynnott

gline wrote:

like everything the price of dualcores will drop overtime, i definitly think it is the way to go and sooner rather than later we will need these for decent preformance in games etc

The path of the early adopter is fraught with annoyance and poor value.

Dman_15

gline wrote:

like everything the price of dualcores will drop overtime, i definitly think it is the way to go and sooner rather than later we will need these for decent preformance in games etc

Sooner rather than later???

We are still running 32bit if you hadn't noticed.

It will be another 6 months to a year before 64 bit is fully implimented.
Name me one game that has been released or is due to be released in the next year that has been developed primarily for 64bit and not 32. (apart from the farcry patch)

I would buy a 3500 now and wait until the dual cores become more viable

gline

rsynnott wrote:

The path of the early adopter is fraught with annoyance and poor value.

that wasnt true wen i got my FX cpu when they were only out a few months, well the annoyance part anyway, maybe poor value though as i paid about 500 euros for it, lol

rsynnott

gline wrote:

that wasnt true wen i got my FX cpu when they were only out a few months, well the annoyance part anyway, maybe poor value though as i paid about 500 euros for it, lol

Yep, the poor value bit worked out. And if you'd gone for one of the socket 940 ones, annoyance would have been yours too if you ever tried to upgrade.

Azza

You also got poor core revisions etc while the kinks are ironed out. Best to wait a little while before making your move. Then again waiting to long and your technology is out of date.

I believe Unreal Tournament 2007 our next year will be supporting Dual Cores.

gline

rsynnott wrote:

annoyance would have been yours too if you ever tried to upgrade.

not true as the first dual cores came out for socket 940, so i would have benn able to upgrade to them when they firsta came out

rsynnott

gline wrote:

not true as the first dual cores came out for socket 940, so i would have benn able to upgrade to them when they firsta came out

Yes, dual core OPTERONS. Expensive. Anyway, the early FXs were 130nm; as far as I'm aware only the 90nm Socket 940 boards can take the dual-cores.

gline

either way i had my fun with it, unlocked multies rocked and was very easy to oc

Ebonyks

rsynnott

po0k

Anyone know what the situation is with running Crossifre on an nF4 setup?

astrofool

as of right now, the only definite is that it will run on ATI's motherboards.

There does not seem to be a definitive answer as to whether other motherboards will work with it, but it seems to be wholly dependent on software, rather than hardware, and if for example, nvidia disabled crossfire software driver wise, i'm sure someone clever would find a way to re-enable it.

po0k

Yeah, I read all about that last week, I've been offline for a few days and was hoping that someone had heard something.

I can see nVidia removing the @NF4-native@ requirement in their drivers though, if doing so lets them sell more gpus, it makes them more money than excluding a possible market segment.
And ATIs R400/480 chip sucks balls to be honest, from what I've seen anyways.

astrofool

they're probably good for benchmarking on, rather than actually "using"

(I was referring to ATI motherboards here rather than 64x2's)