hard choises

[Sibanac]

Well to make a long story short, in september i am getting a new mb+cpu.

Now the question on my mind is : dual athlon MP 2600 or athlon 64 ?

 

[Jonty]

Hi Sibanac

It depends what you're going to be doing. If you're thinking of gaming, then keep in mind many games don't support dual-processors. If you're thinking more about professional uses (rendering, server, etc) then dual-processors will give a significant performance boost.

In terms of the Athlon64, the first motherboards aren't likely to be great, and the true performance of the chips (AMD PR aside) is still relatively unknown. Also remember that a AMD-compatible 64bit version of WindowsXP is still some way off, so your desktop environment will remain 32bit (unless you choose to run certain versions of Linux etc). In terms of gaming, again, you're likely to be running in 32bit mode. 64bit versions of Unreal Tournament and Half-Life 2 are planned, but again, you're going to be waiting a while yet.

So, it's really hard to say. The AthlonMP chips have their places, but in reality the uses of dual-processors are fairly limited, depending on what you're doing. The Athlon64s are still somewhat of an unknown quantity, and although I'm sure they will be fast, keep in mind the lack of 64bit software, and the relatively untested state of both the CPUs and motherboards when compared to both AMD and Intel's existing products which have been finetuned for years now.

Personally, I'd just go for a P4C 3.2Ghz (or 3Ghz considering the price) if you've got money to throw around. They're exceptionally fast, versatile, and have great overclocking potential. The accompanying motherboards are equally impressive. Yes, they're only 32bit, and yes an Athlon64 (if we believe the leaked figures) will outperform them, but still, that's what I'd plump for (for what it's worth ).

Good luck

 

[Will]

Originally posted by Jonty
Personally, I'd just go for a P4C 3.2Ghz (or 3Ghz considering the price) if you've got money to throw around. They're exceptionally fast, versatile, and have great overclocking potential.

If you are going down that route, get a 2.4C or a little higher, and you can take the FSB up to 1000MHz...combine this with RAM that runs at 500MHz for "teh win".

A 3.2C would melt with that FSB since it would be running at about 4GHz.

 

[Sibanac]

well i got an offical win 2003/64 beta lying around (ms resaler package )

Main use would be some windows for games.
Linux for development and testfame for server apps and ofcourse some NWN/quake ect
(btw i dont have to pay for it, excanging my current system fully setup as a server and some extra admin work for a new toy)

maybe i should push the envelope a bit and get a dual opteron

 

[Testin da Cable]

buy those 8 series ops. they're only 3 grand per chip in backes of 1k.