Is this a noticable upgrade?

[GBS]

Hi all, I am wondering how much of an increase in "gaming" performance this
upgrade would be...
(I have access to the parts, it's more of a question of is it worth it
gaming-wize or not)

Going from:
*Soyo KT400 plat (socket A based via chipset)
*AMD Barton core 2800
*120 G WD ata133 Drive
6800 Ultra
1G coirsair 2700 ram

to:
*SK8N Nforce 3 (socket929? i forgot the #)
*AMD64 2800
*120 Serial Drive
6800 Ultra
1G corsair 2700 ram

I assume the Serial drive has a faster speed, but I was wondering more about
the MB/CPU upgrade.
It seems the CPU speed is clocked lower than the Barton, but will it work
faster cause of the socket type?
I know ram speed will hold back some too.
Thanks for your input
GBS

 

[Bill Smith]

Hi all, I am wondering how much of an increase in "gaming" performance this
upgrade would be...
(I have access to the parts, it's more of a question of is it worth it
gaming-wize or not)

Going from:
*Soyo KT400 plat (socket A based via chipset)
*AMD Barton core 2800
*120 G WD ata133 Drive
6800 Ultra
1G coirsair 2700 ram

to:
*SK8N Nforce 3 (socket929? i forgot the #)
*AMD64 2800
*120 Serial Drive
6800 Ultra
1G corsair 2700 ram

I assume the Serial drive has a faster speed, but I was wondering more about
the MB/CPU upgrade.
It seems the CPU speed is clocked lower than the Barton, but will it work
faster cause of the socket type?
I know ram speed will hold back some too.
Thanks for your input
GBS

you'l trim a few sec's of the load time...possibly...

keep in mind that the 939 socket is more mainstream...

but It doesn't look like you'll see a whole lot of gaming increase...

but I'm sure the 64 bit cpu will help you out in other things...

unlees you could use a 939 socket and the latest barton, it might not
be too noticeable...

 

[Gordon Scott]

you'l trim a few sec's of the load time...possibly...

keep in mind that the 939 socket is more mainstream...

but It doesn't look like you'll see a whole lot of gaming increase...

but I'm sure the 64 bit cpu will help you out in other things...

unlees you could use a 939 socket and the latest barton, it might not
be too noticeable...

I agree, the gain is minimal at best. And the cpu your choosing isn't the
powerhorse of the current offerings. I'd wait till next year and take
advantage of price drops. In the meantime get rid of your pc2700 and get
some pc3200 if your board supports it.
Ask corsair to rma/swap the ram for you since your planning on upgrading.
Now you have a chance to checkout their commitment to customer support.

Gordon

 

[Paul]

I agree, the gain is minimal at best. And the cpu your choosing isn't the
powerhorse of the current offerings. I'd wait till next year and take
advantage of price drops. In the meantime get rid of your pc2700 and get
some pc3200 if your board supports it.
Ask corsair to rma/swap the ram for you since your planning on upgrading.
Now you have a chance to checkout their commitment to customer support.

Gordon

The numbering system on AMD processors is the Performance Rating
or P.R. value. It is not the clock rate. The P.R. value is intended
to rate the processor against an equivalent Pentium P4. The two
processors you are listing both have a P.R. rating of 2800, meaning
for some set of applications, the AMD processors will work the
same as a P4 2.8Ghz 512KB cache processor. (The rule is different
on the Sempron, where the Sempron is compared to a Celeron P4, and
thus the Sempron ratings are "higher than they should be".)

That being said, having dual channels for memory on Socket 939, and
having the memory controller on the processor, greatly improves
memory bandwidth. If you were doing Photoshop, for example, the
S939 board should do memory intensive stuff faster than the S462
board. So that would be a plus in its favor.

The SK8N motherboard is socket 940. That board takes 940 pin
Opterons and a couple 940 pin FX processors. Socket 940 uses
registered DDR memory, which is not a common desktop kind of
memory. Socket 940 is a dead end (so if you are getting a deal
on the motherboard, that is why). Socket 939 is the kind of
board you want to get, as that supports Athlon64 with dual
channel memory, and uses regular unbuffered DDR memory. The
A8V is an example of a S939 board.

You might also wait a bit, until the rev.E processors come out,
as they'll have SSE3. And the price of computer parts will
be at post-Christmas prices when that processor comes out too.

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2264&p=3

Paul