I want to buy some new hardware - mainly for games. I was thinking about
Athlon 64 3000+ and mainboard on nForce4 with dual channel. I have one
512MB PC3200 CL3 Kingston RAM piece and am wondering if buying the same
model (for dual channel) is a wise thing - or might it slow down the whole
system (in comparison to a bit faster, cl 2.5 maybe, RAM)?
Another thing - maybe it's a lot better to spend some more cash and buy
Pentium D?
I usually say go with the dual core if you are going in higher range
since the single and dual core AMDs are very close in price. In fact
if you get a dual core on sale like I did it was substantially cheaper
than a single core of the same rating so it really made it a
nobrainer.
The single core has some advantages in some things and the dual core
in others but the dual core has a big advantage when you are doing
several things at once and more software may take advantage of the
dual core setup as time goes on AND the dual cores OC really well so
overall the main minus ---- in games isnt that big of a deal to me.
The single core if a bit faster with most games vs the dual core , but
even then you can OC both so they both can be much faster than the
figures given at Toms Hardware so Id still get the dual core.
The one situation where I might not get the dual core is if you want
to save money and go down to the AMD 3000 venice single core which I
used to have too before I upgraded. Its 109 at price watch right now
which is substantially less than the cheapest AMD dual core 3800 even
on sale which I got at $241 so theres no price comparison then.
The only rival would be the Pent D 820 at $157 which is still much
higher than 109. If money is a concern ---- you already have 512 megs
and I think you should get at least 1 gig of memory for games after
testing it on my second system which only had 512. With 1 gig it ran
DOOM way better. My main system has 1 gig on the dual core.
So if you got the AMD 3000 its 109 you save 40 bucks or so over the
Pent D and you can still use the 512 meg Kingston. Right now you can
buy a decent nforce4 board for 80-100 bucks and Circuit City has
perpetual sales on Kingston RAM 3200 --- one this week is particuarly
good $27 after rebate 512. I think the Pent D uses DDR2 so youd have
to buy 1 gig of that and sell your old stick.
So you would probably save a bit sticking with the AMD 3000 option and
there would less hassle - since you wouldnt have to sell the Kingston
stick and the AMD 3000 is faster in games if thats your main concern
vs the Pent D though the Pent D would probably like the AMD dual core
3800 be better with multitasking.
You can also later stick a dual core in the board when prices come
down maybe around Xmas since the M2s will be out by Xmas supposedly so
prices should be way down on the 939 chips I would think.
Running two Kingstons should be faster in dual mem mode.
