CPU Upgrade

[Wayne35]

First a little bit about what I have and what I do.

I have a Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego core processor on a socket 939 MSI 7025
K8N Neo2 Platinum mobo. I do mostly routine stuff, no gaming and some image
and video editing. The video editing is CPU intensive (i.e. 100% of the
cpu). I have upgraded the MSI BIOS and it will support X2 and dual Opterons.

My system is pretty well maxed out but I'd like to keep it for another year
before moving to AM2 or 775.

I have tried overclocking in the past but I have usually just stuck with the
stock settings.

Will the performance increase of a Athlon 64 dual core or an Opteron dual
core be worth the cost and hassle of the upgrade? The Opterons have more L2
cache than the X2 but the X2 has 2000 HT vs. the Opteron 1000 HT. My
current processor has 1 MB L2 cache and 2000 HT. Newegg has the X2 4200+ and
several Opterons for $80 - $120 which is all I'm willing to spend to upgrade
this machine.

Finally, if I go with the X2 will my current stock cpu fan be adequate to
cool the X2 cpu with factory settings? The Newegg X2 is OEM but the Opterons
are retail.

TIA,

Wayne

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

First a little bit about what I have and what I do.

I have a Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego core processor on a socket 939 MSI
7025 K8N Neo2 Platinum mobo. I do mostly routine stuff, no gaming and
some image and video editing. The video editing is CPU intensive (i.e.
100% of the cpu). I have upgraded the MSI BIOS and it will support X2
and dual Opterons.

My system is pretty well maxed out but I'd like to keep it for another
year before moving to AM2 or 775.

I have tried overclocking in the past but I have usually just stuck with
the stock settings.

Will the performance increase of a Athlon 64 dual core or an Opteron
dual core be worth the cost and hassle of the upgrade? The Opterons have
more L2 cache than the X2 but the X2 has 2000 HT vs. the Opteron 1000
HT. My current processor has 1 MB L2 cache and 2000 HT. Newegg has the
X2 4200+ and several Opterons for $80 - $120 which is all I'm willing to
spend to upgrade this machine.

Finally, if I go with the X2 will my current stock cpu fan be adequate
to cool the X2 cpu with factory settings? The Newegg X2 is OEM but the
Opterons are retail.

TIA,

Wayne

I'd go for the Opteron. Cache size makes a big difference on some apps.
The HT speed shouldn't matter at all unless you are doing a lot of IO
which you aren't.

 

[Wayne35]

Thanx for the info, General.

When I realized that I had hijacked a post from a few months ago, I posted
this same thing again under 'CPU upgrade again' because I didn't expect any
one to be reading postings from July.

Wayne

 

[Wes Newell]

Will the performance increase of a Athlon 64 dual core or an Opteron dual
core be worth the cost and hassle of the upgrade? The Opterons have more L2
cache than the X2 but the X2 has 2000 HT vs. the Opteron 1000 HT. My
current processor has 1 MB L2 cache and 2000 HT. Newegg has the X2 4200+ and
several Opterons for $80 - $120 which is all I'm willing to spend to upgrade
this machine.

First, both the XT and Opteron use the same HT speed. Some refer to it as
1000 as in max speed in one direction while others just add them together
and call it 2000 probably hoping to get a marketing advantage. The
advertisers minipulate the numbers anymore to a point where they are about
meaningless. AMD now refers to it as a 2000MHz system bus. I won't
comment on that though. BTW, there is still one X2's for the 939 that
has 2M L2 cache (1M per core).

http://products.amd.com/en-us/DesktopCPUResult.aspx?f1=&f2=&f3=&f4=1024&f5=939&f6=&f7=&f8=&f9=2000&

Whether the extra cache will do you any good depends on the apps you run.
In a few, the larger cache makes lots of difference. In most, in makes no
difference whatsoever, even running slower than cores with a smaller cache
due to the extra overhead to maintain the larger cache. And don't ask me
which does and doesn't. I don't know or care. It's probably less than 1
out of hundred programs that take advantage of the larger cache. If you
have one of these programs, it should tell you.

Finally, if I go with the X2 will my current stock cpu fan be adequate
to cool the X2 cpu with factory settings? The Newegg X2 is OEM but the
Opterons are retail.

Should be OK for any 89w (or less) cpu. Not sure if you get one of the
100+w models.

Try it and see. It will certainly be fine if you don't put both cores at
100%.

 

[Wayne35]

First, both the XT and Opteron use the same HT speed. Some refer to it as
1000 as in max speed in one direction while others just add them together
and call it 2000 probably hoping to get a marketing advantage. The
advertisers minipulate the numbers anymore to a point where they are about
meaningless. AMD now refers to it as a 2000MHz system bus. I won't
comment on that though. BTW, there is still one X2's for the 939 that
has 2M L2 cache (1M per core).

http://products.amd.com/en-us/DesktopCPUResult.aspx?f1=&f2=&f3=&f4=1024&f5=939&f6=&f7=&f8=&f9=2000&

Whether the extra cache will do you any good depends on the apps you run.
In a few, the larger cache makes lots of difference. In most, in makes no
difference whatsoever, even running slower than cores with a smaller cache
due to the extra overhead to maintain the larger cache. And don't ask me
which does and doesn't. I don't know or care. It's probably less than 1
out of hundred programs that take advantage of the larger cache. If you
have one of these programs, it should tell you.


Should be OK for any 89w (or less) cpu. Not sure if you get one of the
100+w models.

Try it and see. It will certainly be fine if you don't put both cores at
100%.

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Thanx for the info, Wes.

I think I'll go with X2 since it is the least expensive and I'd prefer not
to spend a lot more on upgrading with my current mobo, but I'd like the dual
core because mpeg to divx ties up the machine so that I can't do anything
else and it's not always convenient to do the recoding over night.

The X2 I'm considering is 89W as is my current processor; so I should be
able to use my current AMD stock heatsink/fan. Also, I've never noticed any
indication that any of my software needs or can utilize the additional
cache. I don't use an industrial grade software; just routine home software.
I don't even use Office products since Works is satisfactory for needs.

Wayne