Conroe unnececary for gaming

I think I spell unnecessary wrong. Anyways, I've been running an AMD 64 single core system for quite a while with DDR1 and a 7900GTX. If you've kept up with the market you'll know that things have been changing even faster than they normally do and the upgrading frenzy has been intense.

For the last few months I've wanted to move to dual core to increase the performance on my pc but I kept dodging the bullet because I was waiting for something better and faster. So out comes Conroe and AM2. What do I do? Both of these platforms are great but require me to buy a new motherboard and ram as well as the new processor.

Knocking out AM2 was easy, Very little performance benefit for too big of a price tag. Then cam Conroe where things got somewhat sticky. When it was released everyone was super hyped about how fast it was and how great it is. I agree. Conroe is an amazing piece of technology and if you are building a brand new system or upgrading from P4 then you should definitely go that route. BUT if you are upgrading from AMD 64 socket 939 you definitely should not.

Here's why. Take a look at the latest article by bit-tech and look at the numbers. Then look at high-res gaming numbers. The slowest AMD processor (3800 X2) is 2-26FPS slower than the X6800 at a much much lower price. Then take into account that if you get a good 3800x2 it will clock all the way up to FX-62 speed which narrows the gap to 0.6-5.1 FPS. BUT if you get a crappy overclock that only goes to about 2.4ghz (4600x2 speeds) you'll be about 1.5-18 FPS.

The next step to all of this is that a 3200+ will reach 2.4ghs without breaking a sweat and possibly 2.8ghz if you've got a good one which will give you about the same performance as it's dual core counterparts in gaming.

So what I'm getting at is this. Until The amount of cores matters in gaming we are still very much relying on the videocard for all of our graphical performance. So my advice is that if you are running an AMD 64 system with a processor greater than 2.4ghz the only upgrade you need to look at is either a 8800gts or GTX and maybe some ram to get you up to 2gb's. And if you have a slower AMD 64 proc and a motherboard with some overclocking options then you still dont need to worry. Just put in a good videocard and everything will be smooth as candy.

Now why am I saying this? It's not to bash intel or bolster AMD it's just to save some people some money when they are looking at everything that is so shiny and new. If you want the latest and greatest you can get it with C2D but if you just want to run your games at good settings then you just dont need it yet. Thanks for reading

 

It's "Unnecessary".

 

Totally not needed unless you are getting low frames and the AMD is a bottleneck.

 

obviously ur not buying an x6800 for high-res gaming advantages. that would be what the gpu is for...its a small piece of the comparo pie.
for those that game at lower res (i do, and im sure most of the gaming world that cant afford $500+ on a monitor and another $500+ on a gpu does as well), the advantage is much more impressive. of course, if you cant afford a monitor and a gpu of that caliber, you prob cant afford the x6800 either.
id love to see a screenie of a 3800 x2 at fx-62 speeds...havent seen one yet, and for sure not on air cooling. but regardless you can't really base your whole case on that, because you can overclock an fx-62 to speeds that a 3800 x2 can't get to even in its wettest dreams.
i would hope that its common knowledge that you don't buy a conroe for "gaming" as all games right now don't make use of dual core. its the whole package. would you rather play half-life 2 and burn a dvd while playing on a conroe system or an amd x2 system?? obviously, a conroe system gives the best performance.
so really, going conroe or staying amd should depend solely on your budget and not whether you want an extra fps or two when gaming. if you can't afford a new mobo and ram, then stick to amd. otherwise, the whole performance advantage of c2d is well worth the money.

 

I see what you're saying, but think you've missed something important.

Whilst you consider the fact that budget AMD Dual cores (x2 3800, opty 165 etc) are highly overclockable, if anything it is more so the case with Conroe. People are getting huge overclocks with the E6300 and the newer E4300 (allendale), many hitting 100% plus.

The fact of the matter is - put any x2 3800 or opty 165 up against any Conroe chip and it's going to be toast. The combination of DDR2 memory and the new core 2 duo architecture are far quicker in every situation.

I see what you're saying about the game benchmarks though, and they give me some comfort that I'm still 'keeping up'. However, the fact that a 8800GTX, partnered with a x6800 shows gains when the x6800 is overclocked, suggest that virtually all modern processors cause a certain amount of 'bottlenecking' to the latest generation of GPUs.

I'm happy with my current AMD rig (see sig) but if anybody asks me for a recommendation on a new rig atm, be it budget or expensive, gamer or worksation, it isn't gonna be anything but Conroe, Conroe, Conroe.

 

You're completely right. I've only got a Sempron 3000+ and don't have any problems with gaming. If I want to play games on a computer I just use a 'good enough' processor and put the real cash into the graphics card. On the other hand, if you want to improve your overall performance and you aren't so concerned about games, the Core2 is a huge improvement.

 

My opty 165 (same chip with more cache) does FX-62 speeds no probs:



As does Mr.Tad's IIRC. In fact many people have hit 2.8Ghz with opty 165s and x2 3800s.

 

trig said pretty much everything I was about to say, but I'd still like to note that you totally skipped overclocking a Conroe! Why compare a clocked X2 3800+ to X6800 when there's clocked E6300s and E6400s?

If you take that into count, the difference in price is (In most cases) minimal.

EDIT: whoops I'm too slow typer.

 

aaahh..but it is an opty...but you gotta be w/c'in to get that high with those temps...but thanks for the screenie...first one i have seen...

 

No probs dude, take a look at XS forums, there's loads .

Plus, This opty (and most with this particular stepping) will do this clock (2.8Ghz) on air no problem. 1.39V = low temps

 

Haha guys i guess I did forget to mention overclocking the conroe.

Yes you guys are right the oveclocks are extremely impressive which people hitting 3.1-4.1ghz easy. It's insane. But is it needed? Doubtful. What I was trying to get at is how you can get the same "experience" with a cheaper AMD 64 Processor. Yes the conroe "when overclocked" is going to push the frame rates into the undreds but the fact remains that past 60fps (and probably past a solid 30fps) the human eye notices nothing. So yes you are right but I should have explained why it wasn't so important.

 

Hmm, I guess another thing nobody seems to have commented on is that these tests are all between AM2 and Conroe, not socket 939.

Bit-tech showed a while back that AM2 had the nod on socket 939 by a reasonable margin, due to it's DDR2 memory controller. When we consider this, the gap between the two is even bigger.

I certainly noticed a massive performance gain going from a Pentium 4 3.06Ghz to a 1.8Ghz opteron 165 dual core. After overclocking up to 2.8Ghz I saw another massive improvement. I'm sure a E6600 at 3.6Ghz, with some nice 800mhz, cas 4 RAM, would give me another similar 'leap' in performance.

 

i think those XS bastages cheat!!

 

Fozzy is right.. in all that I've seen AMD wipes the floor with Conroe when you compare an X2 4600 to an E6300 or E6400, especially in memory intensive apps, but games 2-5 frames faster anyway, all for the same price. Sure, go any higher in price and Intel owns, but on a less than $130 scale AMD wins, and still turns out good performance

 

On a $130 scale AMD wins because Intel has nothing there. Once you get into the price range of any Core2Duo AMD becomes less and less of the best performer. For the $160 range the E4300 is probably the best performer, and will overclock much better then any X2 as an added bonus. The only app I really see AMD winning in over conroe is memory latency benchmarks and things like that, and that's because of AMDs on-die memory controller. Overall AMD is great with a very limited budget, but if you can afford a core2 its better to go that way.

 

E6300 and E6400 are not Conroe chips.

 

Things keep going in different directions than I intended. Of course AM2 is slightly better but only in theory. I mean yes the numbers are better but in real world scenarios? nah not really. So I tend to think of them as the same if not very similar. I'm not trying to say AMD is better or the AMD 64 is Better. What I'm saying is that there is no reason to buy anything better. of course if you are running a 30 inch dell maybe you will need a little more umph. I was just trying to save all of the guys like me some cash. personally i will go to conroe sooner or later but it's going to happen after ddr3/quadcor native/new chipsets. When things slow down (which they will when people say enough with upgrading) I'll jump back in. Th market is just too friggen jumpy right now and that's really all that i was trying to bring to light.

 

Everything I've tested E6400 vs E6300 vs X2 4600+ in shows that the processors are in the following speed order: E6400, X2 4600+, E6300

Under £110, Intel has nothing worth buying at the moment.

 

They are, they've got 2MB of L2 cache disabled. The first true Allendale is the E4300.

 

lol man u kidding ! With e6600 I start to fell the games !!! No lag no freeze no crap !!! it work like hell !! why u say that on them !! I was use the 630 p4 !! I was even can't run 2 songs at the same time