PC of uber-awsome-ness... should I go for dualcore? Does it really glitch?

mrkab00m

mrkab00m

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I'm setting up a new comp-specs:

PSU: 1000W PSU
MOBO: DFi LanParty SLi Board
CPU: AMD Ath. 64 X2 Dualcore 4800+ or Ath. 64 FX-57 2.8Ghz
GFX: 2X BFG Tech Nvidia Geforce 7900GTX 512MB 670/1640
RAM: 2X 1Gig Corsair PC3200
HDD: 750GB Western Digital HDD
KBRD/MSE: Seitek Eclipse Black/Logitech G5


I've heard that dualcore is not a good option because of incompatibity with many games, and might cause studdering, etc. Is this true? Should I stick with the FX5- series of expensive CPUs?
 
Personally if i was going to go for a high end pc i would still only have 1 graphics card, either a 7900GTX or a X1900XTX and an AMD64 4000+ or X2 4600+ or 4800+, the FX series are not worth the money. I'd also not need a 1000W PSU, a high quality 700W PSU would be more than enough, including future upgrades.

Having said this, if i wanted a brand new pc right now, i'd be waiting until DX10 and vista came out tbh, and then build it.
 
3ssence said:
Personally if i was going to go for a high end pc i would still only have 1 graphics card, either a 7900GTX or a X1900XTX and an AMD64 4000+ or X2 4600+ or 4800+, the FX series are not worth the money. I'd also not need a 1000W PSU, a high quality 700W PSU would be more than enough, including future upgrades.

Having said this, if i wanted a brand new pc right now, i'd be waiting until DX10 and vista came out tbh, and then build it.
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I'm using the 1000W due to all the extra crap I'm putting in it-controls and lighting, mainly.

About the SLi, though-do you really think I only need one card?

EDIT-And of course returning to the dualcore thing-anyone know about this?
 
The best possible card you can get is an X1900XTX, the AMD X2 4800+ is extreme and 2GB ram will make your PC a monster :)
 
mrkab00m said:
I'm using the 1000W due to all the extra crap I'm putting in it-controls and lighting, mainly.

About the SLi, though-do you really think I only need one card?
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Lights etc don't use that much power at all. I have a fair amount of lighting in most of the pc's i have made. In my present pc i have a good quality 500W pc, the specs are as in the sig, and i have a number of cold cathodes, and the PSU is plenty enough. So unless you plan to power your households lighting from it then you should be just fine with 600-700W

:E

And about the graphics cards, yes, i don't think sli is worth it at all, the performance gain is far too minimal for the cost imo. A single 7900GTX or X1900XTX (would be my choice) will be more than enough for todays games.

May i ask what monitor you are using i.e. size and maximum resolution ?
 
Dual Core is an awesome choice.
mrkab00m said:
I've heard that dualcore is not a good option because of incompatibity with many games, and might cause studdering, etc. Is this true? Should I stick with the FX5- series of expensive CPUs?
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The studdering is caused by the OS not the hardware. I think it is switching the game thread between CPU0 and CPU1 depending on the load. The easy fix would be to go to the proccess running (the game) and set it to one of the CPUs in task manager.
 
I have a Dual Core CPU, and I do notice a bit of FPS stuttering in Counter-Strike: Source. It's nothing that bad, and I fix it by setting hl2.exe to one core in the Task Manager like Asus said (and also steam.exe to the other core, just for the hell of it) and that clears up that minor 'stuttering'.

A dual core CPU would be a good investment though imo. Future games are no doubt going to support and run better in multicore environments so you might as well get it ;) Any problems you do encounter with stuttering and stuff can probably be solved with the humble Task Manager!
 
I don't care what anyone says. Some more recent games don't run as well in a dualcore environment when they don't support it, no doubt will dual core really show its wings when newer games are optimized for them. I have a dual core and have had a number of problems, some of which have been taken care of with newer video drivers, but still get lagg on some games which doesn't make sense to me. See my specs.

I'm replacing my dual core with a FX-57 this june which will rock for gaming now, then build one around the dual core to have a computer ready for some of the later games. I know I'm nuts, but I'm getting some cash soon and I'm going big :)
 
Have you tried restricting the process to one core only? That has worked for all my games... Another thing is that dual core processes mean you dont really have to close down all your background apps because they can execute on the other core. Should mean that other apps don't interfere as much!
 
GO DUAL CORE! I've never had a problem with any game at all, its extremely rare and easily fixed. Go dual core, its so much faster if you multitask a lot and such. You'd never be able to play CS:Source, have Itunes running, and be ripping a dvd at the same time on a single core processor.
 
D€vIL² said:
I don't care what anyone says. Some more recent games don't run as well in a dualcore environment when they don't support it, no doubt will dual core really show its wings when newer games are optimized for them. I have a dual core and have had a number of problems, some of which have been taken care of with newer video drivers, but still get lagg on some games which doesn't make sense to me. See my specs.

I'm replacing my dual core with a FX-57 this june which will rock for gaming now, then build one around the dual core to have a computer ready for some of the later games. I know I'm nuts, but I'm getting some cash soon and I'm going big :)
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If you are not using that 2nd core well then it is probably performing similar to a 4000+ single core CPU (2.4GHz 1MB L2 cache)
A FX57 runs at 2.8GHz so that would be a big jump for a single core CPU.

However if you use the 2nd core then the FX57 (single) would actually get bogged down more than an X2 4800+ (dual).
With Dual Core you could be anwhere on the map from as slow as the same GHz/Cache single core CPU to faster than the fastest single core CPU. It all depends how it is used. I agree we have a ways to go to full tap Dual core and making things multithreaded but we have so many single threads running with curent setups you do take advantage of dual cores.
 
3ssence said:
May i ask what monitor you are using i.e. size and maximum resolution ?
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Apple cinema display, 30 inches. 2560 x 1600.

Obviously I'll only be playing on widescreen 1280 for GFX sake. I think I'll get a 700W PSU and one (?) GFX card, and get an extra 2 gigs of ram.
 
Dual core is like widescreen gaming. You can never go back to singlecore or 4:3 aspect ratio once you've tried it.
 
Kazuki_Fuse said:
Will current 939 AMD processors run on AM2 motherboards?
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Nope. Different Socket and pins. Different memory controller on the CPU.
Although they do have some of the same speed grades available which they had on S939 and now on AM2 that support DDR2.
 
mrkab00m said:
Apple cinema display, 30 inches. 2560 x 1600.

Obviously I'll only be playing on widescreen 1280 for GFX sake. I think I'll get a 700W PSU and one (?) GFX card, and get an extra 2 gigs of ram.
Click to expand...

Woah, ok, then you may actually need two graphics cards if you want to run any games at their native resolution on that thing !!! Unless it scales down well, i.e. doesn't lose too much clarity when being used at a lower resolution.
 
3ssence said:
Woah, ok, then you may actually need two graphics cards if you want to run any games at their native resolution on that thing !!! Unless it scales down well, i.e. doesn't lose too much clarity when being used at a lower resolution.
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HL2 can run in 16:10/16:9 resolutions so it won't look distorted.

I guess it's decided. I'll get dualcore, and only 1 7900GTX, and get extra ram for a total of 4 gigs. Woot. :afro:
 
I was thinking about upgrading my PC as well... but I might just wait until Vista comes out... so I will have the ultimate Vista PC.

What is to be expected by the time Vista comes out though?

4 gigs of ram.. that's total overkill, how much of a difference will that make in gaming?
 
mrkab00m said:
HL2 can run in 16:10/16:9 resolutions so it won't look distorted.

I guess it's decided. I'll get dualcore, and only 1 7900GTX, and get extra ram for a total of 4 gigs. Woot. :afro:
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Yeah, i know source games have actual widescreen ratios available, i just meant that some panels loose clarity when you aren't running at maximum resolution. A single 7900GTX is a good choice. Why do you need 4 gigs of ram though ?
 
3ssence said:
Yeah, i know source games have actual widescreen ratios available, i just meant that some panels loose clarity when you aren't running at maximum resolution. A single 7900GTX is a good choice. Why do you need 4 gigs of ram though ?
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Well, so I don't have to upgrade again for longer.
 
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