Athlon 64 processors

I just bought a Athlon 64 3000+ processor, as it is an upgrade from my old plain-old 2800+ non-64 version. Quick question or two - what, exactly is the difference, performance-wise or otherwise, between the old-style processors and the 64-bit versions? Also, does WinXP benefit from the 64-bit upgrade a lot, or do I need to upgrade to the 64-bit OS, also, to get the most benefit from this processor?

(as a side note, I also upgraded from my old Geforce 5900 to a 6800GS. Gotta get ready for Oblivion, donchaknow.)

I really don't follow processor technology as much as I wish I did, so any help is a huge plus. Thanks.

no real advantages as of now except that its just good

Right now all your going to get is some extra speed as you gone from one chip set to the next as well as the base proc speed.

Going to a 64bit windows will just give you a small boost in speed and its hard to find drivers for some things.

Nice jump on the video card... i went from a 5200 to SLI 6600GT's and will soon have a 7900GT (I would have it today but came in broken - Cap came off in the package) Didn't even open it as I know it wont work.

^^^that sucks, im waiting til after the summer to get a new vid card, that way i can get vista and a new card/psu at the same time(money from a summer job). Right now im running a 5200 pci

Just got another stick of ram, bringing me up to 2GB. I'm not going to be able to afford a new computer, so I might as well make sure this one will last me for the next couple years.

Was just looking at CPU-Z and my order, and I may have made a mistake - my current processor is Socket A, and the processor I ordered is Socket 754. This ain't gunna work, is it?

Argh... I could have sworn I checked that before my order...

well, either resell the new CPU or get a new mobo, yo.

i'm running S754, with my 3200+ AMD64, and honestly, even with a 3200+ and a RadeonX800SE, i don't need to upgrade that much. i can play just about anything (on low or med), and it doesn't get too hot.

also, OC'ing gets no real signifigant gain. howver, you can say "I am overclocked."

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Originally Posted by Omega

also, OC'ing gets no real signifigant gain. howver, you can say "I am overclocked."

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thats so wrong.... its like saying get a 3000+ or a 3500+ it would make no difference... :rolleyes:

its not a big difference but there sure is a noticable 1

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Originally Posted by Escobar999

thats so wrong.... its like saying get a 3000+ or a 3500+ it would make no difference... :rolleyes:

its not a big difference but there sure is a noticable 1

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uh, have you done your homework recently? i see you have a F in your overclocking class.


the CPU, unless you run in SLi mode, is not a bottleneck. instead things like IDE drives, GPU's, RAM etc are bottlenecks. so for a much more signifigant gain, you either want to use higher RPM HDDs, SATA, faster RAM with a lower CAS latency, overclock your AGP or PCIe bus, and your GPU; as opposed to the CPU. now, for the record, a 3000+ versus a 3500+, first, you must have similar cores. you can't compare a 3k+ newcastle to a 3500+ venice, because the newcastle has 1mb of L2 cache, as opposed to the venice's 512kb. and yes, this makes a difference. once you have the same core, the difference is a mere 200MHz, which, in reality, is not that much. however, overclocking by a mere 200MHz will neither increase your performance drastically, or damage your CPU. it will, however, save you a few bucks, and earn you the right to say "i am overclocked". now, if you oc said 3k+ to say, 4k+ or 4.4k+ spec, then there is a much more noticeable gain, plus, a greater risk of burning out, exploding, etc.

once agian, though, the CPU is hardly a bottleneck. overclocking a 700MHz CPU to 1GHz will yeild much more performance than OC'ing a 2.0 to 2.3GHz.

-Omega

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I just bought a Athlon 64 3000+ processor, as it is an upgrade from my old plain-old 2800+ non-64 version. Quick question or two - what, exactly is the difference, performance-wise or otherwise, between the old-style processors and the 64-bit versions? Also, does WinXP benefit from the 64-bit upgrade a lot, or do I need to upgrade to the 64-bit OS, also, to get the most benefit from this processor?

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First, there isn't that much of a difference, excpet you can now run 64 bit OSes and programs. second, don't bother with a 64-bit OS until vista, as the XP x64 edition has horrible driver support. trust me, i know. third, the most benefit would be from using a 64 bit os, but as i said, hold of for vist or use Ubuntu64 (which i don't think you can game on)

Plus, on the 64 bit chips you get a built in memory controller, and a (comparativley) massive amount of cache.You'll notice this before the clock speed; i'm moving from a 2.4Ghz Socket A to a 1.8Ghz 939 and trust me when i say that the 939 is a hellovalot faster, from a performance point of view. Measure the FLOPS, not the clock, right?

-Dave

omega, forgive Escobar999 he is a benchmark junkie lol