AMD Athlon64 X2 CPUs - 4200? 4400? 4600? 4800?

[Shmee150]

Was trying to fit an Athlon64 X2 4400 into my new system but my order with Scan was cancelled after payment taken and they are now out of stock. So I've been looking elsewhere for this CPU and completly failed

Anybody able to clarify the difference going down to a 4200? Or is going up to a 4600/4800 a good idea? This is to be paired in a system with 2gb of good ram, a 7800GTX etc... so money isn't that much of an object so is going up to a faster cpu a good idea?

Thanks for any input!

ShMeE

[Shmee150]

And where does an Athlon64 4000 San Diego come into this being slightly cheaper?

Or because it's going in a Shuttle, should I go FX55?

Thanks,

ShMeE

[DavidM]

The X2 4400 should be back into stock in the next couple of days.

[Shmee150]

Your e-mail said 8th July in stock, so I wouldn't receive until after the weekend - 12th July, I want to have the CPU before then

Anybody able to compare the 4400 to the 4600? Does anything/aspect get less good? How about spending £115 more, how much of this is justified?

ShMeE

[DavidM]

The auto email is an estimate. Stock should arrive before this.

[mike_w]

What are you going to be doing with this system? If you use programs that can't take advantage of dual cores, you are better off going with a single core CPU.

[SilentDeath]

Be carefull ordering stuff from scan which is out of stock!

I done the same thing, waited a month for the item to be instock.. at which point it wasnt.. so they sent me the wrong item without informing me... Its nice how they take money asap isnt it?

Id recommend you cancel, then re-order when it shows as in stock...

[Kezzer]

The instant money transfer entitles you to the product iirc? I studied this in law, when they take the money that makes the contract to terms complete meaning you're entitled to the product and they have to provide it whereas if they don't take the money they can happily turn around and tell you that you can't have the product up until the point they take the money out. This is why quite a lot of companies do it i think

[nichomach]

The key difference is that the 4400 and 4800 are 2xSan Diego cores, which means that they have two cores each with 1MB L2 cache, whereas the 4200 and 4600 are 2xWinchester cores each with 512KB L2 cache.

[oralpain]

Technically they are not venice (certainly not winchester) or sandiego cores. They are made with the same process (90nm SSOI), and have corresponding cache (512 or 1m per core), but they are not just two vencie or san diego cores cut from the die togeather.

[DavidM]

The product is due in next week as I stated before.

[nichomach]

Technically they are not venice (certainly not winchester) or sandiego cores. They are made with the same process (90nm SSOI), and have corresponding cache (512 or 1m per core), but they are not just two vencie or san diego cores cut from the die togeather.

apols, yes, I meant Venice, and yes they're the same 90nm SOI process as is used for Venice and San Diego. With 512KB or 1MB L2 cache per core, as Venice or San Diego respectively.

[Shmee150]

Thanks for all the input, what actual difference would one notice in the difference between the 512kb and 1mb versions? either between 4200/4400 or 4600/4800??

How does the 4600 par up with the FX55? They are about the same price, and my general usage is gaming here and there and also more than normal amounts of video file editing and converting. I find it hard to judge which was more important but I have an Athlon s939 Mobo so I need something that will go in it!

Thanks,

ShMeE

P.S. All 4 of the items I ordered from Scan were not out of stock, but were when I rang this morning and they still hadn't posted my items.... Seriously not buying from them again in the near future

[Shmee150]

Looking at this series of benchmarks on Tom's Hardware Guide, the Athlon64 3800 (Venice) doesn't loose anything on the 4000 (San Diego) both at 2.4GHz so I'm a bit confused as to what having twice the L2 Cache actually does!!!!

Thinking now that 4600/FX55 price range is reasonable, just need to decide which!

ShMeE

[oralpain]

Some programs benifit (and some times significantly) form the extra cache some don't. Benchmarks don't always tell the whole story, esp with games. A larger L2 cache in games may endup giving you the same max fps, and very similar average fps, but may really smooth out the lows.

[Shmee150]

Ok I got it, FX55 is better for gaming, 4600 better for everything else (well video/audio - so i'm going X2)

Anybody have any feelings about putting a 4600 into a Shuttle SN25P? Is it going to explode ??????

Thanks,

ShMeE