Which chip??

[1RTR]

Looking to build a S#@t hot system...money no object (wife loves me )...but which chip AMD 64x2 4800, or FX57. System will be for games, games & more games. Also what about XP 64bit...worth getting?

Advice gratefully received

[StormPC]

If you don't do anything but games the FX-57 will absolutely destroy a 4800+ X2.

If you do multi-tasking, video-editing, audio/video encoding/decoding, crunch DC projects, or just have to play games while you rip DVDs at the same time on the same computer then the X2 is KING!

If money is no object I suggest one of each!

XP 64? Absolute rubbish until companies like Symantic pull their heads out of their arses and stop writting their 32-bit programs to not run on 64-bit XP.

BTW...anybody who thinks multi-threaded games are on the way soon is mistaken. They are not coming. Videogames do not benefit from multiple CPUs or cores and are not likely to be written for such. It is more likely that strategy games like chess and Civilization will use dual-cores, as they can benefit from the extra processing power.

[aidanjt]

FX57 is better for games atm because of raw processing power, it'll take awhile for game engine developers to catch up with current hardware ('while' measured in years).. Also, due to lack of 64-bit compiled engines Windows x64 is pretty much useless.

[kempez]

Well F.E.A.R. has been made with dual core optimisations so thats one FPS thats out soon for d/c

In would get an X2 4800+ and overclock its nuts off and then it'll kick some serious butt

[herulach]

If you don't do anything but games the FX-57 will absolutely destroy a 4800+ X2.

If you do multi-tasking, video-editing, audio/video encoding/decoding, crunch DC projects, or just have to play games while you rip DVDs at the same time on the same computer then the X2 is KING!

If money is no object I suggest one of each!

XP 64? Absolute rubbish until companies like Symantic pull their heads out of their arses and stop writting their 32-bit programs to not run on 64-bit XP.

BTW...anybody who thinks multi-threaded games are on the way soon is mistaken. They are not coming. Videogames do not benefit from multiple CPUs or cores and are not likely to be written for such. It is more likely that strategy games like chess and Civilization will use dual-cores, as they can benefit from the extra processing power.

Point the first, symantec arent the only AV vendor, or the best.
POint the second, multithreaded games are coming, Unreal 3 at least will be multithreaded. Colin Mcrae 4 already is, whether theres a performance increase is a different matter, but since most games can peg most cpus at 100% i fail to see how there wont be
Point the third An FX57 wont 'destroy' a 4800 400 mhz isnt that much to write home about, and can easily be made up for by tighter memory timings, better disk system and the fact that no background processes are using the cpu.

[1RTR]

OK. next question. Its looking likely that I'll go for x2 4800+ (future proofing),(FX57 could still get a look in) with an SLI nVidia 7800 setup. If I go for XP 64bit, what effect (positive or negative) will I see with, say, Far Cry or Doom 3?

[krazy_olie]

Well XP 64 is pointless really, it's also a stupid buy, it's cheaper to buy regular XP and get the free "upgrade" if you want it that bad.

FX-57 is better for games but the x2 is a better processor and is still pretty hot for games anyway and won't obviously limit anything if money isn't an object on the graphics card anyway( so you might go from 110fps to 100 who cares?), also it means you can run other stuff in the background better such as a media player or burning cds.

I would personally go for the X2 simply because it means that I can leave other stuff running without it doing damage to framerates.

[aidanjt]

the Far Cry developers actually released a 64bit patch for the game, so its just about the only game engine that works with Windows x64, but nobody else has followed suit yet.

Personally I'd go for the X2, I've been using multi-thread type hardware for a long time and the thread sharing is definatly a bonus when you're trying to do many things at once, for e.g. you could leave a video encoding working away in the background and have practically no framerate hit at all while playing some game.. If you pair the X2 up with a 7800 then you have one damn fine game rig that'll do anything else at the same time.

[kushtibari]

OK. next question. Its looking likely that I'll go for x2 4800+ (future proofing),(FX57 could still get a look in) with an SLI nVidia 7800 setup. If I go for XP 64bit, what effect (positive or negative) will I see with, say, Far Cry or Doom 3?

Read this the other day before deciding NOT to install X64

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NzY1

[1RTR]

kushtibari, good link, thanks. No to XP 64bit then. Looks like, based on the comments above, X2 4800. The options to run background tasks has swung it. Thanks guys, for advice.