Socket 939 dual core upgrade worth it and if so which?

I have a 3200 venice which admittedly has remained at stock ever since i bought it and 1gb of ram. I tend to run quite a few programs at the same time, nothing too heavy like media encoding but I often have 40 -50 processes running. Whilst I know that I could pare some back I will always be running a lot of stuff, it's just the way I use my pc so i'm wondering whether to get a dual core processor.

I think I'll probably be one of the relatively early adopters of vista so I have 2gb of ram on the way and i'll be selling the 1gb that I have now to recupe costs. I've had an offer of £40 for my 3200 and this has made me look st the x2s. I don't have so much time to game these days but it's definitely a factor in my choices.

Essentially:

On a limited budget is it worth selling my 3200 and getting an x2 3800 for roughly £100 to improve the responsiveness of my system?

Is it worth stretching slightly higher to a 4200 etc?

I'm not interested in motherboard swaps or bigger upgrades to core 2 duo, this may be my last upgrade for at least a year. I have to admit Zak33's recent post on how a 4800 improved his frame rates in some games has me intrigued, not sure i could stretch to a 4600 unless there were was quite a bump in performance form getting one.

Any thoughts? :)

Any chance of spending a bit more cash :P The dual core opterons seems to run well and have good OCing range if thats your bag. Thats what Im thinking of moving to and my mate has got a single core 2.2 and its overclocked really nicley. not bad bang for your buck if your on a bit of a tight budget.

If i was in that situation i'd get the best CPU i could as it seems your system is more cpu dependent, you should see the benefit of the extra speed, so probably go for the 4200. Alternatively buy a 3800 and overclock it to 4200 speeds.

Holden I'm still not sure if I would overclock, particularly as i've been sitting on a 3200 venice core and ballistix ram all this time. Thanks for ther heads up on opteron prices though :)

I'm wondering whether the extra cache of the opterons is worth it, particularly as the chip will generate more heat over the manchester core x2s.

A 170 is a similar price to a 4200 and has double the l2 cache but runs 200mhz slower at stock. I'm guessing the 4200 will be faster in normal use but could i be wrong?

Heat isn't so much of an issue as I have an xp120 and a nexus fan on top but the setup is designed to be quiet and i'm wondering whether an opteron would change that dynamic.

If the setup's designed to be quiet above all else, then an Opty is probably money down the drain. Don't get me wrong, I love my 170, but that's because it OC'ed by 500MHz straight out of the box on stock cooling and without the temps going stratospheric even under load. The downside is that you can pretty much kiss Cool'n'Quiet goodbye as a consequence of the overclock. Personally, I would try to find a 4400. That gives you your 2.2GHz AND 1MB per core of L2 without any OC'ing involved.

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Originally Posted by nichomach

If the setup's designed to be quiet above all else, then an Opty is probably money down the drain. Don't get me wrong, I love my 170, but that's because it OC'ed by 500MHz straight out of the box on stock cooling and without the temps going stratospheric even under load. The downside is that you can pretty much kiss Cool'n'Quiet goodbye as a consequence of the overclock. Personally, I would try to find a 4400. That gives you your 2.2GHz AND 1MB per core of L2 without any OC'ing involved.

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forget my idea, this man makes a better point it lol.

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Originally Posted by kasavien

Alternatively buy a 3800 and overclock it to 4200 speeds.

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Would there be a difference between the two?

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Originally Posted by BlindMelon7

Would there be a difference between the two?

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Only the multi which gives you a speed boost and easier overclocks.

The more I think about it I've been working a lot of hours lately and i doubt i'll overclock. I'm wondering whether to stretch to that 4600. I used to like the idea of a 4400 but not sure that the extra heat penalty from the doubled l2 cache is worth it. Aren't A64s not so needy of the extra cache anyway because of the integrated memory controller?

Heat penalty?
C&Q is your friend ;)

The 4400 clocks really well, making it simple to turn into a 4800+.

The lower cache on the 4600 actually makes it a weaker chip.

So in short, go for the 4400. Heat just really isn't a problem on these CPUs.

yup, agreed same reason noone buys the 3800+ 64, because the 3700 has more cache and turns into a 4000+ easily :)

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Originally Posted by harry1

yup, agreed same reason noone buys the 3800+ 64, because the 3700 has more cache and turns into a 4000+ easily :)

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Yer well i did :embarrassed: But only cause it was cheap as chips :P

computerplanet has 4400's in stock for £155.38 + £5.00 delivery. This is the preferred choice of chip for overclocking, performance and £ in the x2 Athlon 939 range.:)

Oh dear the unanimity of support for the 4400 has changed my mind! Now just got to find an e-tailer i trust who stocks it.

Is computerplanet a reliable e-tailer?