Quiet gaming CPU (x2 s939)

Hi, I'm looking to stick to s939 at this time, as I don't want the extra expense of new RAM and mobo right now :(

So I'm looking for a quiet s939 CPU which will overclock reasonably well, whilst remaining as cool as possible (and therefore quiet).

I'm torn between X2 Opterons and X2 Athlons. Currently I have an Opty 146 @ 2.4GHz.

Now I hear the newest X2 3800+ cpus are overclocking almost as well as the more expensive Opterons. But are they efficient, low heat models?

Is the 3800 now better than the Opty 165? And would either of them overclock past 2.4Ghz that I currently get on the single core?

Thanks for reading :)

939's will stay 90nm, I highly doubt they will bring out 65nm 939's.

Your best bet if you want quiet is to buy as high up the range as you can afford and then stick a Artic Frezer 64 on it. I had a 4200+ (available OEM from Scan for £94 and it quite happily sat at 2.5Ghz all day long.

There are actually 3 upgrades I need to do:

Opty 146 -=> Dual Core CPU
1Gig DDR -=> 2Gig+
6800GT -=> X1950Pro (or better)

Any idea which would net the best % increase? I'm guessing the gfx upgrade, followed by cpu, then RAM last. Which is also the order of the £ to upgrade :) Funny that :p

for gaming?.. ram, gpu, cpu, in that order

Take a look at those new 200 quid 8800s before deciding on the x1950.

They may be much better value and/or push the price of the x1950s down.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by HybridVision

There are actually 3 upgrades I need to do:

Opty 146 -=> Dual Core CPU
1Gig DDR -=> 2Gig+
6800GT -=> X1950Pro (or better)

Any idea which would net the best % increase? I'm guessing the gfx upgrade, followed by cpu, then RAM last. Which is also the order of the £ to upgrade :) Funny that :p

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For most games, gfx is the only one that'll make any difference.

Some games use more than 1gb, so 2gb is beginning to help, especially if you have a load of junk in the background, but then dual core helps with junk as well.

I've a 3800 939 X2 and it's very cool and quiet - with cool n quiet enabled of course :p It is cooler than models that have 1mb cache options.