Does all this really matter?

[bajajg]

MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, 3DNOW! Professional

Well, i just read up on what all the above acronyms mean. Well, what does it really mean to the average joe who just wants to play latest games on a decent resln?

do all the games these days take advantage of this stuff? whats the future look like? seems to me like a way for the some big folks to make more $ by confusing ppl with all these cool terms.

i may be wrong on the above statement, but im sure im not totally wrong.

g

 

[bjc112]

SSE3 support was just added to the Venice core Athlon 64's.. Only a select few(apps) support SSE3, so its not that big of a deal for most.. Nice to have the support though.

If you just concerned about games, almost all CPU's AMD or Intel support just about all of those features.

Build whatever you like, and start fragging'

 

[imported_Phil]

Originally posted by: bajajg
MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, 3DNOW! Professional

Well, i just read up on what all the above acronyms mean. Well, what does it really mean to the average joe who just wants to play latest games on a decent resln?

do all the games these days take advantage of this stuff? whats the future look like? seems to me like a way for the some big folks to make more $ by confusing ppl with all these cool terms.

i may be wrong on the above statement, but im sure im not totally wrong.

g

They're all instructions designed to accelerate the processing of multiple sets of data using the same instructions over and over again, repetatively.

This basically means that they're useful, for example, for applying filters to a large texture, or even picture - the same instructions are used each time the code loops, but the data changes each time.

For game-playing, when 3DNow! was introduced, there was a small article (IIRC) showing the performance difference when it's turned on. Since the Athlons support all the above instructions as well as the Pentium-4 (with the exception of SSE-3 which has just been added to the Venice core), it's nothing to worry about. Whatever you buy will be fine, but the Athlon is stronger in games than the Pentium these days.

The only time I'd recommend a Pentium-4 these days is if you do a lot of video work, but the Athlon has been eating away at that lead these days; there's not a great deal in it anymore except the increased price of the Intel chip.

Hope this helps :beer: