Is AMD 64 x2(dual core) 3800+ an upgrade worthy over AMD Athlon 64 3500+?

[videopho]

Reason I asked because I just bought AMD 3500+ Venice form Fry's and just saw today on their ad for a special combo AMD 64 x2 3800+ & mobo for $279.99.
Is x2 3800+ dual core significantly faster and better performance than 3800+ (single core)?

 

[A5]

Only if you do multiple CPU-intesive tasks at the same time.

 

[classy]

Originally posted by: videopho
Reason I asked because I just bought AMD 3500+ Venice form Fry's and just saw today on their ad for a special combo AMD 64 x2 3800+ & mobo for $279.99.
Is x2 3800+ dual core significantly faster and better performance than 3800+ (single core)?

I think you mean does it perfrom better than your 3500+.....the answer would be overall yes. In games only those games that support dual cpu support will it perform somewhat noticeably better. But in most encoding and multitasking the 3800 x2 will easily outperfrom a 3500+ Venice. Here is a good review will those two processors Tech Report 3800 x2

 

[crispy2010]

Unless you are planning on ocing I would say no!

 

[videopho]

The AMD is strictly used for gaming.
Yes o/c is in the plan.

 

[Diasper]

Not really at the moment but in the future (inc near future) certainly.

Right now:
- Dual-core performance is generally about equal to a single core 200mhz faster. However, single core can typically clock about 200mhz more so this is insignificant.
- However, performance gains now you can get from dual-core drivers coming out from both nvidia and ATI although the drivers have been reported as buggy - at least the ones from nvidia.

Future
- Driver support should only get better - most importantly more stable while with maturity even greater performance gains should be possible.
- More directly, future game titles will benefit from it. We are beginning to see it occuring now eg Quake 4 patch. But, many games will come over from here on in that will benefit from multiple core consoles as next gen engines (Unreal 3 etc) will take advantage of it while any console-pc crossover games will also benefit from it given console hardware.


That said I wouldn't worry about it too much. Right now they'll be no discernible benefit and when there is the 3800+ will be an even better deal.

 

[sellmen]

Depends on what you do.

As others have said, most games don't currently take advantage of dual core, but that will change once Unreal Engine 3 becomes the standard.

If you photo or video edit though, you'll get a nice performance boost right away. Programs such as Photoshop were designed to take advantage of multi processor systems, and thus take advantage of dual core.

Encoding is another task that will take advantage of dual core, and of course dual core will let you run multiple CPU intensive tasks at once. Dual core systems are "smooth" - nothing really slows them down.

 

[A554SS1N]

I'd wait to get a faster dual-core processor when they get cheaper - unless, of course, your really in need of extra power for encoding stuff right now - otherwise, you're better off just overclocking your 3500+.....

 

[Goldenstyx]

just saw today's Fry's ads with X2 3800+ /w mobo for $279.99

not sure if its worth to do the upgrade again... I'm current using a opty 146 CAYBE 0540 FMBW @ 3G with 1.5v but I do a lot of mutitasking recently, like play WoW, mp3s, FTP transfer and BT download at sametime and tab out to desktop browse internet..etc etc

will this X2 3800+ give a significantly improvement over my 3G opty?

 

[LloydChristmas]

With a dual core, can you run a game, such as World of Warcraft, in window mode and work on your pc (outlook, explorer, etc) at the same time as fast as if the game were not running?

 

[imported_Sincity]

Saw the same ad...was gonna jump on it...but then again like stated above, not that much of an advantage right now. Plus if you/I/we wait till more applications and games take advantage, that X2 3800 will probably cost you less than $200 later on.