Is it worth upgrading to the new Intels?

[tornadog]

I have an Opty 165 running on a MSI NF4 board with 2 GB DDR Ram. While the thing has been serving me pretty well, I kinda feel left behind with all this core 2 duo and quad core talk. So from a practical POV, is there any merit in upgrading to the latest intel CPUs. Since I am still on 939, that means an entire overhaul, mobo, Ram and cpu. And most likely I wont get anything for my current mobo/ram/cpu. So what would your advice be? Will the Opty give me all the benefits of a dual core over the next cpl of years?

 

[Ika]

Stick with your Opty until you feel like you're limited in what you do; by that time, though, Penryn will most likely be out and available in force that would be a better option. Even Barcelona might be an option.

 

[Game Boy]

Yeah, it's a bad idea to upgrade right before new architecture revisions.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: tornadog
I have an Opty 165 running on a MSI NF4 board with 2 GB DDR Ram. While the thing has been serving me pretty well, I kinda feel left behind with all this core 2 duo and quad core talk.

I would hope the point of dual core and quad core processors is to actually use them, not tell your friends my 4 cores are > your 1 core (unless you have self-esteem issues and need to prove prowess by having a faster computer). So don't "feel" left behind If all you do is play videogames and do not runny many tasks in the background (like video encoding, SETI/Folding @ home while playing a game, or Photoshop filters, etc.), then I would simply overclock your processor and you won't be giving up that much in terms of performance. Opteron's should hit 2.5-2.6ghz. At 1.8ghz though it does limit the speed of your 8800GTS somewhat (esp minimum framerates). Of course in some games C2D is just more efficient so even overclocking won't help you. But that depends on the games you play.

For instance, In Supreme Commander a single core processor is just not enough. Even Dual Core X2 processors at 3.0ghz are significantly slower.

In games like call of duty 2 and quake 4 Athlon 64/X2 is more than sufficient.

If you think you'd benefit from dual core, I'd try to upgrade to an X2 chip as doing a complete overhaul isn't worth it for you. When I upgraded to C2D I went from P4 2.6@ 3.2ghz single to C2D 2.13@ 3.4ghz which is more than double the speed increase for me. But in your case dual core X2 would give best bang for the buck and then later you can do a complete system overhaul to DDR2 or DDR3, etc.

 

[Dacalo]

I am in the same boat, but have a X2 4400. Although it's tempting to upgrade right now, I am going to hold out for Penryn later this year. By then, X38 will be out as well as Nvidia's 9800 cards. I did pick up some cheap 2GB Crucial Ballistix RAM though for $60.

I might however hold out even longer and get Wolfdale(?), Penryn quad core.

 

[Spumpkin]

ihn contrast, i'm still on an althon xp 3200+ (not even 64 bit!) with 1.5 gigs of pc2700 ram and a radeon 9800 pro!

I'm definately assuming a quadcore q6600 with 4 gigs of pc6400 and maybe a 8800gts 320 meg..

I asume it will be a gigantic leap in performance for me

 

[Acanthus]

My best advice for these types of questions is to look at what you actually do, then check reviews to see if there is a real tangible gain to upgrading.

 

[tatteredpotato]

Wait for Agena and Penryn to decide. Chances are AMD is going to launch at low clocks but maybe they'll be great OC chips.