Poll: Go from dual to single?

[Chaotic42]

I'm just curious. Nothing will be happening today or anything.

Would you guys spend ~$1000 to go from my current system (see sig for full details):

Dual Athlon MP 2800+
768MB PC 2100
Radeon 9700

to a system like this:

Athlon 64 3400+
1GB PC3500
Radeon X800SE

Now I know that most of you aren't dually loving people, but I'll be honest. Duallies are expensive. The Athlon MP platform appears to be the end of the affordable dually system. Opterons are staggeringly expensive. MPs don't go above 2800, except with some overclocking, which is painfully tedious (bridge mods).

What do I do with my system?

Well, I play games mostly. I do run Bryce 4, something that makes the duallies shine. I honestly almost never use Linux anymore, for whatever that may be worth. I'm also looking into World Builder, which takes advantage of SMP systems. I don't know that keeping my current system is an option. It would be expensive to get new drives and whatnot for it.

So what are your thoughts?

 

[SrGuapo]

From what I've read and experienced, gaming is much worse on dual CPU systems. The overhead of the processors comminicating often is greater than the benefits of parallelism (which mostr games don't use anyway). The only time when I would see the need for a dual system would be for a server, when there are tons of requests for information. Most software today (save a few of the high end modeling packages) are multithreaded, and even those that are will run acceptably with a single processor.

About that system: I don't know how experienced you are with overclocking, but you may want to buy an Athlon 64 3200+ or even a 3000+ winchester. They will easily overclock past the 3400+ and are quite a bit cheaper.

Edit: actually, newegg and other retailers seem to be charging outrageous prices for the s939 parts, so you may be better off with s754 unless you want to wait a month or two. I would still go with thew 3200 (s754), it is a great overclocker as well.

 

[biostud]

if you go s939 you can return to dual some time in 2006

 

[SUOrangeman]

Ever thought about a second PC altogether?

My current home system is a dual-XP2400+ (yes, I modded the XPs into MPs). The wife has an nForce2 Shuttle with an XP1600+ (I think). Once the prices stabilize, I intend to migrate to the Iwill zMAXdp, which will likely cost quite a bit (around $4000 today if I really want all the goodies; I've started a spreadsheet to prove it ). Due to the costs, I will likely reuse as many existing components as I can, and offloading others onto the wife. Anything that remains may become a third, true media/HTPC system ('cuz the wife doesn't like having that stuff on her PC. Needless to say, she has yet to be fully convinced of the value of a third PC and the potential of a single-CPU 64-bit media PC.

The transition will be as fast as hot deals allow . I'll likely get the zMAXdp, one CPU (Opteron 248s now at 90nm, and cheaper in Feb. when the 252s come out), and (~1GB) PC3200 DIMM. As the wallet/deals allow, I'll follow up with the second CPU, a second 1GB DIMM, and then start replacing video card, hard drives, and other devices.

-SUO

 

[dullard]

[*]Switching CPUs at this point will be an extreme expense for very little gain.
[*]Your memory is ok, sufficient for most games (not all) and many programs. I don't know anything about Bryce 4, but many programs that really utilize dual CPUs also are memory hogs. Thus, have you ever considered bumping up your memory a bit? It shouldn't cost too much.
[*] Your video card is what may be holding you back. It certainly is a good one, but not the top of the line. If you really need more speed, and you mostly play games, I'd look here.

Basically there isn't enough reason to switch what you have now for a whole new system. You'll be out a ton of cash and have little to show for it. If I were you, I'd sit on everything for a year and be quite happy. But if you really want a bit more performance or have the upgrade itch, look at video card first then memory.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

It's your call in the long run. If you can afford to spend $1000 on a new rig, go for it. If it is a stretch, then don't. Your system is powerful enough for you it seems.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: biostud
if you go s939 you can return to dual some time in 2006

The cost would still be there. New registered memory, new motherboard, two new processors....

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: Chaotic42

Originally posted by: biostud
if you go s939 you can return to dual some time in 2006

The cost would still be there. New registered memory, new motherboard, two new processors....

What I meant was going for a dual-core processor when they arrive. But yeah it's some money to spend.

 

[InlineFive]

If the software you like to use is SMP capable and you are satisfied with the speed I would stay where you are.

 

[Excelsior]

You say you play games mostly..but what games and how often..play online competitively? Are you satisfied with your current computers performance in games? Do you often multitask?

Id say keep your current system, but answer those questions.

 

[addragyn]

I would find the second system slower than the first.

I vote add more RAM to current system and get a 10/15k boot drive.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

it will be better for gamig etc, but i can def notice a diff in windows and other things like encoding and doing CAD work, the pentium 4 with Hyper threading and even my mates dual p3 800mhz jus seem to multi task and do stuff in the windows environment so much better....but gaming was my number 1 criteria so athlon 64 it was

 

[Markfw]

I would stay where you are until you can get Opterons. They may be spendy, but dang, they do anything I throw at them. And to the person that said duallies do worse on games due to overhead, NOT true. Actually, slightly better. The system can run on one proc, and the other proc has the game all to itself.

 

[TerryMathews]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
I would stay where you are until you can get Opterons. They may be spendy, but dang, they do anything I throw at them. And to the person that said duallies do worse on games due to overhead, NOT true. Actually, slightly better. The system can run on one proc, and the other proc has the game all to itself.

Well...

The MPX architecture does place a slight hamper on memory bandwidth with two processors connected - I don't really know why. (Cache coherency maybe?) We are talking on the order of 5% from my informal benchmarks when I was running an A7M266-D.

Performance penalities should be nonexistent for a properly-engineered dual Opteron system. If you've got one of those cheap boards where only one processor is connected to the system memory though, all bets are off.

Since the newer Xeons are utilizing a similar connection method to the old Athlon MP, a similar penalty should apply, although I've not verified it with my PC-DL and probably never will. It would probably be less than 5% though.

The ancillary benefits of a dual system far outweigh the detriments when gaming. Cost is the only real negative factor, but over the years there have been plenty of opportunities to break into budget SMP. (Refurb MPX mobos at NewEgg + modded AXPs circa 2002, PC-DL and LV 1.6 Xeons circa September)

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: addragyn
I would find the second system slower than the first.

I vote add more RAM to current system and get a 10/15k boot drive.

Most apps don't use all of my memory. BF1942 seems to be the only one. I already have a SCSI 10K boot drive.

As far as games I'm currently playing:

Halflife 2- Slow as crap
Doom 3- Decent speed
Knights of the Old Republic- Pretty nice
Falcon 4-Severe stutters during spawns (this is an almost 100% CPU dependant game)
Sims 2-(I don't play this one much)- Pretty slow
BF1942- Good performance

Do I multitask? Yes. Often. Whenever I'm not playing games I have 7 or 8 windows of crap open.

 

[Pariah]

Just upgrade your video card. It looks like you would anyway if you were starting from scratch. If the performance still isn't good enough, then go with the A64. An XP2800+ with a highend video card should be plenty fast in all but the most demanding game scenarios.

Personally I wouldn't spend $1000 for the system you are looking at to replace what you have. The overall system performance differences would still probably favor what you have now if the other components were equal.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: Pariah
Just upgrade your video card. It looks like you would anyway if you were starting from scratch. If the performance still isn't good enough, then go with the A64. An XP2800+ with a highend video card should be plenty fast in all but the most demanding game scenarios.

Personally I wouldn't spend $1000 for the system you are looking at to replace what you have. The overall system performance differences would still probably favor what you have now if the other components were equal.

My plan was to wait until XP 64 comes out and is decently stable. By that time PCI Express would be out and established.

That's the plan anyway.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: biostud
What I meant was going for a dual-core processor when they arrive. But yeah it's some money to spend.

Yeah, I forgot about those.

Hmmm....

 

[AwesomeJay]

you should add another choice to your poll

"stop being gay and saying 'dually'"

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: AwesomeJay
you should add another choice to your poll

"stop being gay and saying 'dually'"

Should I leave the first 's' lowercase, or would making what you just said look like a sentence also be gay?

 

[addragyn]

The more RAM you give your OS the more it will use.

If that system is "slow" maybe you need to do a clean install.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: addragyn
The more RAM you give your OS the more it will use.

If that system is "slow" maybe you need to do a clean install.

I've been doing some research and upgrading really wouldn't do any good. I've been cleaning the system up and it seems to be running better.