Should I buy a x2 4200+ or an x2 4600+?

[menorton]

With the new amd price cuts , I am interested in getting the most my S939 can do -- right now its an AMD x2 4200+ or a x2 4600+. Right 4200 is $187 and the 4600 is $241. I am reading reviews and don't see much of a difference, but is the $60 worth it to go up 2-3 levels? I do do alot of office work, but i primarily game on it. And this is why i am leaning towards the cheaper 4200+ b/c at high res and high iq, the difference between the two processors is nil, right?

I also notice that the listed 5000+ is just am2, is amd cutting the price on a 5000+ s939 as well?

 

[tatteredpotato]

I just ordered a 4600 myself, mainly because i had the extra cash, but both are good chips. Anyone know how well either overclock?

The 5000+ is an am2 only part...... there will be none for 939

 

[menorton]

ok.. well then for the money which is better the 4200 or the 4600. Yeah i see in benchmarks the 4600 is faster, but in my real world uses, will there be any noticable differences?

 

[avi85]

I personally don't think that it's worth the $51 difference, that money could be used much more wisely

 

[tatteredpotato]

Just look at the number of people buying the 3800, your already ahead of them and all of them seem very happy. Besides if u decied u need the extra 200 mhz u could always overclock that fairly easily.

 

[menorton]

true. I am upgrading from an amd64 3500+ / 7800gt. How much of a real-life performance increase can i expect between the 4200 and 4600+?

 

[richardrds]

Originally posted by: menorton
true. I am upgrading from an amd64 3500+ / 7800gt. How much of a real-life performance increase can i expect between the 4200 and 4600+?

Your single core 3500 runs at 2.2Ghz stock. The X2 4200 runs at 2.2Ghz stock, and the 4600 runs at 2.4Ghz stock. So if you are not running apps that take advantage of Dual cores, or if you are not multitasking, you will not see much of a differance. One nice thing you can do with dual core setup is have all your Utility programs (i.e. Virus/malware/firewall running on one core while the main app you are running is on the other core). This will get you some efficiency gains even if the app you are running does not take advantage of dual cores.

My advice would be to purchase the X2 3800 for between $150-160. This chip runs at 2.0Ghz default, but can easilly be OCed to 2.4-2.5Ghz and probably closer to 2.6 or 2.7 Ghz. Take the money you save and upgrade to 2 Gig ram if you don't already have it. OCing these chips is so easy, anyone can do it with 30 minutes research at this site.

 

[Captante]

Out of your choices I'd say go with the 4200+, but the best suggestion is to spend even less & get the 3800+, then overclock it to 2.4ghz which should be just about garanteed to run stable.
The only way its worth spending the extra cash for the 4600+ is if you have no plans to overclock.

 

[menorton]

There is a $30 difference between the 3800+ ($153) and the 4200+ ($188). How can that $30 buy me another gig of ram?

could i get the 3800+ and oc it to the 4200+? SHould i get an aftermarket cooler? WIll it run at a higher temp or have less of a life then no OC'd? I consider myself an ethuisast of hardware, but i prefer not to OC since i have never done it before.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: menorton
could i get the 3800+ and oc it to the 4200+? SHould i get an aftermarket cooler? WIll it run at a higher temp or have less of a life then no OC'd? I consider myself an ethuisast of hardware, but i prefer not to OC since i have never done it before.

You may "consider" yourself an "enthusiast" all day long, but... :thumbsdown:
A real enthusiast puts less weight in the $$ he has to spend than in the potential performance he expects. :thumbsup:

 

[5t3v0]

I have also decided to take advantage of the cuts and upgrade my disapointing 2.5GHz overclocked single core Opteron 144 to a dual core X2. After a short deliberation over models I ordered a 4200+ for £125, which is $230 in your money. I hate it that we pay more over here, but that's an old rant. I considered buying the 3800+ but felt it was worth paying the extra for the x11 multiplier. I'm hoping that I can get this up to 11 x 250 (2.75GHz) and run 1:1 with my DDR500 G.Skill. Might be optimistic but 2.6-2.7GHz would be good. There's definately no need to buy the 4600+ if you are prepared to overclock and have a motherboard that can take the higher HTT. The new supplied heatsinks have heatpipes and are probably OK for a moderate amount of overclocking. I'll just be reusing my AC Freezer Pro.

 

[coldpower27]

There is no 5000+ S939 part, so don't hold your breath on that, I would say stick to the 4200+ for a great price/performance ratio.

 

[Sparky19692]

What I don't understand is why people are not looking at the 4400 for the extra cache 1 +1 you know you can OC to 2.4 in a second and have a 4800. Unfortunatly I have to wait a few weeks for the cash flow.

 

[Nocturnal]

Next paycheck I will be picking up a 4600 Manchester and an A8N32 board for my home box. These price cuts are wicked.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

With the 4800+ now at less than $300 new, and used ones already going for $250 or less, I may have to pick one of those up. Not the best price performance but some of them have overclocked to 2.9+ on air

 

[imported_Sincity]

I'm on the same boat. X2 4200 or X2 4600??? It is worth it getting the higher multiplier? Or just go X2 3800 and OC to 2.4 - 2.5 since my 3200 OCs between 2.45-2.5 ghz. I'd like the second core for video encoding chores.

 

[imported_Skorpio]

I got the 4600+. Still waiting to ship from Monarch.

Was debating between a 4400+, 4600+ & 4800+, but I thought the 4600+ was perfect in between (at least price range wise) after re-reading a couple of the archived benchmarks from Anand last year.

I'll say just get what you can afford. You really cant go wrong with any X2 chip after the price cuts.

To each man his own though. :thumbsup:

 

[Cali]

Originally posted by: richardrds

Originally posted by: menorton
true. I am upgrading from an amd64 3500+ / 7800gt. How much of a real-life performance increase can i expect between the 4200 and 4600+?

Your single core 3500 runs at 2.2Ghz stock. The X2 4200 runs at 2.2Ghz stock, and the 4600 runs at 2.4Ghz stock. So if you are not running apps that take advantage of Dual cores, or if you are not multitasking, you will not see much of a differance. One nice thing you can do with dual core setup is have all your Utility programs (i.e. Virus/malware/firewall running on one core while the main app you are running is on the other core). This will get you some efficiency gains even if the app you are running does not take advantage of dual cores.

My advice would be to purchase the X2 3800 for between $150-160. This chip runs at 2.0Ghz default, but can easilly be OCed to 2.4-2.5Ghz and probably closer to 2.6 or 2.7 Ghz. Take the money you save and upgrade to 2 Gig ram if you don't already have it. OCing these chips is so easy, anyone can do it with 30 minutes research at this site.

So on an x2 you wont really see a difffernce unless you multi-task????

 

[5t3v0]

Originally posted by: Sparky19692
What I don't understand is why people are not looking at the 4400 for the extra cache 1 +1 you know you can OC to 2.4 in a second and have a 4800. Unfortunatly I have to wait a few weeks for the cash flow.

I dont know what the price difference is over there, but here the 4400+ is £80 more than the 4200+, that's 64% more for an extra 2 x 0.5Mb cache. In my book, that isn't good value for money.

 

[Sparky19692]

Here it is the same price point as the 4600+

 

[cmge]

hmmm im kinda in the same boat as the OP... currently i have MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum w/ AMD64 4000+ San Diego... with the recent price cuts on the X2... would i notice a difference if i was to upgrade to an X2 4200+ ??... most of the time i use my comp for gaming... and another dilemma i face is if my mobo will even support the X2 4200+... the mannual says its X2 ready and can take upto the FX55... so would my mobo be good?

 

[PascalT]

you won't see much difference unless you multitask or do stuff like photoshop/video editing where they are SMP programs and make full use of dual cores.

 

[imported_wicka]

I have a 3700+ San Diego...which is 2.2 and the same as the 4200+ X2, except the X2 only has 512kb L2 per core (I'm pretty sure it's not a shared cache, correct me if I'm wrong). I was more leaning to the 4200+ over the 3800+, just because I don't want to really lose any performance (even it's not noticeable, I'll notice it just because I'll know). Would the 3800+ overclock higher than the 4200+ (remember like how the AXP 1700+ and the 2500+ OC'ed higher than even some of the faster chips)?

 

[imported_Sincity]

cmge: Your mobo should be fine. You may want to flash the latest BIOS to be certain.

 

[5t3v0]

Originally posted by: wicka
I have a 3700+ San Diego...which is 2.2 and the same as the 4200+ X2, except the X2 only has 512kb L2 per core (I'm pretty sure it's not a shared cache, correct me if I'm wrong). I was more leaning to the 4200+ over the 3800+, just because I don't want to really lose any performance (even it's not noticeable, I'll notice it just because I'll know). Would the 3800+ overclock higher than the 4200+ (remember like how the AXP 1700+ and the 2500+ OC'ed higher than even some of the faster chips)?

I dont think the 4200+ will overclock significantly higher or lower than the 3800+, more that that it will achieve a similar overclock but with lower HTT. That is useful if you have a mobo that isnt stable at higher HTTs or if you want to run RAM on a 1:1 divider. This is the reason I went for the 4200+ over the 3800+. The extra multiplier just opens up more options for overclocking. I currently have the Opteron 144 which is a x9 multi and I've been really limited by it.