The game will only use one core of your processor, so you are going to want the absolute fastest core you can afford.

Many, many, many other games will only use one core. You need to prioritize your compents while keeping this in mind. First-Person-Shooters have extremely complex AI and physics engines (the Havoc engine, in particular), and will choke on a slow core.

It's the "drawback" of going dual core. You've got to plan for games that can only use one of them.

This is correct, and that is why I just bought an AMD Athon 3800+ ... for now.

I know, that's why I said NOT 2in1. Mine is Pyshicaly 2 CPU's, and yes it makes a difference.

Again, I know. Mine, given their age and speed, do cope quite well, in fact if it wasnt for the Dual setup my PC would really struggle. And as you can see by the screen shot, its not to foul at all.

They have 512 each.

Actually its not, since MP architecture used on 2 single CPU's is not really any different to a single dual core CPU, both require MP enabled boards and MP system files. The only real difference is pyshical, in that 1 system has 2 CPU's with single cores still needing MP architecture to run, as apposed to 1 CPU with 2 cores still needing MP architecture to run. The real difference between my now aging CPU's and todays new Dual Cores, is the Speed and the L2 mem. And there aint that much difference in the speed department but the L2 mem there is. And thats about it. In fact I have been so pleased with what my lil old PIII Dual setup can do (far beyond what it was ever concieved of being able to run) and at times still even today, besting more uptodate systems in what it can handle, that I decided to build a new MP PC. Keeping my new PC in the same design concept, I have used a Dual XEON MT64 Board and placed 2 3.2GHz Xeon MT64 CPU's L2 2mb L3 6mb onboard. The old PIII MB had ATA RAID that I ran Striped. My new MB has SCSI Raid plus SATA RAID as well as standard ATA/IDE. The old 4 x AGP slot will now given way to a PCIEx16 slot and when I can finaly get it the new Vid card will be a xFx GFX7950GX2. With the ability to run 16Gb of DDR2 @ 400Mhz dual channel I think my new PC will see me through another 4-5 years, just like my lil old PIII has. So yes MP PC's do make a difference, what you do with them tho is up to you. :)

PS: Ohh and before you ask, yes I do need that much grunt. When you do as much modding as I and as many models that I have done over the years, its nice to be able to do all this with out sitting there waiting for the PC to catch up.

:dead::dead::dead:

OK GUYS YOU GOT ME THERE!!!

I honestly don't know what to post as a reply.

Nice work everyone and I thank you very much for your efford.

I checked the page! WOW!!! :huh::huh::huh: Going to 3 GHz on the E6300, and the Extreme version was only bumped to 3,7 GHz! When I get some more cash (just spent everything on my new comp and school books (don't you just hate the prices they're giving us these days) I'll buy a good vent and bump it to 3 GHz.

I already have a closed and goodly vented (:oops:) box as I use Silent Pipe II for my Geforce card! So I'll be having an UBER computer in no time!

Slow down a bit and don't get too excited by what you have seen on xtremesystems ;)

Before you do ANY overclocking- read a lot about it, look for some basic overclocking guides, read topics on xtremesystems etc.

It's really NOT like "yeah, i'll buy a core 2, set FSB to 400 and in a minute i have 2 times better performance" :roll:

Overclocking takes a lot of time- it can take a whole day to get optimal values.
Remember that your aim is not to have as many Mhz as possible- but to get as much STABLE performance as possible- Which means testing each configuration with ex. prime95 for a longer time and checking temps and general stability.
There are many variables that must be changed/monitored: FSB, Vcore, temperature, memory timings...
You'll notice that when you read overclocking guides

Those 3Ghz results are achieved with mobos on a table, with many coolers cooling many parts of a mobo.

There are also parts other than CPU that need to be cooled- mosfets, north bridge, sometimes- ram.


I'll give you my own example- I overclocked 10% my e6300 (form 1866 to 2052, just by increasing FSB) and it reaches even 60 degrees in stress- which is too much for core 2 processors.
I have good case ventilation (rear/back fans, airduct fo cpu cooler)- but still, BOX cooler is too weak for it.
OK, I'll replace it with something better, add another 120mm fan- but still, I'm not expecting to reach extremely high overclocking values .

There is a big difference between extreme overclocking (done to break records) and regular overclocking (done to have a slightly faster system)

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THX!!! I didn't mean to just go and overclock it in 10 secs. In intented to do it with someone who knows more about computers then I ever will (it's his job).

I have a Gygabite S series motherboard (http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...ProductID=2314)
The S series come programes that you can use to safely overclock the processor (inside the OS). It will be a while before I anything like that, but thank you nonetherless for your words of wisdom.

Wow that is too cool! I was a huge fan of the pentium 3s when they came out. They were so stable and fast! Reminded me of the jump from 486 to pentium 1. I always read about the dual core stuff but never bought one because of the huge cost. Do you remember how much all that stuff was when you bought it??

Well I can tell you that my Gigabyte motherboard, Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 1,866 GHz, Gigabyte GeForce 7600 GT 256MB with passive cooling, a 550W power supply and a new housing (NO HARD DRIVES, ALREADY HAD THEN) was around 1000$ (from my local currency to US dolars).

OK, I might mention I worked hard during the summer to pay the computer (my dad "donated" the CPU and motherboard)!

Having a "dual core" machine, and having a machine that has two seperate processor sockets isn't all that much different, from a gaming standpoint.

The socket-940 Opteron boards generally have seperate memory slots for each processor. This allows a NUMA-aware operating system to divvy up the memory according to each processor's process. This means that the main bus isn't being used as much. Very, very helpful when you're running virtualized servers. The dual-core socket AM2/939 processors are missing a memory controller. This allows them to use unbuffered memory, as opposed to registered memory. It used to be that the socket 940 boards had the advantage of PCI-X slots. This is completely moot now that PCIe 8/12/16 channel raid cards have appeared on the market.

So, there is a difference between dual-core flip chips, and a pair of single-core flip chips. As a gamer, the dual-core route is better in every possible way. It's cheaper, and for the games that are actually multi-threaded, you will receive the full benefit of having two physical processors. You will even receive a small boost in the games that are serial threaded, because all the system calls can be handled by the second processor.

My core 2 duo E6600 2.4Ghz runs perfect with tons of extra frames even in heavy ports. I have 2GB of XtremeRAM DDR2 also which also helps and a 7900GT 512MB GDDR3 vid card - plays all my games with highest level graphics and minimum to no lag in all games depending on what it is. I get a tiny bit of lag in thick forest areas in Oblivion with everything maxed out. Hope that explains how poweful this beasts is! ;)

Yep, an funny enough they were a tad more than the Xeons I just bought a few weeks ago!
I paid $1031:80AU for my 2 Xeons - the 2 PIII -SM's I paid $1040:60AU some 4 years ago!!!! The worst part is that the PIII's had to be a matched pair, so I couldn't buy 1 at a time. Nope, It had to be both at once. The Xeons dont have to be a matched pair, but I decided to get them both at the same time anyway.

My PIII rig is/was an entry level server in reality. The new Dual Xeon is the same, just a tad more powerfull. :)

Here's a video blog from user of Gamespot that just upgraded to the E6300 1.8ghz core 2 duo. He's overclocked it to 2.8Ghz :o and still has room for more! I have the 2.4 E6600 version. Wonder if I can overclock mine to 4.5 Ghz and still have room to go? :hmm: :hmm: Better not. I'm happy with the stock speed right now. Perhaps if applications really demand more processor speed will I attempt such a thing, and I probably won't go any higher than 3.6Ghz just to be safe!

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/profil...0wljHx5bsLvjPa

Bear in mind the RAM and, especially, video card are both vital as well.

If a game is heavy on graphics, you can get a good boost in performance simply by having more RAM and a better graphics card without any change to your CPU.

A primary issue is where/how the various system demands of a programme are handled.

It's true that not much is taking advantage of dual core technology to the extent that is possible, just as the same applies for dual SLI graphics. That's why there are still single cards available that are more effective than dual SLI.

I'm getting a new rig which includes a new ATI Radeon graphics card
(ATI Radeon X1950 XTX, 512Mb, GDDR4)....will outperform SLI cards on games currently available.

:know: Amen to that. My Athlon 2400 XP still holds its own. When I upgraged my RAM, it's performance change was like night and day. I don't plan on buying a new computer til next year anyway.

According to my experience adding ram above 1 GB doesn’t increase fps.

Processor speed and graphics card make the difference.

I upgraded AMD Athlon 3200+, Ati x800 Pro and 2 Gb of memory to
AMD Athlon 64 x2 4600+, Ati Radeon x1900XT, 2GB and that increased fps about 50 percent.