PDA

View Full Version : Computer on a budget - how important is the CPU?

Wizdoc
02-11-2006, 04:58 PM
Since my current machine is in the verge of imploding, I am looking into buying a new desktop rig. And I am on a tight budget. As it'll be my home computer, the use will be about 50/50 between gaming and work (3DMax and Photoshop). I've locked in the following choices:

2Gb RAM
GeForce 6800GS PCI-E 256Mb
250Gb SATA HD

That leaves the CPU. My favourite choice would be AMD Athlon 64 3800 X2, but I'm afraid it might be out of my current price range. It would be the biggest cash drain in the whole setup. Meanwhile, AMD Athlon 3000+ 64 costs only half of that. So I ask you...

How much real difference is between the two in --

a) Gaming?
b) 3D work (3D Max, mainly PAL res animation work and high-res stills)?
c) 2D work (Photoshop, 4000+ res files with multiple layers)?


Thanks.
Tocky
02-11-2006, 08:57 PM
Well, today you will not notice any differnce in nearly any application, with a dual core processor, however Quake 4 has duak core support and it's a huge differnce between dual core and single core. So if you want a future prof comp, buy dual core, or stay with single because it will take long time before every application supports dual core. And when it does, there's already at least 4 cores on a cpu which will kick the dual cores ass.

Hope this is useful for you
Wizdoc
02-11-2006, 09:06 PM
Yeah, thanks.

One option I was looking into was the AMD Athlon 3200 64. With that choice, the special offer bundle I was going to get includes the 939 socket motherboard - which is of course what that X2 takes. With the 3000, I'd have to eventually upgrade the CPU and the motherboard, but with that 3200, I could upgrade to a dual-core by simply buying a new CPU later on.
lots
02-11-2006, 09:56 PM
Something to say about dual core. Just because not all apps. are specifically coded for SMP quite yet, does not mean that day to day apps will not take advantage of the extra horse power that dual core, and multiple CPUs has to offer. While true, not many end user apps, and desktop applications, have SMP support built in, the OS does understand how to manage threads for multiple processors. This means that the OS can send a single threaded app off to CPU 1, while CPU 2 maintains standard system functions. What this means is you could, say, encode an AVI or MOV file WHILE playing a game, and not experience much of a performance hit, if any. Or, say you've got alot of background processes. AIM, IRC, Firefox, music, some window explorer windows for browsing the HD, and PS open. Your PS filters will not suffer much performance drop due to all the background processes in action. Same thing for video games, or any other CPU intensive task.

I say, if the dual core chips are within your grasp, take them. The difference in multitasking with two physical CPUs is well worth it.
CGTalk Moderation
02-11-2006, 09:56 PM
This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.