Duel core AMD CPUs don't loose performance in games

[K.I.L.E.R]

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,120750,00.asp

WOW!
Check out the price tag.

 

[wireframe]

They can't release the 4800+ soon enough. As much as I love hardware, I have a hard time justifying $1,000 for a CPU (FX-55 or P4EE), but I wouldn't hesitate too long for a dual core CPU. $500 per core and the convenience and affordability of a single socket mainboard.

Lovely

 

[ANova]

Did I hear correctly? Are the X2s clock locked? If so then I would be more inclined to get the $500 840 non EE which performs almost as good as the EE version and sometimes even better in some apps and can be overclocked.

Still, I can't deny the X2s are nice, especially considering they draw less power then the single core 130nm A64.

 

[Tim]

Did I hear correctly? Are the X2s clock locked? If so then I would be more inclined to get the $500 840 non EE which performs almost as good as the EE version and sometimes even better in some apps and can be overclocked.

Still, I can't deny the X2s are nice, especially considering they draw less power then the single core 130nm A64.

No, the X2s are not clock locked, like all other A64 (exept the FXs) the multiplier can not be increased but that do not prevent you from overclocking by increasing the base clock.

 

[Druga Runda]

not only that they are fast, but they do not require super expensive motherboards or DDRII for that matter... 8)

 

[RussSchultz]

dual. D.U.A.L.

DUAL.


You do not want dueling cores. Bad for performance.

 

[London Geezer]

dual. D.U.A.L.

DUAL.


You do not want dueling cores. Bad for performance.

Only just noticed! Duelling cores is definately bad. You need your cores to get on well or else they might even brake your MB.

 

[Magnum PI]

$1000 is pricey, but you can buy the Athlon 64 X2 4400 for $581 ... and maybe overclock it a little bit ?

 

[John Reynolds]

Only just noticed! Duelling cores is definately bad. You need your cores to get on well or else they might even brake your MB.

Break. I hate when my motherboard brakes for congested traffic.

Edit: Self-pimpage time. At SimHQ I did a little Falcon 4 testing, a game that shipped many moons ago with SMP support, and the 4800+ outperformed a FX-55 by around 15%.

 

[digitalwanderer]

Self-pimpage time. At SimHQ I did a little Falcon 4 testing, a game that shipped many moons ago with SMP support, and the 4800+ outperformed a FX-55 by around 15%.

Did you ever find any games that support multiple CPUs and bench if they help or not? :|

 

[John Reynolds]

Did you ever find any games that support multiple CPUs and bench if they help or not? :|

No, I didn't.

 

[wireframe]

Only just noticed! Duelling cores is definately bad. You need your cores to get on well or else they might even brake your MB.

Break. I hate when my motherboard brakes for congested traffic.

Edit: Self-pimpage time. At SimHQ I did a little Falcon 4 testing, a game that shipped many moons ago with SMP support, and the 4800+ outperformed a FX-55 by around 15%.

We all know more is better, but is this 15% something that has an immediate impact on the game? Sudden smoothness or anything like that? (I guess I am asking if this 15% increase crossed any 'magical' boundaries. not that an FX-57 would hurt, I suppose.)

 

[John Reynolds]

We all know more is better, but is this 15% something that has an immediate impact on the game? Sudden smoothness or anything like that? (I guess I am asking if this 15% increase crossed any 'magical' boundaries. not that an FX-57 would hurt, I suppose.)

Well, since F4 is quite aged and already runs well on current hardware, the answer is no. But that 15% boost over even a FX-55 in a new game that's right on the cusp of poor frame rates could be more critical. Who knows.

Load times for Falcon 4, however, were much, much faster, probably one-third the time compared to the FX-55's.

 

[wireframe]

We all know more is better, but is this 15% something that has an immediate impact on the game? Sudden smoothness or anything like that? (I guess I am asking if this 15% increase crossed any 'magical' boundaries. not that an FX-57 would hurt, I suppose.)

Well, since F4 is quite aged and already runs well on current hardware, the answer is no. But that 15% boost over even a FX-55 in a new game that's right on the cusp of poor frame rates could be more critical. Who knows.

Ok, sure. I suppose a better question I could have asked, at least more direct, would be if the improved performance (the average) was seeing more benefit bringing up the lows. The FX-55 having a higher frequency may help it achieve greater highs in places where SMP may not be applicable. Hence, even though the increase is only 15%, those 15% may be in all the right places and remove those little hitches that are becoming more evident as complexity grows. Again, I now understand this is an old game, but being a flight sim it may suffer from same performance spectrum problems we are seeing as games become more complex: where some scenes are light with frame rates near the 200s and then sudden turns to low 30s as the complexity increases the grind.

This is something I am personally interested in because I often find myself annoyed by the great variance in peformance in certain titles. I would much rather have higher lows and reduced highs (ie: more constant frame rates/less variance)

 

[John Reynolds]

This is something I am personally interested in because I often find myself annoyed by the great variance in peformance in certain titles. I would much rather have higher lows and reduced highs (ie: more constant frame rates/less variance)

F4's frame rate is very consistent with current hardware. The game is over six years old and even with new patches/mods can look pretty dated (but is still very popular with the flight simmers).

 

[digitalwanderer]

Thanks John. I didn't think there was any real gaming use for dualies yet.

 

[Guden Oden]

You do not want dueling cores.

Hey, I'd pay real money to see dueling cores...

 

[wireframe]

This is something I am personally interested in because I often find myself annoyed by the great variance in peformance in certain titles. I would much rather have higher lows and reduced highs (ie: more constant frame rates/less variance)

F4's frame rate is very consistent with current hardware. The game is over six years old and even with new patches/mods can look pretty dated (but is still very popular with the flight simmers).

Thanks for the responses. I guess Falcon 4 is just not the game to reveal what I am asking. I thought maybe it was an extremely taxing game like many sims seem to be. If you keep eyeing this thread and don't mind answering one more question, I would like to ask this one: what minimum level of CPU are we talking about for running this game comfortably?

 

[John Reynolds]

Thanks for the responses. I guess Falcon 4 is just not the game to reveal what I am asking. I thought maybe it was an extremely taxing game like many sims seem to be. If you keep eyeing this thread and don't mind answering one more question, I would like to ask this one: what minimum level of CPU are we talking about for running this game comfortably?

No, I think we'll need future, SMP-optimized games to use for comparisons like you're asking for. As for F4 minimum specs, honestly I'm not sure. The game was released in '97/'98 if memory serves (the installer prompts for DX6 installation), but the FF3 mod I use makes quite a few updates to the original game.

 

[Simon F]

Duel core AMD CPUs don't lose performance in games

Killer,
I nearly fell off my chair when I read the subject - it had "lose" spelled correctly. We can't have that sort of thing on the internet!