AMD X2 Dual Core
 

Anyone have an AMD X2 4800+?
Or
any of the new AMD X2s?

I have read that these are the best processors that are available to the consumer EVER.
The 4800+ X2 being the BEST you can buy - the best that has ever been offered.

Curious to see if anyone has one and can 12 table with it on 5 different poker sites at the same time without ever seeing an
hourglass
come up or have any type of response lag, delay, etc.

Want to know if it's worth dumping my current system and buying a $3K system with an X2 4800+...thanks,

Re: AMD X2 Dual Core
 

I have one. It's pretty bad ass. Every now and then I'll have a severe pause in my system, but it could be from a number of causes. Other than that, it runs smooth as butter, even w/ >1 site + PT + PAHUD + firefox + trillian + iTunes + ....

Re: AMD X2 Dual Core
 

It's smooth even while PT is in the process of importing hands? That's the key thing for me... I have to set PT to low priority now otherwise the computer isn't responsive while PT imports.

Re: AMD X2 Dual Core
 

Get 2 or 3 gigs of ram and you can run all those sites on an AMD 2600 without problem.

Re: AMD X2 Dual Core
 

If you get an X2, you're going to want at least 4GB of ram from 4 dimms so each core gets 2GB.

Re: AMD X2 Dual Core
 

holy moly!

That's a lot of memory! Isnt it cost prohibitive to do so? 2GB is cheap enough to get now,
but to get 4GB costs like $650. more than 2GB...

Re: AMD X2 Dual Core
 

sounds great, but what about that "severe pause" you mentioned...
that doesn't sound good...do you have the 4800+ or one of the slower ones?

How much mem. do you have?

I hope they come out with a 2.6 and 2.8 Ghz X2 soon (maybe with 2MB caches per core!) - now THAT will be pretty BAD A**!

Re: AMD X2 Dual Core
 

Hey Mr. Wookie (or anyone else who knows the AMDs),

Is it worth spending the cash on the 4800+ (which I believe is 2.4 GHz w/ 1MB Cache per core) OR is the
3800+ good enough? (2.0GHz w/ 512K Cache per core)?

The 3800+ is about $600+ cheaper...again I am fairly certin, but not 100% sure on the pricing...

The 4400+ X2 looks to ME to be the best buy...2.2 GHz
w/ 1MB Cache per core, just like the 4800+, only it's 200 MHz slower...
seems to ME that giving up 200 MHz in clock speed savings you ~$350. is worth it...

Also can anyone confirm that ANY of these AMD X2 processors will blow away/completely EMBARRASS ANY intel processor currently out there right now?

Re: AMD X2 Dual Core
 

[ QUOTE ]
I have one. It's pretty bad ass. Every now and then I'll have a severe pause in my system, but it could be from a number of causes. Other than that, it runs smooth as butter, even w/ >1 site + PT + PAHUD + firefox + trillian + iTunes + ....

[/ QUOTE ]

Most likely the hard drive (the most significant bottleneck of any system)

Re: AMD X2 Dual Core
 

[ QUOTE ]
I have one. It's pretty bad ass. Every now and then I'll have a severe pause in my system, but it could be from a number of causes. Other than that, it runs smooth as butter, even w/ >1 site + PT + PAHUD + firefox + trillian + iTunes + ....

[/ QUOTE ]

You sure you arn't on my computer?

Re: AMD X2 Dual Core
 

Yes, getting a faster HD that is just for pokertracker and hand history files will likely give the most improvement for the money. A 15k rpm sata or scsi HD should give the best performance boost for a poker computer. After that more RAM. Other than absolute non of the software is really taxing on a cpu.

Having a dual core processor is going to be 3rd or lower in actually increasing performance.

Re: AMD X2 Dual Core
 

[ QUOTE ]
holy moly!

That's a lot of memory! Isnt it cost prohibitive to do so? 2GB is cheap enough to get now,
but to get 4GB costs like $650. more than 2GB...

[/ QUOTE ]

AMD processors use dual channel RAM, and in order for it to be dual channel you need 2 dimms. Because you would have 2 cores, each processor is going to need to have 2 dimms, which means you need a total of 4. 4 512MB dimms in a X2 system would be a crime.

Re: AMD X2 Dual Core
 

The AMD X2 is a devastaing CPU, I have built a good few of them now, mostly 3800+ or 4200+.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
holy moly!

That's a lot of memory! Isnt it cost prohibitive to do so? 2GB is cheap enough to get now,
but to get 4GB costs like $650. more than 2GB...

[/ QUOTE ]

AMD processors use dual channel RAM, and in order for it to be dual channel you need 2 dimms. Because you would have 2 cores, each processor is going to need to have 2 dimms, which means you need a total of 4. 4 512MB dimms in a X2 system would be a crime.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unfortunately incorrect - an X2 processor has two Athlon64 CPU cores on-die, but only one dual-channel memory controller is active. 2 x 1GB DIMMs will give high memory bandwidth, 4 x DIMMs does not improve matters, like it would with a pair of Opteron 2xx CPUs + suitable mobo.

[ QUOTE ]
Hey Mr. Wookie (or anyone else who knows the AMDs),

Is it worth spending the cash on the 4800+ (which I believe is 2.4 GHz w/ 1MB Cache per core) OR is the
3800+ good enough? (2.0GHz w/ 512K Cache per core)?

The 3800+ is about $600+ cheaper...again I am fairly certin, but not 100% sure on the pricing...

The 4400+ X2 looks to ME to be the best buy...2.2 GHz
w/ 1MB Cache per core, just like the 4800+, only it's 200 MHz slower...
seems to ME that giving up 200 MHz in clock speed savings you ~$350. is worth it...

Also can anyone confirm that ANY of these AMD X2 processors will blow away/completely EMBARRASS ANY intel processor currently out there right now?

[/ QUOTE ]

An X2 will for sure blow away anything available for a comparable price.

FWIW, I have yet to encounter a 3800+ X2 that wouldn't overclock to >2.4GHz. I've personally never tried to OC a 4200+ or 4400+ (these machines are not mine, after all), but I can't imagine they would be worse than a lowly 3800+.

I haven't had one for myself yet, but if I get one soon, I'd probably go for a 4400+, spend the cash saved from not buying a 4800+ on a really nice mobo & RAM. There is no way that a 4400+ won't manage a mere 200 extra MHz on a suitable board and memory, it will maybe go past 2.6GHz.

These things rock for multi-processing, and 8 Tables + PA-HUD + PokerTracker on 1min Auto Import is the very definition of multiple demanding applications.

dave.

Re: AMD X2 Dual Core
 

I'm debating over what processor I should use in my new computer. Should I prefer the AMD 64 3500+ 939 Socket or the Pentium 4 3.2 GHz 478Socket 1mb cache?

Re: AMD X2 Dual Core
 

Just curious...I want to build a good desktop for my gf. Im going to be building a sick gaming rig for myself...(either using a fx 57 or x2 4800)...but what is a good AMD processor that is decently priced and can move/zip good for her?

Also...I imagine nvidias 6800gt is a good graphics card for her (I want her to be able to play sims2 and civ4 high quality).

Ive only done research into what Im building for myself...u mentioned the 3800, I dont know how that compares to what Im building, so I was just curious.

Re: AMD X2 Dual Core
 

Pokertracker just doesn't use that much memory, at least not in my system (AMD 3400, 1.5GB RAM, WD Raptor). My bottleneck has always been CPU usage during imports, and I can only utilize about 50% of my memory+pagefile with poker apps and pretty much every other desktop program running. Even with that much memory, the 2600 would still be your bottleneck and the added memory would make little difference.

Re: AMD X2 Dual Core
 

What site do you do the imports from? If I clear out hands for Party there never seems to be a problem for me. For Pokerroom its get slow as hell unless you clear out the Pokeroom database at least once a week.

Re: AMD X2 Dual Core
 

thanks dave!

I don't like the overclocking thing...I just would buy the processor and then leave it "as-is"...
the 4400 looks to be the best value...

What about the memory thing...for the 4400 X2 I am probably going to get soon, should I get
1.) 4 x 512MB DIMMs or
2.) 2 x 1024MB DIMMs or
3.) 4 x 1024MB DIMMs (which is really expensive - like $500. more than 2 x 1024! Is it worth the price?).

Does it really matter about having 2 or 4 DIMMs?

Also I have never heard of a 15,000 rpm Hard Drive - does this even exist? I have only heard of the 10,000 rpm Raptors...

Thanks,