[_dave_]

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.