Im really stuck know what CPU to buy, i was originaly going to get an Intel Pentium 4 3.8GHz processor, but on countless forums ive read that AMD CPU's are must better for gaming (which is why im upgrading) .. in comparison, what is faster and over all better to get: A Pentium 4 3.8GHz processor .. or .. AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4600 need to know soonish
Actually, the AMD "San Diego" single-core CPU is much better for gaming than either. The X2 is better for many things, but since most games are single-threaded they currently run better on fast single-core CPUs. As for Intel, I wouldn't go that route.
Well if I were you'd I'd get an AMD Athlon 4000+ if games are you're thing, it's better for gaming than the Intel and Dual-core Athlon's by a good margin but not overly enpensive like the FX league which are the kings of gaming. But the price to performance gain on the FX 55 and FX 57 are horrid like all highend cpu's as you pay up to $1000 for something that will give you about 5-10 extra fps tops in big deal games. You currently can't have DDR2 on the AMD platform but don't worry about it as that latency is so bad still that the pontential gain of data tranfer times is ruined by it's dog slow access times. Faster DDR1 will give you more performance than you can shake a stick at, AMD will adopt DDR2 but not untill a little while after 06 hits us.
AMD currently does not support DDR2. The next generation of Athlons will, but don't expect to see them until the middle of next year. While DDR2 will show promise, when AMD originally launched the Athlon 64, DDR2 was just starting to get out and was pricey, not to mention slower due to higher latency than DDR1. DDR2's advantage over DDR1 is that it can scale to much higher frequencies, but to get this perfected and widespread has taken some time. At equivalent speeds, DDR1 tends to have the advantage because of the latency issue of DDR2, but once you get into higher speeds, like DDR800 and DDR1066, you start to see it's advantages. We look at what offers the best performance, and especially for the money, AMD pretty much rules. Unless you were designing a system specifically for video editing only, Intel simply does not have the better performing CPU's at this point in time. Unless you absolutely must have DDR2, that's something that I wouldn't worry about. As for the 4600+ vs. the 4000+, that really depends on how much money you want to spend. Depending on your needs, yes, the 4600+ may be a better option, like if you heavily multitask with lots of CPU intensive programs. However, if you're just gaming, remember that the CPU isn't the only thing in the equation.
Right on B, yeah if gaming is you're primary concern as single core chips perform better in current games, while later on we'll see dual-core awair games on the shelves it's not much use now in the gaming business. The 4600 performs about as well as a 3500 at best when it comes to games, and while that's really good it's a waste of money concidering how much more money it costs, about twice as much as the 4000+ almost which easliy out does it. But yeah if your all about multitasking, photoshop, heavy video editing tasks, etc. dual-core makes sense.
