Amd Tri-core Vs Quad-core

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Poenie

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Hi

I'm building a new pc mainly for casual gaming...

I cant decide between:
AMD Athlon II X4-635 - 2.90GHz --> R1086
AMD Athlon II X3-445 - 3.10GHz --> R868

I'm kinda on a tight budget so i don't wanna spend the extra cash on the quad-core if theres not much of a difference.

I would Also like your opinion on a PSU:

I had the Corsair cx400W on my shopping list but it's out of stock...
So i was wondering if getting the Cooler Master eXtreme power plus - 460watt instead, would be a stupid move?

Thanks
 
Stick with the CX400 if you can. I have the CM EPP 460W installed in my office's PC, but I'm not that fond of the PSU since it's efficiency isn't 80% and it doesn't have PFC (power factor correction).

In terms of gaming performance, you will be better off with the 3 Core CPU that runs at a higher frequency.

I would actually advise you to post your whole PC's specs that you want to build before going out and buying it, because the community might give you some valuable bargains & advice :)
 
Okay here's my build :)

MOBO: Gigabyte MA78LMT-S2 – Socket AM3 Motherboard ---> R 639
CPU: AMD Athlon II X3-445 @ 3.2GHz ---> R 868
RAM: 2x Kingston ValueRam Memory - DDR3-1333MHz - 2GB ---> R 564
GFX CARD: Club 3D ATi Radeon Graphics Card HD5770 - 1024MB 128-bit GDDR5 - PCI-E ---> R 1560
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 - 500GB HDD 16MB Cache - SATA 2 - 3.0GB/s ---> R 361
PSU: Corsair CX400W Power Supply - 400w ---> R 480
CASE: Gigabyte X7 ATX Chassis - Black - Side Vented Panel ---> R 358

Total ---> R 4830
 
Cameronsmith63: of course the quad core would outperform the tri core CPU in multi-threaded environments, but in the games you would be better off with a 3 core that has a higher clock speed!

Poenie:
You might want to try your luck with WootWare's special on the HD 6850 for R1,499 which they're getting on the 24th Nov.

Is that R564 for 2x 2GB modules? I hope so...
 
Yea thats R 282 per module :)

Okay so i know what GPU i'll take... does anyone have one of those cards yet ?

Still unsure about the CPU...
 
Pada said:
Cameronsmith63: of course the quad core would outperform the tri core CPU in multi-threaded environments, but in the games you would be better off with a 3 core that has a higher clock speed!

Poenie:
You might want to try your luck with WootWare's special on the HD 6850 for R1,499 which they're getting on the 24th Nov.

Is that R564 for 2x 2GB modules? I hope so...
Click to expand...

If it is not 2x2gb Prophecy has Mushkin 996768 Silverline 2x2GB Low-Voltage Dual Channel Kit DDR3-1333 1.5v for R670
 
Yeah the CPU is a tricky one. Most of the games doesn't rely that much on the CPU, but then again, you get games like that Resident Evil 5 where the CPU makes a massive difference.
I'm usually against the X3 4xx and X4 6xx series CPU's since they have so little L3 cache, making them performing far worse than say an X4 9xx series CPU!
If you're lucky, you can unlock the 2 other multipliers of the Phenom II X2 555 BE (~R900) into a Phenom II X4 955 BE (~R1600), but I doubt that the motherboard you selected can do that (unlock cores).
 
Poenie said:
Are you sure the price of that Graphics card is correct ?

HD6850 is ranked 7th >_>

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
Click to expand...
The price is definitely correct. I think WootWare is once again trying to get people interested by selling the cards below cost or something like that.
I would certainly not place the card 7th like shown there! I mean, there is NO WAY that the HD 6850 would outperform the HD 5970 as indicated in that graph.
 
Thanks for your help...

I think i'll save up for the quad-core then...?
 
Poenie said:
Thanks for your help...

I think i'll save up for the quad-core then...?
Click to expand...

Hi Poenie.

I got myself a Phenom2 x4 955 and then got a Athlon x4 635 as a multimedia pc for the lounge and can honestly say that i would have just got 2x Athlon x4's and instead bought more ram with the difference due to the performance being so good.

L3 on the Athlon x 4 935 is disabled, but for general use computing, i found very little performance loss and its comparable to the Phenom2 x4.

I know many would beg to differ, but this is my honest experience with the Athlon x4 thus far.

I too was looking into the tri-core Athlons and opted against it.

Im glad i did.

The quad core Athlon 940 is a more energy efficient and modern CPU, so if you can i recommend it too.

Jump in Poenie and enjoy, you will be surprised;)
 
Poenie said:
Yea thats R 282 per module :)

Okay so i know what GPU i'll take... does anyone have one of those cards yet ?

Still unsure about the CPU...
Click to expand...

poenie please tell me where you are buying those modules from ?

links ?

ive got a 5770 1 gig oc edition but want to upgrade some other things too .. is the 6850 really that much of an improvement ? i find that with the latest drivers my current card is doing fairly well still and its like 8 months old ? but then again ... the smell of new stuff is so addictive :D
 
Draconia2 said:
ive got a 5770 1 gig oc edition but want to upgrade some other things too .. is the 6850 really that much of an improvement ?
Click to expand...
That HD 6850 will not be that much of an improvement to make it worth it, unless you can sell your HD 5770's for like R1400 and pick up an HD 6850 for R1500 :)

The HD 5770 is already a pretty awesome card. A few months ago it was definitely one of the best value for money cards available.
I'm really not sure if you would get a much higher framerate than your 5770 OC version, but the Tesselation performance of the HD 6850 should be much better.
 
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