AMD 64 X2 4200 or 4400?

[Bill]

Yeah, I'd save the $100 on the CPU and spend it on more RAM (unless
you're already planning on putting 2GB in the system...)

Minimum RAM for a new system... 1GB, but 2GB isn't that much of a
stretch anymore.

There's always a lot of variables.

If the computer is going to be a serious number-cruncher for example,
then you spend more on the processor and less on the other parts. When I
was shopping for a new system, I wanted a good balance of performance
and versatility, and I knew I would be overclocking once the system was
burned in. So I opted for the x2 3800+ which was a good price with high
performance potential.

 

[Matt Silberstein]

Yeah, I'd save the $100 on the CPU and spend it on more RAM (unless
you're already planning on putting 2GB in the system...)

Minimum RAM for a new system... 1GB, but 2GB isn't that much of a
stretch anymore.

I always figure that RAM is the easiest thing to upgrade and that you
upgrade by adding so you don't lose money on it. So I under RAM a new
system and add it in 6 months or so.


--
Matt Silberstein

Do something today about the Darfur Genocide

http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org

"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"

 

[Bill]

I always figure that RAM is the easiest thing to upgrade and that you
upgrade by adding so you don't lose money on it. So I under RAM a new
system and add it in 6 months or so.

There's a problem with that plan...filling all the DIMM slots on many
motherboards causes the RAM to run substantially slower than having just
a single pair. This causes a drop in memory performance by increasing
latency (command rate is the biggest factor 1t/2t).

And while more RAM will benefit the overall system performance, why
would you add memory to get better performance later, only to lose some
of what you're trying to gain?

With older systems that ran in single-channel mode, and higher latency
timings, it wasn't a big deal and more RAM was a very good thing. But
with todays systems using dual-channel low latency memory, you probably
want to get the best performance you can for your money.

There are other parts of a system that can be upgraded without causing
any performance loss, like more hard drive space, bigger monitor, faster
video with SLI, etc. But memory is the one thing that should not be
upgraded - you should get what you need when you buy the system.

 

[Matt Silberstein]

There's a problem with that plan...filling all the DIMM slots on many
motherboards causes the RAM to run substantially slower than having just
a single pair. This causes a drop in memory performance by increasing
latency (command rate is the biggest factor 1t/2t).

True. But with four slots you can fill two and then double memory
later. It is all a trade-off.

And while more RAM will benefit the overall system performance, why
would you add memory to get better performance later, only to lose some
of what you're trying to gain?

With older systems that ran in single-channel mode, and higher latency
timings, it wasn't a big deal and more RAM was a very good thing. But
with todays systems using dual-channel low latency memory, you probably
want to get the best performance you can for your money.

There are other parts of a system that can be upgraded without causing
any performance loss, like more hard drive space, bigger monitor, faster
video with SLI, etc. But memory is the one thing that should not be
upgraded - you should get what you need when you buy the system.

A bigger monitor means selling off your old one or having two (an
option not currently available to me due to space issues). You are
right about SLI now but that is a very new thing.

--
Matt Silberstein

Do something today about the Darfur Genocide

http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org

"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"

 

[Bill]

True. But with four slots you can fill two and then double memory
later. It is all a trade-off.

Yes, but if you know you're going to need the 2gigs, it makes more sense
to buy it now and keep the performance as high as possible. Why take a
performance hit if you don't need to?

Not knowing is one thing, but if you know ahead of time, it just makes
sense to buy what you need.

A bigger monitor means selling off your old one

What's wrong with that? I sell off my old computers and parts whenever I
buy something new.

In fact, I have a Pentium 4 that was just replaced with a whole new AMD
system, and it has already been spoken for by someone at work. No big
deal really...there's always someone who needs a used computer. I need
new ones because my software activities demand new hardware. But the
computer that's being replaced is more than powerful enough for a person
or family that wants a home computer.

 

[Matt Silberstein]

Yes, but if you know you're going to need the 2gigs, it makes more sense
to buy it now and keep the performance as high as possible. Why take a
performance hit if you don't need to?

Cost. The question was trade off. Usually you don't need 2GB or X GHz,
you need Y performance. My point was just that when having to make a
choice I put the last extra bit elsewhere not in the memory. I do this
because memory is (or was before SLI) the place where I could make an
easy upgrade without taking a monetary hit.

Not knowing is one thing, but if you know ahead of time, it just makes
sense to buy what you need.


What's wrong with that? I sell off my old computers and parts whenever I
buy something new.

Because you take the depreciation hit. So the upgrade cost is a bit
more. When adding memory I take no such hit.

In fact, I have a Pentium 4 that was just replaced with a whole new AMD
system, and it has already been spoken for by someone at work. No big
deal really...there's always someone who needs a used computer. I need
new ones because my software activities demand new hardware. But the
computer that's being replaced is more than powerful enough for a person
or family that wants a home computer.

--
Matt Silberstein

Do something today about the Darfur Genocide

http://www.beawitness.org
http://www.darfurgenocide.org
http://www.savedarfur.org

"Darfur: A Genocide We can Stop"

 

[Paul Goodhew]

Scotter wrote in message ...

Hey Don -

I think you made the most intelligent choice for YOU. Especially if you are
not into taking the risk (or time involved researching, trying different
multiplier & voltage combos, even going with more expensive RAM, etc.) of
overclocking. Some people prefer to save a bit of money up front and
overclock up to the speed your chip will be running default. I say "up
front" because they may end up paying more later when/if their chip burns
out and even if it doesn't burn out, they may even pay more up front in time
and $ trying to keep that chip cool. I'm not knocking overclocking, heh. I
even understand how it can be kinda fun to see how far you can push a
processor while keeping it stable. What I'm wanting to point out is that
nothing is for free. If someone can overclock a 3800 by 10% or 15% then
theoretically, so can you do the same with your 4400 if you cared to do
that. And a year from now (or whenever), when you decide to sell the chip,
you are selling a 4400 and not a 3800. Of course, the difference in sell
price won't be $100 but hey, you'll enjoy a faster chip with more cache for
that year. And even in those apps where the difference is only 10% in speed,
hey, a second here and a second there, over the course of a year can mean
something. AND, all along the way you can *easily* and stabily run that
2.4ghz where a 3800 is going to put out more effort to do so. Finally, a lot
of people, when they buy a CPU, talk and think about what applications
(games, etc.) are supported well RIGHT NOW and make their choice
accordingly. You probably understand a bit better than them how at some
point every processor becomes obsolete or unable to play a certain game at
comfy FPS and by purchasing the higher end model you put that day off just a
bit longer for your system. And one last reason, heh, that I'm thinking of:
Not a perfect analogy but one that comes to mind right now: When you fill
your gas tank, is it more efficient to fill it full or 3/4 full? I say
"full", the number one reason being it costs you in time every time you have
to go to the gas station so less trips to the gas station save you time and
gas. Less trips to upgradeland...

Scotter you are what is called a "consumer level" user. I don't think you
really belong here.

you sound like a well trained parrot that works at a large computer store
chain.

you really do not know what you are talking about. the 4400, the 4200 and
3800 all have the same sort of ceiling in terms of overclocking and that is
around the 2.7 GHZ mark. A 4400 will not reach any higher clock speed with
any more stability than a 3800.

you sound all rational and sensible but really you are taking the most
conservative route for no logical reason, and alot of people who have no
idea about computers will nod their head and agree as you spurt this
nonsense. It makes sense to the newbie.

But this is a group for people who actually understand the value of
overclocking. so please, if we want to hear this crap, we'll read the
advertising bullshit from major department stores.

 

[Paul Goodhew]

Scotter wrote in message ...

Hey Don -

I think you made the most intelligent choice for YOU. Especially if you are
not into taking the risk

there is very little risk. anyone here ever "burnt out" a chip? you would
have to be a real fool to do that.

I say "up

front" because they may end up paying more later when/if their chip burns
out and even if it doesn't burn out, they may even pay more up front in time
and $ trying to keep that chip cool.

as previously stated, you'd have to be a real idiot to burn out a chip. and
considering the price difference between a 3800 and a 4400, that would have
to be one expensive HSF!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I'm not knocking overclocking, heh. I

even understand how it can be kinda fun to see how far you can push a
processor while keeping it stable. What I'm wanting to point out is that
nothing is for free. If someone can overclock a 3800 by 10% or 15% then
theoretically, so can you do the same with your 4400 if you cared to do
that.

you've really shown that you know little about the chips in question with
this statement. as previously stated, the chips all have the same ceiling.
you don't get any more out of a 4400 than you do a 3800, they all max out at
around 2.7ghz on stock cooling. (yes you can push them to 3ghz in some
circumstances, but that is not the point.)

And a year from now (or whenever), when you decide to sell the chip,

you are selling a 4400 and not a 3800. Of course, the difference in sell
price won't be $100

so you are saying spend $100 extra now and sell for $50 extra later (at
best!). that's terrible logic I'm afraid.

but hey, you'll enjoy a faster chip with more cache for

that year. And even in those apps where the difference is only 10% in speed,
hey, a second here and a second there, over the course of a year can mean
something.

another illogical statement. are you actually trying to say that saving 5
minutes of time over the course of the year is noticeable???


AND, all along the way you can *easily* and stabily run that

2.4ghz where a 3800 is going to put out more effort to do so.

just plain wrong.

Finally, a lot

 

[EdG]

On my s939 I tried 4 sticks @ 2T VS 2 sticks at 1T, I've tried it with
Corsair XMS and Crucial Ballistix, the 2T has very little performance
impact if any on my system, I surely can't notice running it and gaming
benchmarks don't even drop 1%.

Aquamark 3 @ 2T - 69,980
Aquamark 3 @ 1T - 70,490 - 0.7% gain!

3DMARK06 @ 1T, @ 2T , hell over clocked the CPU 300MHz @ 1T, doesn't
really matter, the biggest difference I could get out of it was 1.6%.

EdG

 

[Leeb18509]

On my s939 I tried 4 sticks @ 2T VS 2 sticks at 1T, I've tried it with
Corsair XMS and Crucial Ballistix, the 2T has very little performance
impact if any on my system, I surely can't notice running it and gaming
benchmarks don't even drop 1%.

Aquamark 3 @ 2T - 69,980
Aquamark 3 @ 1T - 70,490 - 0.7% gain!

3DMARK06 @ 1T, @ 2T , hell over clocked the CPU 300MHz @ 1T, doesn't
really matter, the biggest difference I could get out of it was 1.6%.

EdG

All it seems to matter in is the Sandra memory bandwidth test.

 

[Scotter]

Hey Paul -

Thanks for your opinions.

You are incorrect in your guess at my job. I'm a programmer and designer who
is now president of his company but my work is irrelevant to this
conversation.

My intelligence is relative so not something easily speculated upon or even
determined.

My experience with overclocking, you are correct, is limited. I've done some
in the past just to experiment. I understand the basics. I've never burnt
out a chip. I've heard of it happening but that is second hand unverifiable.

I *have* built, over my lifetime, probably around forty-five PCs. I started
my company by doing anything computer-related that I could to make money and
survive and slowly moved away from hardware-related work. Now I just do it
for friends and on my own servers and home systems. And I understand that
doesn't mean I'm an expert, heh.

I think it is valuable for me to have chimed in with my advice to go with
the more expensive chip when most of the others were advising to get the
cheaper one. That cliche, "you get what you pay for," has more than a nugget
of truth in it. And I don't think many could find fault with the idea that
regret comes more often when you buy the cheaper part than when you go with
the more high-end part.

To address your words about overclocking a 4400 vs overclocking a 3800. I
totally agree with you if you mean overclocking a 4400 by x% has same
inherent risks, etc., as overclocking a 3800 by same x%. It sounds like you
misinterpreted (and that could be my fault for not being more clear) the
intent of my words before. My intent was to show this: stock 3800 vs. stock
4400: 4400 is faster AND overclocked 3800 vs. overclocked 4400: 4400 is
faster. THAT is what I was attempting to show. Make more sense now? To be
even more crystal clear: If the original poster IS an overclocker, like he
said he "likes to" do, and he is choosing between 4200 and 4400, my opinion
is that he'd be better off with the 4400.

Now let me try to interpret something you said that doesn't ring true with
me but I realize I may be wrong because I don't work at AMD. It *sounds*
like you are saying the 3800 and 4400 could theoretically each reach 2.7ghz
with the same amount of chance? It doesn't make sense to me. When I picture
them doing a run and testing chips to determine if they fit in the batch,
for one thing, x2 4400+ is a different core (Toledo vs. Manchester) so they
are not even in the same batch. And IF they were in the same batch and AMD
was just testing to see what number they assign in ghz max, they are
assigning the 3800s vs. the 4400s for a reason. And if that is the case then
those 4400s are assigned default 2.2ghz because they were able to do that
(or higher) with more stability and less heat than the 3800s. Now I
understand these are my assumptions and I welcome someone to educate me on
this.

And finally, to address your comment about me posting in
alt.com.hardware.overclocking.amd, the thing is this thread is not only in
that particular newsgroup.

 

[Toshi1873]

There's always a lot of variables.

Agreed, always.

If the computer is going to be a serious number-cruncher for example,
then you spend more on the processor and less on the other parts. When I
was shopping for a new system, I wanted a good balance of performance
and versatility, and I knew I would be overclocking once the system was
burned in. So I opted for the x2 3800+ which was a good price with high
performance potential.

I tend to be a heavy multi-tasker. Never less then 8 applications open
at the same time, and some of those are memory pigs (*waves* at
Mozilla). Unfortunately, this 4 year old laptop that I'm on is maxed
out on RAM (at 1GB), so it's a pain I'm starting to deal with daily.
Sure, the CPU could be faster but for the most part I'm more limited by
the 1GB of RAM.

A lot of the PC manufacturers like to ship systems with the absolute
minimum amount of RAM (512MB seems common). Hence I generally tell
folks to take the CPU down a notch or two (2.2Ghz instead of 2.6Ghz) and
to spend that cash on more RAM instead.

 

[Don Burnette]

Many thanks to all for your input in this thread.

I did just pull the trigger on the following:

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum Nforce4 socket 939 mb
Athlon XP2 4400+dual core cpu
Thermalrite XP90 heatsink
Saphire Radeon X850XT PCIe 256 mg video card
2 gb Corsair PC3500LL Pro ram ( 2 x 1gb)
2 ea WD 250 gb 7200 rpm Sata hard drives
Plextor 740a/sw dl dvd burner

Now, decision time. I dread doing a complete new install of XP Pro.
I am considering imaging my current system and restoring the image to the
new sata hard drive, then upon booting the first time booting with the XP
Pro cd rom and doing a repair install, or perhaps I would be better off just
doing a complete new fresh install of XP Pro?. I will also be dual booting
with XP Pro 64.


Thanks,


Don

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

Many thanks to all for your input in this thread.

I did just pull the trigger on the following:

MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum Nforce4 socket 939 mb
Athlon XP2 4400+dual core cpu
Thermalrite XP90 heatsink
Saphire Radeon X850XT PCIe 256 mg video card
2 gb Corsair PC3500LL Pro ram ( 2 x 1gb)
2 ea WD 250 gb 7200 rpm Sata hard drives
Plextor 740a/sw dl dvd burner

Now, decision time. I dread doing a complete new install of XP Pro.
I am considering imaging my current system and restoring the image to the
new sata hard drive, then upon booting the first time booting with the XP
Pro cd rom and doing a repair install, or perhaps I would be better off just
doing a complete new fresh install of XP Pro?. I will also be dual booting
with XP Pro 64.


Thanks,


Don

Do a clean install of your OS, you are just asking for trouble by trying
to take a shortcut.

 

[Bill]

Now, decision time. I dread doing a complete new install of XP Pro.

Why do people have such a hard time with clean installs?

I have a DVD rewriter and a few rewriteable discs. I simply copy folders
of data that I want to keep, like my email, news, documents, etc. to a
disc. Then format and install Windows from the CD, copy over the data
from the folders I backed up on disc, then install my programs.

The entire process takes about two hours. About 30 minutes of that time
is installing Windows. It gives me a perfectly clean install and no
extra junk left behind.

I am considering imaging my current system and restoring the image to the
new sata hard drive, then upon booting the first time booting with the XP
Pro cd rom and doing a repair install, or perhaps I would be better off just
doing a complete new fresh install of XP Pro?. I will also be dual booting
with XP Pro 64.

Even if it's a hassle for you, I recommend you do a clean install of
Windows XP. It will setup all the necessary drivers for the new system
and get rid of all the unused junk from your last copy.

Then install x64 over XP so you can dual-boot.

 

[Don Burnette]

Why do people have such a hard time with clean installs?

I have a DVD rewriter and a few rewriteable discs. I simply copy
folders of data that I want to keep, like my email, news, documents,
etc. to a disc. Then format and install Windows from the CD, copy
over the data from the folders I backed up on disc, then install my
programs.

The entire process takes about two hours. About 30 minutes of that
time is installing Windows. It gives me a perfectly clean install and
no extra junk left behind.


Even if it's a hassle for you, I recommend you do a clean install of
Windows XP. It will setup all the necessary drivers for the new system
and get rid of all the unused junk from your last copy.

Then install x64 over XP so you can dual-boot.

That is what I will do, thanks!

Don

 

[Toshi1873]

Even if it's a hassle for you, I recommend you do a clean install of
Windows XP. It will setup all the necessary drivers for the new system
and get rid of all the unused junk from your last copy.

Then, once you have everything set... make an image of the drive using
Ghost or Acronis TrueImage or Knoppix+NTFSClone. System Restore in XP
is good, but nothing beats having a dirt-simple image of the O/S that
can be restored at any point in the future.

 

[Bill H]

On my s939 I tried 4 sticks @ 2T VS 2 sticks at 1T, I've tried it with
Corsair XMS and Crucial Ballistix, the 2T has very little performance
impact if any on my system, I surely can't notice running it and gaming
benchmarks don't even drop 1%.

Aquamark 3 @ 2T - 69,980
Aquamark 3 @ 1T - 70,490 - 0.7% gain!

3DMARK06 @ 1T, @ 2T , hell over clocked the CPU 300MHz @ 1T, doesn't
really matter, the biggest difference I could get out of it was 1.6%.

EdG

God D.what are you tring to do resolve PI