have a couple questions( building my first comp.)

hi all, im building my first computer( or atleast I will be) and I had a couple questions regarding CPU's and GPU's.

1. I am trying to decide between the X2 5400(, dual 2.8ghz) and the X3 8450( triple, 2.1) now I have asked the question to several well informed people and I was just looking for a second opion I guess, I am under the impression that with 2 cores, you play a game and a whole core is devoted to that, while you get the second core doing it AND also running stuff in the background and such. and with 3 cores( or more) you get 2 cores devoted to the game, while the other core( or more) run all of the background stuff. is this correct?

and 2. I am trying to decide if Ishould get one Radeon HD 4870 and then buy a second one down the road( which is my inital idea0 or to get 2 cheaper cards and do crossfire, so I can get the same proformence( or better).) anyway, the the 4870 is about 290$ does anyone know a know a card in the 4000 or 3000 series taht with 2 get the same pro.? and better yet do I save money that way? cause if I dont save money or if it is only a little bit, then Ithink I will just get teh 4870.

Why are you getting an AMD CPU? Intel offer better price/performance if you are willing to overclock their E2160!

I know that doesent answer your question but i will get to that afterwards.

I highly dis-agree. AMD's are great for the money/performance...I stopped going with Intel 8 years ago and couldn't be happier...I've built 3 AMD gaming computers....Nothing but greatness out of all them and saved my ass $400+ easily on the build.

AMD's are very approachable in the overclocking field if you even do that.

I highly dis-agree. AMD's are great for the money/performance...I stopped going with Intel 8 years ago and couldn't be happier...I've built 3 AMD gaming computers....Nothing but greatness out of all them and saved my ass $400+ easily on the build.

AMD's are very approachable in the overclocking field if you even do that.

Dark-Tool

thank you I feel the same way, I should have stated taht I didnt make this too be a AMD vs. intel, which seems to be something that floods these boards... now, can either of you answer my question?

also,on I do not plan to overclock, but I could. and i am getting som newwer CPU's, the X2 5400 I was looking at( am looking at the X2 6000 now) are both that good, the 6000 is better, with out overclocking. but I am hell aware taht both companies make CPU's that can do crazy things like go from 2.4 t o4.1 with OC.

hi all, im building my first computer( or atleast I will be) and I had a couple questions regarding CPU's and GPU's.

1. I am trying to decide between the X2 5400(, dual 2.8ghz) and the X3 8450( triple, 2.1) now I have asked the question to several well informed people and I was just looking for a second opion I guess, I am under the impression that with 2 cores, you play a game and a whole core is devoted to that, while you get the second core doing it AND also running stuff in the background and such. and with 3 cores( or more) you get 2 cores devoted to the game, while the other core( or more) run all of the background stuff. is this correct?

SamusFreak

No that's not quite right. With multiple cores, windows will distribute the different applications amongst the cores but one application can only run on one core at the time unless it's specifically made to run on multiple cores (multi-threaded). Most games are not. In such a case, the speed of a single core will determine game performance and a slower triple or quad core will be outperformed by a faster dual core.

Almost no game actually requires a dual-core CPU.

A numnber of recent games take advantage of dual-core (in addiation to other applications being spread among both cores)

A dual-core CPU is better than a single-core CPU, even if only one of the cores is actually used. Multi-core CPU's have replaced the older, slower single-core CPU's over the last 3 years.

The more cores you have, the less you notice the benefit from adding one more core, especially in games.

well I did some looking the 5400B has a multiplyer of 13.5, what does taht exactly mean?.

BTW what yoiu have told me has helped alot, I am gonna go with the 4870 and buy a second dwhen it is like 150ish and im gonna get hte 5400B since it is better than the tricore. coming to think of it, if what you said was true then why the hell are gamers haveing a fuss over the quad-cores? since they( according to you) dont really improve the gameing experiance.

Because

- they (wrongly) think all new games will sudenly start to use quad cores (future-proofing - even though by that time that quad core will most likely be obsolete)

- by overclocking the quad core you can outperfrom a faster dual core

well I did some looking the 5400B has a multiplyer of 13.5, what does taht exactly mean?.

SamusFreak

Yeah what does the multiplyer mean?

[QUOTE="SamusFreak"]

well I did some looking the 5400B has a multiplyer of 13.5, what does taht exactly mean?.

siskokidd

Yeah what does the multiplyer mean?

the way you get the speed of a cpu in gigahertz is to simply multiply it's FSB by it's (you got it) multiplier. voila.

Because

- they (wrongly) think all new games will sudenly start to use quad cores (future-proofing - even though by that time that quad core will most likely be obsolete)

- by overclocking the quad core you can outperfrom a faster dual core

Gog

lol k, so they are has dumb has Iam, well thanks this has all helped alot, Iam diffenantly gonna get that 5400 for now, I can upgrade later( since the Mobo supports Am2 AM2+ and phenom)