Dual core or dual lore?

[bob123]

im planning to build the following rig

AMD athlon 64 X2 3800
Asus A8N SLI nforce4
Sparkle 7800GT 256MB
2GB samsung RAM
250GB Maxtor SATA 7200
Samsung 16x DVD +NEC 3540 DVD multiformat burner
Coolermaster CAV T03

Ive been reading that these dual core chips are actually slower than the higher end cpu's. Has anyone one got a similar dual core rig and have you noticed any performance gains for gaming?

i also wanted to know what size PSU i would need and whether anyone had any recommendations?

Also im weary that this might be a bit noisy. Any recommendations to make it quieter i.e cpu fan/heatsink?

[nips]

Apparently for gaming, single cores are better, but in things like ripping, dual core wipes the floor; this is apparently becuase the OS etc doesn't fully support dual-cores, however, you'll be in good stead for the future.

Get this power supply. It's a bargain ;P

[PeteBrant]

Get this power supply. It's a bargain ;P

Don't touch cheap PSU's with a bargepole - The voltages are all over the place - and the 500W figure is a peak figure. They fail regularly and cause no end of problems.

For the rig specified I would go for a good ATX2.0 or 2.2 480W or thereabouts - Go for a branded model, like a Tagen, or Hiper or Asaka or Antec - You are looking at spending around ?50 - Do not scrimp on a PSU - You wouldn't for a MoBo or GFX card and its equally important.

[bob123]

i will probably put in another 6800 card in the future when i need it. Will a 480W be able to handle it, especially with a dual core cpu? im going to buy it from microdirect but the only one i can see which is SLI enabled is the antec truepower 2 550W. Thats ?72 which is a bt steep. Any others you could recommend?

[PeteBrant]

ANy PSU will support SLI - you just need to have enough spare connectors - THe only reason teh Antec is saying "SLI ready" is because it will have 2 6 pin PCI-Express connectors alreasy - You can use the old 4 way Molex with an adapter no problem. - So, any ATX2.0 PSU or above will do - Just steer clear of the cheap ones. You will be spending from ?40 upwards.

[The Raeven]

Just wanted to chime in in tell you about this little fact I had to discover myself:

The motherboard you mentioned has an ATX 2.0 formfactor. Meaning that the plug to power the motherboard is slightly wider (more voltage rails I believe).
So, you either get a ATX 2.0 PSU... or buy a ATX1.1 -> ATX2.0 converter cable (which I did, and works great)!

Btw, gaming performance is best boosted by having 2gb dual-channel CL2 (DDR400) memory.
...oh, and having a 74gb Raptor harddisk going 10.000rpm helps too (loading levels and such... not the actual playing of a level).


Have fun!