Athlon 64 3000 or 3200?
 

Im trying to decide which processor to get for my new machine--I want an Athlon 64, but I cant decide whether to spend the extra money for the 3200. The 3200 has more cache, but I cant find it retail with a HSF, so I will have to buy one. Total price, $300. The 3000, with HSF, is $225. Is it worth the extra $75 for the L2 cache and little speed boost? The machine will have to play the Doom3/HL2 generation well, as well as following generations--I dont buy new machines but about every two years.

The video card will be a vanilla Geforce 6800.

I think the extra cache would be worth the extra cash...

Er, ahem, sorry about that :rolleyes:

Is the price for RAM the same?

I already have RAM. 1GB of Muskin pc3200.

What you say? You'd buy the same RAM for a 3200 as you would a 3000, the only prerequisite is that the FSB for each processor be the same. In other words, the RAM that you buy for a 3000 or a 3200 would be the exact same, but I would suggest starting at PC3200 and going up from there for OC'ing purposes. In fact, if you want to do anything OC-related at all, you're gonna have to go with faster, more expensive, better designed RAM. The lower the CAS and the higher the clock, the better.

Wow. Teh funnay is present here :D

I agree. The extra cache will do you well in most games, especially the new-gen ones like DIII and HL2. They are going to be taxing the processor, and the more cache that you have to feed that wee beasty, the better off you are. Performance gain wise I' say you'll see 10%-15% improvement in games, as well as smoother day-to-day operation of your other apps.

I have the 3200+ and have seen an increase of performance vs. a friend of mine's 3000. Not overly tremendous, but a difference. I would do it. Oh wait, I already did.

Is it a good idea to pick up a 64 bit processor at this point in time?

They've been out for a while now, haven't they? I haven't heard too much about any 64bit applications.

What about performance vs. a standard Athlon XP 3200?

Although programs and stuff made specifically for 64-bit applications havent really come out yet (and they probably won't for a while because there simply isnt enough of a customer base using them right now), 64-bits are known to perform much better when it comes to gaming.
However, I hear that normal 32-bits sometimes perform better when it comes to programming, encoding, and graphic programs.

For more information, you might want to read up a bit at www.anandtech.com or www.tomshardware.com

The only reason to buy an Athlon 64 right now is to kick some ass in gaming. They're just about useless when it comes to 64-bit applications (or the lack of). Are they 64-bit? Yeah. Do people use them for their 64-bit power? Nope. Do they kick ass in games? Yeah, and that's the only reason to buy one.

To answer your question, yes, the 3200+ is worth it, but make sure you buy the 1 MB L2 cache version.

-Lasereth