Which quality of a CPU is most important?

I am thinking of getting an AMD athlon 3800+ dual core with 2.0 GHz instead of my current CPU which is the 3400+ 1.99 GHz.

The only benefit seems to be the fact that it is a dual core and it is a 3800+, but it has 0.01 more GHZ, so if I am playing a game like supreme commander is this processor worth getting?

What is the model of your mother-board? A new CPU would really help you, but your current integrated graphics chip is pretty bad. So a video card would noticeably improve your gaming performance. Although, I'm not quite sure which type of card is best suited for your mo-bo.

If your computer has a PSU of at least 300 watts, then here's a decent card:
Radeon HD 4350 Video Card 512MB ... $29.99.

Supreme Commander is an extremely demanding game in terms of hardware. With your current configuration and the Athlon 3800+ you'll still struggle for performance. However, in most general comparisons, a dual core CPU will outperform a single core.

The HD 4350 is by no means a good gaming card.

If you want to play games, I suggest saving up for an entirely new rig.

Yeah, an entirely new rig would be ideal if you can afford it.

Supreme Commander (not the sequel) isn't an extremely demanding game by modern hardware standards.

Recommended:

* 3.0 GHz Intel or equivalent AMD processor or better
* 1 GB RAM or better
* 10 GB available hard drive space
* 256 MB video RAM, with DirectX 9Vertex Shader / Pixel Shader 2.0 support (Nvidia 6800 or better)
* Internetconnection with Cable/DSL speeds

no...

i doubt you will see any improvements with that cpu upgrade. What is your motherboard? Sometimes a BIOS update will allow you to install a better CPU than was previously available

My mother board is a MS-7184 (amethystM)

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...foCategory&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&product=1127351

The mobo takes socket 939 CPU's

Oh man ... your mother-board, at best, can only have 400 MHz DDR RAM. Knowing that, I would definitely save up for an entirely new machine. If you are dead-set on upgrading the processor and video card, then this processor is the best I could find for the money:

EDIT: ... nix that. lol

If i'm not as sleep deprived as I think, it won't fit.

LOL ... It seems I am the more sleep-deprived person. Somehow my eyes missed the fact that it is an AM2 processor.

What if I got the video card that pygmus suggested in his first post plus a 4200+ 2.2 GHz x2 CPU socket 939?

Upgrading to that video card may be a minor improvement, but the rest of the hardware is so old, there will be bottlenecks everywhere. Consider saving your money for a new system, rather than spending money on old hardware that will barely provide an increase in performance.

On the other hand, upgrading to a dual core processor would do a lot for you outside of supreme commander in day to day tasks on your computer (e.g. running multiple programs simultaneously).

What kind of RAM do I need rather then 400MHz DDR RAM? I dont know much about ram right now so what other kinds of ram are there?

Unfortunately you cannot upgrade to DDR2 or DDR3 RAM because your motherboard does not support it.

Don't expect a miracle.

You probably can't even fit anymore.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6077140&Sku=J001-10088

Would this computer make a bigger difference?

it has enough ram and is ddr2, 2.2GHz, but it still has integrated ATI RADEON X300 and I dont know how good that is video card is.

Hello Kitty my current comp has 1 more RAM slot.

socket 939 expensive-

last time i checked, socket 939 chips were all expensive - not current/limited availability, plus some ppl are looking for them for their aging systems (i am still using my 3800 939), so price remains high.

for the money, you definitely could get a basic build with basic,current chip that is more powerful than the 3800, a decent mb, and 1-2 GB ram.

which qual most important? L2 cache

to answer OP, my guess is that for a given set of dollars, i would opt toward a cpu with greater L1 and L2 cache, versus the overall speed.

dual core evaluations show benefit, but comparing dual core to quad core shows modest benefit, and only for some applications.

tomshardware will conduct tests like this to show what is the most bang for your buck.

You might buy the $30 video card to see if you can run Supreme Commander smoothly on low to medium settings. If your PC still can't pull this off, then at least you have increased the resell value of your computer to put towards an entirely new machine.

i agree w/ the vid card idea

i agree with the idea of throwing money at the vid card.
other low-$ ideas would be:
make sure you have 2 GB RAM;
maybe add 2nd hard drive, and keep OS on 1st and games on 2nd.

hard drives are cheap, and easy to add. you can often find a cheap hard drive by finding a whole computer for sale at a garage sale.