939 A64 3700+

[JimShady23]

Ok currantly I have a A64 3800+ Newcastle 2.4ghz 512k L2 cache

Question is: AMD has recently released a 939 3700+ San diego 2.2ghz 1mb L2 cache.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103539

I was wodering how much of a performance gain I would increase if I baught the 3700 and OC'd it a mere 200mhz to the speed of my 3800+ and have the added benifits of a 1mb L2 cache.....

I know I can e-bay my 3800 off for the price of the 3700 or maybe a couple dollars shy..

Any insite would be great......

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

A couple of percent, I'd say.

The San Diego core also includes SSE3 instructions and some memory tweaks, but from what I've read, it wouldn't be much different from your current CPU.

If you wouldn't lose money, then by all means, go for it

 

[zephead]

keep in mind that the 180nm newcastle is among the lesser of a64s these days, so a 90nm, winchester, venice, or san deigo would be better (especially for overclocking).

 

[Didou]

Wouldn't that be 130nm ?

 

[JimShady23]

Well

Basically im looking for the added benefits of a 1mb cache, ya know a A64 4000 without the $500 price tag......If I oc the 3700 to 2.4 in theory thats what id have.....

 

[zephead]

Wouldn't that be 130nm ?

yes it would, apparently i made a typo. nevertheless, any modern 90nm a64 can usually be overclocked pretty well. so yes, a 90nm a64 3700+ could be overclocked to achieve 4000+ performance, but there's no gurantee it will work, or that your hardware won't be damaged.

Basically im looking for the added benefits of a 1mb cache

it wouldn't be a major leap, but would hold an advantage over the 512k models. remember that the athlon 64 has a shorter pipeline, so it doesn't need as much cache as a p4 prescott to get the same effeciency.