amd dual core 6400+ 3.2 ghz vs a phenom am3 6 core 2.8 ghz

[dooner62]

i know that i can do more at once with the phenom, but if i am only running counterstrike will my athlon dual core still out perform the 6 core?

basic question:
is a 6 core 2.8 ghz only faster than a dual core 3.2 ghz if im doing multiple tasks, or will it always over perform the 3.2?

 

[rclarke250]

The phenom will be faster in almost all instances.

<a href="

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...,2432.html?prod[4438]=on&prod[4463]=on">Tom's

Hardware - Benchmark Audio Encoding: iTunes 9.0.3.15 (wav to aac Audio)</a>

 

[paparazi]

Still....I would be researching the game itself to see if technically it takes advantage of more than 2 cores.

As you say...it might be that for this particular use 6 cores are not used and gaming performance is much the same between these two CPU's. Excepting that in most other apps the 6 cores will be of benefit.

Martin

On wings like angels whispers sweet
my heart it feels a broken beat
Touched soul and hurt lay wounded deep
Brown eyes are lost afar and sleep

 

[PRPhx]

The phenom will probably always be faster. It's got more L1,L2 and L3 cache. Even if your game doesn't recognize multiple cores, it's nice to play a game, while running a number of other apps with little or no precieved slow down.

 

[paparazi]

I agree with most of what you are saying but would point out clock speed is also a very influencing factor in ovrall gaming performance.
Martin

On wings like angels whispers sweet
my heart it feels a broken beat
Touched soul and hurt lay wounded deep
Brown eyes are lost afar and sleep

 

[rclarke250]

maybe, but if you look at the scores for left 4 dead, the phenom pushed 145 fps to 116 for athlon. faster clock is one thing, but doing more in the cycles you have is another. I use intel cpus, and I can tell you that a p4 at 3.6ghz, compared to a core 2 duo at 2.5ghz the duo smokes the p4 in any game thrown at it. the rest of the system stayed the same.

And while its true that many games are still single threaded even old games like world of warcraft have been updated to take advantage of multithreading and many core cpu's.

 

[paparazi]

Again I agree but this wasn't always so...as you pointed out.

Martin

On wings like angels whispers sweet
my heart it feels a broken beat
Touched soul and hurt lay wounded deep
Brown eyes are lost afar and sleep