I'm thinking of upgrading my athlon 64 3400+ to an athlon x2 sometime next year, will boinc(seti) recognize it as two processors and process two results at once like a P4 with HT?

---

I'm thinking of upgrading my athlon 64 3400+ to an athlon x2 sometime next year, will boinc(seti) recognize it as two processors and process two results at once like a P4 with HT?

Yes

---

I'm thinking of upgrading my athlon 64 3400+ to an athlon x2 sometime next year, will boinc(seti) recognize it as two processors and process two results at once like a P4 with HT?

Yup :)

Greetings,
Sander

---

thanks for the feedback, you have experience with this scenario? by the way, anyone else in cold climates use their computer to heat their room while crunching?

---

Yes, I have 2 AMD towers and they run 24-7. They put out quite a but of heat. Keeps my dorm room comfortably warm.

---

I'm thinking of upgrading my athlon 64 3400+ to an athlon x2 sometime next year, will boinc(seti) recognize it as two processors and process two results at once like a P4 with HT?

A 3400+ is a Socket 754 part. All X2 processors are Socket 939, so you
will have to buy a motherboard upgrade if you are someone who has built
their own machine (like me) or buy a new machine if you bought it from
a retailer (Best Buy, Dell, etc...) If you are looking at it being next
year, I would strongly suggest waiting until Socket M2 is out.
I would not go with a Socket 939 board at this time, personally. The only
real exception is if you have a high-end AGP video card (nVidia 6800GT or
6800 Ultra, or ATI X800/X850) and you don't want to upgrade the video card
at the same time as the motherboard. In that case, then you'd have to go with
an nForce3 board like what I have (MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum) because nForce4
boards do not have AGP and so you'd have to also upgrade your video card to
PCI-Express (or some sort of integrated video solution)...

Personally, I'd wait for Socket M2... The M2 parts will have a DDR2 memory
controller vs. DDR1 for the current 754/939 parts...

Brian

---

I'm thinking of upgrading my athlon 64 3400+ to an athlon x2 sometime next year, will boinc(seti) recognize it as two processors and process two results at once like a P4 with HT?

>
Kind of like HT except its actually 2 cores. I have AMD XP4800x2 and a 4200x2 and both are real good the 4200x2 is about even with my Pentium4 3.8GHz the 4800x2 is 18-20 min faster than P-4 3.8GHZ nothing overclocked. You can save money buying MB for AMD that support dual core and use AGP cards and PC3200 Ram instead of PCI-Express and DDR2.

---

You can save money buying MB for AMD that support dual core and use AGP cards and PC3200 Ram instead of PCI-Express and DDR2.

While this is true, migrating from a 754 board to a 939 board is an
unjustified expenditure with Socket M2 somewhere between 6 and 10 months
out... Perhaps if you were upgrading from Socket A/462, the Athlon XP line,
to a socket 939 board, I could see doing something like that, but with
a 754 system, you would be better served by waiting for M2 and getting
the DDR2 memory and a PCI-Express video card. Socket 939 will be phased-out
in 2007, so it will limit any future upgradability of the processor...
Newer technology AGP cards will probably either not be produced or will
only be offered in very limited amounts. The nVidia 7800 line is PCI-E
only at this point, and the 6800 series is rapidly losing value in comparison.
I have a 6800GT, so I know this very well... :( If I were buying now, I'd
be looking at the same thing I was when I got this system 1 year ago, right
on the verge of socket 754 being "affordable" for me, but Socket 939 "too
expensive". The Winchester (90nm) parts and their MUCH better pricing than
the 3500+ or the 3800+ is what got me onto a 939 board...

Moral of the story: If you're near a new product launch and you can see
support for the older technology fading out, it is best to wait.

IMHO and YMMV...

Brian

---

Moral of the story: If you're near a new product launch and you can see
support for the older technology fading out, it is best to wait.

IMHO and YMMV...

Brian

Yep, but there's _always_ something new around the corner, no matter how long you wait :o)

The dual core Pentium-M chips (Yonah) announced for next year will be pretty decent crunchers, too.

Regards Hans

---

Yep, but there's _always_ something new around the corner, no matter how long you wait :o)

Not so much anymore...unless you are a gamer into Doom3 at insane frame rates (nevermind the game limits it to 60), HL2, BF2, and the upcoming
Unreal 2007

*or*

you have some sort of specific need, like my need to get up to 2GB memory.

The X2 processors are "nice", but don't fit my usage model at this point.
PCI-Express is also "nice", but I'm getting 50fps in Doom3 @ 1280x1024,
High Quality mode, and the game is capped at 60fps (in-game...the benchmark
can go higher than 60)...

If I didn't have the need to get 2GB of memory, I could've gone all the way until my next planned purchase of late-2006 / early-2007 with what I have now.
That would've been 2-2.5 years of use. Some people would still be able to
milk 3-4 years out of what I built...delaying a purchase (barring hardware
failure) into perhaps 2008... I think we are starting to enter a slowdown
in technological advancement, where Moore's Law may be more like "Moore's
Guideline"...

Brian

---

Not so much anymore...unless you are a gamer into Doom3 at insane frame rates (nevermind the game limits it to 60), HL2, BF2, and the upcoming
Unreal 2007

Brian

Hi Brian,

The gigahertz race seems to be over, that's true

But structures are still shrinking from 90 to 65 and later 45(?) nm.
We'll see more cores, larger caches and faster memory buses.

There will also be some improvements w.r.t MIPS/watt.

As far as number crunching is concerned, we ain't seen nothing yet :o)

Regards Hans

---

i have an asus A8v delux (socket 939) mb with 1 gig pc3200 ddr ram, amd 64 3400+ Newcastle, and a Chaintech 6600GT (bought not long ago, upgraded from a radeon 9200), maybe late next year i'll upgrade to an athlon X2, new motherboard with pci-x, new graphics card...not sure if i wanna go sli, but i definately want a good motherboard. I hope the X2's lower in price enough to be more affordable to a college student by the end of next year

---