Questions about a 64-bit rig

the_syco

Hi,
Got €700 tax back, so I'm going to get a new rig, mainly a new mobo, new memory, and new CPU. I already have a PSU, and case from an older system. I'm going to use a PVM to hook my current monitor up to it, so I don't need to buy a new one.

I'm looking at a AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz Socket 939.

The questions:

Do I need a 64-bit OS, or can I run a 32-bit OS on a 64-bit CPU? I'm not going to shell out €300 on a bug ridden system, and I'm not going to talk about warez. Also, cos I like Win2K, and XP is meant to eat up your resources like a pig with munchies.

Can I play a 32-bit game on a 64-bit OS? Or do I have to wait for some patch? I mainly want to ensure what I spend my cash on can can play games for at least 2 years, but also want to play the games that I have now (BF42, BF2, HL2, NFS:MW).

Oh, and I want a simple answer for this, not a 2 page one: is the "AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz" better than the "P4 2.0GHz"? To me, they're both 2.0GHz, yet one costs €355 whilst a Pentium 3.4Ghz costs less than €300 (both are 64-bit).

The last question leads me onto the next bit:
Upgrade Kit AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+, nForce4 SLI, 1024MB, PCI-Express - €562

Pentium 4 660 3.6GHz, I915P, 1024MB DDR2, PCI-Express -€589

Which of the two will be better for gaming? Both upgrades cost more or less the same, but one is 2GHz, whilst the other is 3.6GHz.

Fionn_McCool

don't take this the totally correct, but i am 99% sure, 64bit chips are totally backwards compatible, including games and OS, Win2k should be fine.

AMD 3800+ x2 is just as good as a pentium 3.8Ghz (if there is one lol).

not totally sure now, but the old way to compare AMD to intel was in AMD name of the chip e.g

AMD 2200 = Intel 2.2Ghz even though the stock speed of the amd is 1.8Ghz

Malafus

64-bit is just there for the future. 32-bit stuff will run fine.

AMD processors do more work per clock cycle than Intel processors, so their 2.0GHz is much, much 'faster' than Intel's 2.0GHz.

AMDs are generally better for gaming, but the advantage with the AMD in your post is that it is dual-core, whereas the Intel is not. If you picked a single core AMD processor, it'd be half the price.
Dual-core won't make much difference to your game playing, but multitasking will be much smoother, and in the future games(and other apps) will take advantage of both cores.

Fionn's post is slightly off... AMD don't name their processors according to how they compare to Intel processors, at least, not anymore. There is no definitive comparison, but I'd go with the AMD.

djmarkus

AMD64 are backwards compatible, you dont need a 64 OS although the processor was designed with 64 bit in mind.

Yes, the AMD is better, purely because it's dual core and can take more instructions per second(even if it wasn't dual core).

I'm not sure whether you can play 32 bit apps in a 64 bit OS, i would presume yes but you'd probably take a performance hit,

astrofool

for an X2, get XP. The x2 also takes advantage of programs which use hyperthreading, which is only properly supported in XP.

Also, on an athlon64, XP is not resource intensive (and in fact can be setup to be as resource intensive as you like).