Venice core or SanDiego core?

[Jeff]

I am wondering if I should get the 3800+ Venice core or the 3700+ San Diego Core.

The San Diego core has a 1mb l2 cache, but the Venice has a 200mhz clock advantage.



SanDiego Specs:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103539
Venice Specs:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103530

[zooYork]

go with the sandiego, if you have good memory you could just simply oc it up to the 3800. san diego's are better overclockers too.

[AMDave]

:!: All hail the on-die cache :!:

My recent experience with differences in cache sizes at work has been both telling and (grrr) very trying.

If the machine is going to do anything repetative at the low level like calculations or database transactions then you want as much cache as you can get. Otherwise if you are looking at streaming media or manipulating big images then you want faster Hz and more RAM. Of course the ideal is a huge cache and lots of RAM.

In DC terms, I'd go the large on-die cache and speed things up by adding more RAM as required every time.

I found a great deal of frustration in a machine with lots of RAM and a fast CPU but minimal cache, recently. Although outside of my control, it was an experience that I do not intend to repeat if I can help it.

[Jeff]

I will have 1 gig of dual channel memory.

I think I will go with the SanDiego.

I can't decide if I want to do SLI or not

[vaughan]

SLI is expensive and ONLY helps the games that are optimized to use it. There is a list at nvidia somewhere.

[Empty_5oul]

rather defeats the point of SLI but you could get 1 for the moment and see what the graphics performance is like.
What games do you play (or will play) i can't imagine you would need really amazing graphics power?

THen if in a few months you need extra power for games get another and connect them together.

[vaughan]

Read this:

http://www.bleedinedge.com/reviews/p...-Diego_01.html

[Jeff]

I think I will be playing Half-Life 2

[Jeff]

Also which memory?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...90#DetailSpecs

http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Produ...=0#DetailSpecs

[Empty_5oul]

looking at the timings OCZ is much more agressive. depends what you plan on doing, the other is just as good for normal use. But for overclocking you would want the lower timings.