Hey all, I was looking at the AMD Athlon 4200 and the 3800. When comparing them i couldent find a differnce between them except for the price. Im currently trying to pickout parts for a gaming computer that i plan on building so making it cheaper would be better. My question is, Is the 3800 just as good as the 4200? Would it be better to downgrade to the 3800 save money or upgrade to the 4400 ? I was planing on getting the 4200 until i notice this. Thanks all

I'm assuming you are talking about the x2 dual core cpus?

If so, the 3800+ and the 4200+ (Manchester core) share the same everything. They have the same core structure and chip architecture. The 4200+ runs at 2.2Ghz per core, where as the 3800+ runs at 2.0Ghz per core.

With any decent motherboard and a little bit of reading, you can bump the 3800+ up to 2.2Ghz. I have a friend that has one at 2.45Ghz on the stock heatsink and fan.*

The 4400+ (Toledo core) on the other hand, is different. It has a level 2 cache of 1Gb, where the 3800+ and 4200+ have 512Mb.

How much of a difference you will see between the chips playing games is subjective. Personally, I would invest more into a quality gpu, and save a lil' coin on the cpu.

* I am by no means telling you to get a cpu and overclock it, I'm simply stating it can be done. I opted for the 3800+ due to the fact I don't believe I'm going to see a huge difference in 200Mhz. If I feel I'm missing something, I'll bump it up a few hundred Mhz.

BTW, going with the 3800+ is far from a "downgrade".

Yes, the X2 4200+ is 200 MHz faster. I'd say that the X2 3800+ gives you a better bang for the buck.

ok yes sorry about not mentioning that i was talking about the dual core. Like you said im sure it isnt to much of a differnce when running both and trying to compare which is faster. I think i may go with the 3800 to save some money. Thanks all