Question Sins and processors.

 3.6 ghz single core is better 

Yes SoaSE does lack multi-threading so 1 large single core is better than 2 smaller dual cores.

Depends on the processor make, actually. A single 2.4 core of a brand new Core-series processor may well outperform an old P4 running at 3.6.

dxdiag reports mine to be an Intel Celeron D

Aaaaaaaaand I dunno what his laptop is but I know it a bit aged

Um If I remember correctly Celerons are cheap Pentiums. But I may be a bit foggy on that.

I wouldn't doubt it x3 I've never really had the money for anything series. Hell I just got up from a PCI graphics card in january.

The Celeron series survived past the Pentiums, though in this case, I believe that is one of the P4 based ones.

with your situation, I think the most important question is: do you have a graphics card?

If you do, I would say you probably have the advantage (though, features can always be turned down to make them run at comparable speeds). If you dont have a graphics card (built in, or maybe you think its so old that it's irrelevent), then a number of other factors make it hard to judge, but I would put you both in the same ballpark.

Of course, if you need to settle a dispute... the more details the better: RAM, version of windows, your graphics card, his graphics chip, his cpu, is your card AGP, PCI, integrated or PCI-E?

In general, laptops dont do as well as desktops if they are bought around the same time, as it is the same technology, just less of it to fit in smaller spaces and deal with heat/power issues.

I have a Compaq Presario SR5010NX

brought the ram up to 2 gigs DDR2

graphics card was just recently updated to a ATI Radeon 4350 (I think its 50) with 512 mb, PCI-Express

processor actually a  Intel Celeron D 3.42 ghz

and the old reliable windows xp. 

I'll get my friend's spec's in the morning and edit this post 

The current crop of Celerons are a rebrand of the Core Duo.

Celeron D series are not good processors.  I had one here and just doing simple tasks (non-gaming) was painfully slow.  If you can get a new PC with a Core i5 processor, you'd be far better off all around.  Their in-built graphics are not bad and they're fast.  You can always upgrade to a better video card later too if you want.

What do you think of the less-expensive AMD quad cores, such as the Phenoms?

I haven't tried them, so it's hard to say.  I imagine they'd work too.

I think the recent AMDs are good value. A few months ago, I assembled a computer that was supposed to be very cheap and just for simple tasks (AMD Sempron 140, 2.7 ghz, like 30$ I think, cheap motherboard and everything). The Sempron 140 is a dual core with one core corrupt/disabled at factory, and quite often you can just re-enable it . I worked for me at least.

Anyway, a few days ago I tried installing Sins on it just to see, and it worked nice really, I was quite surprised. Well it doesn't handle very high graphic settings (integrated graphics on the motherboard so you can't expect so much on that side generally, but works well) and I haven't tried a long cpu-intensive game. But the fact that it works very well in general and is even capable of running Sins makes me believe the higher end AMDs are also probably good for their price... Intel i5s are great too, I have one, works fine.

in my experience the latest AMD's(eg amd555 dual core about 3ghz) are better than the older ones (eg amd64 x2 6000+( 3ghz dual core)) with the newer leaving  the older for dead in processing speed\(feels about 30% faster for the same tasks on the same os & videocard), but for sins and it's expansions the first choice is a video card (does NOT need to be a high-end card, then HIGH GHZ single(can use dual, but one core not used except during loading and more is wasted) core cpu with FAST 4gb ram.

as far as cpu speed goes 2.4 ghz intel ok,  amd x2 3ghz ok, i3 2.8ghzx good, amd 555 good, but below that will feel sluggish in game

harpo

I thought there was some sort of 2 gig max memory use?

The rest of the computer's stuff can run in the other half.

Yes, for sins but what about the OS and all the other processes running.

doska19, the reason for suggesting 4gb is windows xp wants(read NEEDS) 1gb for itself, vista wants(again read NEEDS) 2gb for itself, and windows 7 32bit wants 1gb for itself, but win7 64bit wants 2gb for itself, and the 32bit windows can only address up to the 4gb ram limit which has the BIOS and video card ram come out of it, so most if not all 32bit windows computers with 4gb of ram show between 2.5 & 3.5gb of ram available for windows AND applications, and assuming xp this leaves between 1.5 & 2.5gb for ALL applications before the s l o w     h a r d d r i v e  a t t e m p t s  t o  a c t  a s  r a m  w i t h   t h e  s w a p f i l e.

(the hdd speeds are typically approximately 10 MILLI-seconds to access, while ram takes on the order of 1 MICRO-second(milli-seconds are 1000 microseconds), which is why I try to reduce the need for the hdd swap file as much as possible with as much RAM as possible.

harpo

Ooooooh okdoky. Time for a new computer then ><, mine's only got 2 slots for RAM, and I don't believe 2 gig sticks exist.

they DO exist for ddr2 & ddr3 ram types, but for ddr and sdram no they do not

as an example one of my machines that has a AMD 64 x2 6000+ cpu the motherboard only has 2 slots(ddr2 ram)(which is typical for the micro-atx motherboards, but I HAVE 4gb of ram in it, and in my ddr3 ram motherboard machines the SMALLEST ram stick size IS 2gb.

harpo

oh sweet, I have DDR2. to newegg!

edit: found this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134730

I have a massive fear of incompatibility when buying hardware, this is my pc.

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/ca/en/ho/WF06b/12132708-12133156-78308260-78308260-78308260-79685091-80159593.html

would there be any problems?

The information you provided doesn't give us the motherboard type which would give tell us/you what type of RAM would be compatible.

You can head over to crucial.com and install their app on IE and their system can scan your computer and tell you what is compatible as far as ram and buy it cheaper from somewhere else like amazon.com....

After using that system scan, then going here

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883107356

it appears my maximum capacity is 2 gigs =\ so I guess having two 2 gig sticks in would not work properly

edit: after further research, I have yet another question x3 lemme know when i start grinding nerves.

I believe this provides any and all information on my pc

http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c00873242&lang=en&cc=us&contentType=SupportFAQ&prodSeriesId=3328519&prodTypeId=12454

Now it says that it supports up to 2 gigs (Two 1 gig sticks), but I have found single sticks of 2 gigs that are the same type (PC2-4200). What would happen if I put these in? Technology is so hard to keep up with @_@

It shouldn't work.

It only supports two 1GB sticks, being 32-bit.

Having two separate sticks is also more efficient? (I think, but I could easily be wrong.)