Over the last couple of months I have been repeatedly asked a question from people wanting to upgrade or buy a new PC. The question has been, should I get a dual core AMD Athlon 64 or single core and what speed should I get? This has also been a hot topic not only in our forums but right across the internet. Two distinct camps have developed: die hard dual core fans and die hard single core fans. Truthfully, during the testing of this article and my research I have felt like I have been playing Black and White 2 where you have one guy sitting on one shoulder and another on the other, both arguing their cases to me. Neither one are the devil, but neither one comes out as the undisputed angel either. Their is logic behind the arguments put forth from both camps. The majority of people who have been asking me for advice are gamers. What I have tried to accomplish in this article is a comparison of 3 different CPUs, the Athlon 64 X2 3800+, Athlon 64 3800+ and Athlon 64 3200+. Let me introduce you to each CPU and explain these choices.

VIA Arena