This would entirely depend on what you're planning to do with the system. If you're only planning to play older games (pre 2006 I'd say) then a faster single core would probably be fine. I'd look at the minimum and recommended requirements of the games you're hoping to use this for. If none of them mention a dual core CPU, then a single core is probably okay.

Also, keep in mind that excess GPU power may not get you higher framerates in CPU limited scenarios, but you will be able to crank up the anti-aliasing and resolution with little performance impact. A pair of 8800GTs for example would be extremely CPU limited by any Socket 939 CPU.

Almost forgot... any multitasking would obviously be seriously hindered by a single core. If you plan to use it for web browsing with a virus scanner, or other things while gaming, you'll want a dual core. Have you looked at Opteron processors? Some may be cheaper than their Athlon equivalents simply because they aren't as easily identified. There are a handful of single core and dual core models available for Socket 939 and they were popular with enthusiasts that had extra money to burn on CPUs back then... probably the same ones that went SLI. 🤣

Almoststew1990 wrote:

I have found a socket 939 board for sale which is capable of SLi. I have wanted to mess around with SLi for ages but I was wondering if there was any real point to this on a S939 board as I would be limited to a couple of dual core Athlons (FX and X2 apparently) and single cores. The dual core Athlons on S939 seem to be surprisingly expensive and/ore rare so I would be probably going for a single core processor. Is there any point in SLi-ing something like a 8600GT/S, 7800GT etc on a sub 3GHz single core CPU!? Other than the novelty!

SLI (interleaving screen processing between GPUs) has nothing to do with CPU and however many cores it has. In fact, most games that will run on So939 are single-threaded as far as the CPU is concerned, so the number of cores on the CPU is pretty irrelevant in any case.

It all depends on the game and what graphics settings you want to use.

If for example you want Half-Life 2 or Doom 3 in 1440p than the graphics cards will still be the main bottleneck.

Ozzuneoj wrote:

This would entirely depend on what you're planning to do with the system. If you're only planning to play older games (pre 2006 I'd say) then a faster single core would probably be fine. I'd look at the minimum and recommended requirements of the games you're hoping to use this for. If none of them mention a dual core CPU, then a single core is probably okay.

Also, keep in mind that excess GPU power may not get you higher framerates in CPU limited scenarios, but you will be able to crank up the anti-aliasing and resolution with little performance impact. A pair of 8800GTs for example would be extremely CPU limited by any Socket 939 CPU.

Almost forgot... any multitasking would obviously be seriously hindered by a single core. If you plan to use it for web browsing with a virus scanner, or other things while gaming, you'll want a dual core. Have you looked at Opteron processors? Some may be cheaper than their Athlon equivalents simply because they aren't as easily identified. There are a handful of single core and dual core models available for Socket 939 and they were popular with enthusiasts that had extra money to burn on CPUs back then... probably the same ones that went SLI. 🤣

The S939 Opterons were no more expensive than the regular S939 Ahtlon 64/64x2 CPUs back when they were new. They also tended to be better overclockers. I still have my delidded Opty 175 from back then. Delidding drops the load temp by about 20c.