For summer of 2005, an Athlon 64 X2 was probably the best available at the time. The initial processors released in May 2005.

For the time you're aiming for, an AMD Socket 939 system with a high-end single-core Athlon 64 4000+ or equivalent Opteron coupled with a Radeon X850XT or Geforce 6800GTX would have been top of the line. Plus Audigy 2 for sound.

If you are willing to move the date 1 or 2 months, then ATI X1800XT and Geforce 7800GTX would be out with a major performance boost.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-09-26, 17:44:

For summer of 2005, an Athlon 64 X2 was probably the best available at the time. The initial processors released in May 2005.

I didn't know that. In December 2005 my best friend had a P4 3.2GHZ, 1GB of ram and a graphics card of some GF. Even SanAndreas on high setting worked on his PC very well.

As someone who bought a new PC back in 2005, let me tell you it wasn't a good year for that.

In 2006, we got the Core 2 and the GeForce 8 series, both of which offered a significant performance increase compared to what was available just a year before.

I remember the summer of 2005, the holidays. I tried playing SanAndreas, but it performed poorly even on the lowest settings. Browsing the Internet and using WinXP was a pain.

I guess I was wrong when I wrote about the best PC of 2005. I had in mind a powerful PC for 2005. That is, one on which you can play games at high settings and frames per second.

Kocyk wrote on 2024-09-26, 17:58:

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-09-26, 17:44:

For summer of 2005, an Athlon 64 X2 was probably the best available at the time. The initial processors released in May 2005.

I didn't know that. In December 2005 my best friend had a P4 3.2GHZ, 1GB of ram and a graphics card of some GF. Even SanAndreas on high setting worked on his PC very well.

A Pentium 4 would have been able to also run things well at the time. It's just the Pentium 4 (and Pentium D) processors tended to consume more power and run a lot hotter than their AMD equivalents.

Your best bet for 2005 would have been an Athlon 64 or an Athlon 64 X2.

I'm fond of 2005 hardware. Athlon 64 X2 / FX, or the dual core 939 Opterons, can be more quirky than a Pentium 4 but are definitely faster. Go look up some 2005 issues of Maximum PC for a good time.

I wouldn't get into running multiple GPUs though. They didn't realize back then that this causes a frame time issue that makes the frame rate deceiving.

Kocyk wrote on 2024-09-26, 17:37:

In the summer of 2001 I got my first Pc, it was a Celeron500mhz, 128mb ram and GF2.
In 2004 new games didn't work and in 2005 I had the impression that my PC was a piece of junk.

In 2001 Celeron 1000 was $100, a year later ~$70, two years later it was somewhere between worthless and $20. You could have upgraded your computer with Pizza money instead of suffering 🙁

Fast Pentium 4 were super expensive, AMD x2 were cheaper and as good if not better in games. But as Joseph_Joestar said then came 2006 and Core2 killed everything.
Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.46 versus slowest cheapest Core2 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Intel-Pe … E6300/1078vs908
'Can Lowest Core 2 Duo beat highest Pentium 4? Year 2006 Battle' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhuDBEYIpls

I don't know why we must drive home that Core 2 is faster. He isn't asking about 2006.

swaaye wrote on 2024-09-26, 21:03:

I don't know why we must drive home that Core 2 is faster. He isn't asking about 2006.

Agreed. If one is going for a period correct build from a specific year, then it should be about that specific year.

And if going to 2006, why not 2007 or 2008, etc... Before you know it, you're at a Sandy Bridge / 3rd generation Core i7 build.

In 2005 I built an Athlon 64 x2.

It was far superior to anything Intel had on offer.

Then Intel leaped ahead with Core 2. I end up building a Core 2 system to play Crysis.

swaaye wrote on 2024-09-26, 21:03:

I don't know why we must drive home that Core 2 is faster. He isn't asking about 2006.

To drive home message that 'best PC by June 2005' (P4 EE/HT 670 + 7800GTX) was 2x worse than much cheaper 2006 computer (E6300 + 8800GTX).

rasz_pl wrote on 2024-09-26, 21:18:

swaaye wrote on 2024-09-26, 21:03:

I don't know why we must drive home that Core 2 is faster. He isn't asking about 2006.

To drive home message that 'best PC by June 2005' (P4 EE/HT 670 + 7800GTX) was 2x worse than much cheaper 2006 computer (E6300 + 8800GTX).

By the same token, a 2007 build will be faster than 2006... and 2008 faster than 2007... and so on and so on.

swaaye wrote on 2024-09-26, 20:49:

I'm fond of 2005 hardware. Athlon 64 X2 / FX, or the dual core 939 Opterons, can be more quirky than a Pentium 4 but are definitely faster. Go look up some 2005 issues of Maximum PC for a good time.

There are some benchmarks here: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1676/7

Fastest processors are Athlon 64 FX-55 or Athlon 64 X2 4800+ (for gaming at least).

edited to add:

And some Athlon 64 FX-57 benchmarks: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1722/6

I mean, OP literally just stated that he wants a PC that runs 2005 games well, and not a PC made in 2005:

Kocyk wrote on 2024-09-26, 19:02:

I guess I was wrong when I wrote about the best PC of 2005. I had in mind a powerful PC for 2005. That is, one on which you can play games at high settings and frames per second.

Like I said, that was a bad year to buy PC parts. The hardware from late 2006 was simply much better than the fastest stuff you could buy in 2005. With a Core 2 and a 8800 GT, you were pretty much set for the next 3-4 years. Technology didn't advance quite as fast after that.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-09-26, 22:16:

I mean, OP literally just stated that he wants a PC that runs 2005 games well, and not a PC made in 2005:

In the opening post they said they wanted the best PC available by June 2005. An Athlon XP or Athlon XP X2 would have been a good gaming rig in 2005, able to deliver good frame rates for games of that era.

While Core2 systems are definitely better, I think people might have given them the wrong impression about 2005 era hardware.

Shponglefan wrote on 2024-09-26, 22:25:

While Core2 systems are definitely better, I think people might have given them the wrong impression about 2005 era hardware.

No, the impression is quite on point. See how F.E.A.R. runs on an 8800 GTX from 2006 vs. last year's 7800 GTX. Or even how it beats the 7950 GX2 from mid 2006. Here's Anandtech's period correct benchmark. Not to mention that the G80 cards were DX10 compliant and thus future-proof, while the stuff from the past year(s) was DX9 only.

On top of that, we have the significantly higher IPC of the Core 2 architecture compared to the CPUs of 2005. It was a big difference for just one year. Such huge improvements over a very short timeframe didn't happen quite so often after that.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-09-26, 22:41:

On top of that, we have the significantly higher IPC of the Core 2 architecture compared to the CPUs of 2005. It was a big difference for just one year. Such huge improvements over a very short timeframe didn't happen quite so often after that.

If we're comparing a 7800 to an 8800, that's closer to 18 months' difference. 😉

And again, I don't disagree there is a big leap performance in that time period. It just comes down to goals. If we're forgoing period-correctness and just want super fast performance, why not go beyond Core2 / 8800?

Even though though the OP is asking for a specific period of hardware. The performance difference between 2005 and 2006 is simply too big to ignore. The only reason I would currently consider an Athlon 64 build would be for a maximum spec Windows98SE build.

Which is weird enough, why I chose a nForce 3 socket 939 motherboard at the time. I still maintained a Windows 98 install for a few games that didn't work on WinXP.