Intel V AMD

Ishindar

Which processors are roughly equivalent to which, Intel V AMD

Pentium D 3.4Ghz = AMD ?
Pentium D 3.2Ghz = AMD ?
Pentium D 3.0Ghz = AMD ?
Pentium D 2.8Ghz = ?
P4 3.8ghz = ?
P4 3.6ghz = ?
P4 3.4ghz = ?
P4 3.2ghz = ?
P4 3.0ghz = ?

Malafus

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/cpu/charts.html

This should help.

ve

I'm thinking about building my first machine, but am a little confused as to which processing camp I should head for. I've been using PCs since the 386sx era, but have gained more experience with software as opposed to hardware. It is only in the last month or so I've put in the effort to learn. I'm in my mid 20s, I don't really game per se, but I would like to be able to play new games @ a decent FPS if I wanted to. I'm also a software developer and need a machine that can glide through much multitasking between heavy IDE's and Java virtual machines, etc (typically in a Windows environment but occasionally Linux too).

So far I've always owned Intel based machines, but have used several AMD machines. In my experience AMD machines were rubbish for doing development on, but then again the exact spec of the machine may not have been too comparable with my own in the RAM dept. For example I have a 2.66Ghz P4 with 1GB of RAM while my partner has an AMD64 with a clock speed of 2.2Ghz (in windows) I think it's a 3000 processor and only 512MB RAM. Granted windows boots fairly quick on her machine, but multitasking with development tools and the likes of Dreamweaver for web design or some graphics apps is an absolute pain. The machine just cannot keep up. While at the same time I usually found AMD machines to be much better at handling games irrespective of the graphics card available.

Having said that the performance with respect to multitasking and running non-game applications in Windows tends to have a direct correlation with the amount of RAM available.

I have about €1300 to spend on "just the box". The processor I was looking at for the past few days was the Pentium D 830 (which is a 3Ghz dualcore). Having seen loads of benchmarks a comparable pricewise processor (the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz) seems to kick it's ass in many catagories except heavy multitasking. Any other discussion forums I've seen people ask which camp to head for and everyone and I mean EVERYONE shouts AMD at once and slates the Intel option. I mean in your opinion is this justified in all cases. Considering I have about 2 hours per month to play games (at the moment, this may change), and tend to use my PC more for software dev and heavy graphics apps, etc, is the AMD processor and respective motherboard technology which seems to have a slower FSB than similarly priced 775 socket options, the better option.

On a completely different note, would I be doing very wrong with a Point of View GeForce 7900GT 256MB, GDDR3, PCI-Express, DVI/Tv-Out behind me for the odd game here and there. I am the worst critic for sluggish game performance. Some friends of mine are happy to play games at a res of 1280x1024 while on the same machine I would only be happy with performance when dropped down to 800x600. I mean I have bought games and just put them back on the shelf because they jerked here and there in gameplay after I dropped the level of detail etc, so I am the WORST critic in that dept. I like my games absolutely smooth if I am going to play them, but don't play games all the time (which would not justify the cost of something like a Radeon X1900 with 512MB onboard).

Could you please give me some advice as to what I should do as I'm reading so much about AMD chips but am slightly worried that all these reports are just from gamers that don't need performance where I would need it most (sorry for sound like a Dell advert ). Or you could save me by telling me that all round AMD chips are much better and it was down to external factors such as RAM that gave me a poor impression of other people's machines I've used.

Thank you very much.

Dooom

ve: Go for an X2. Bar one or two catagories it will whip the Intel (games included). From what I've seen, the 4400+ is the best bang for buck.

As for your other questions, that card will satisfy your needs quite nicely I'd imagine.

The reason the AMD machine you described sucked at multitasking was because:
A) RAM's only 512 - that's still alright for some things, but ideally you'd be looking at 1gb if you're doing a lot of developing of sorts.

And It's a single core processor, so it's going to struggle if you're trying to do a lot of intense things at once. Where as an X2 (being dual core), can eat mostly everything thrown at it at once.

Apologies for the brief reply, I'm not in a very detailing frame of mind.

ve

No no!, I'm sorry for the long initial post, you answered my question, that's all I needed. Thank you very much. Right I'm gonna invest in the AMD I think. As regards what motherboard to throw in with it I haven't a clue. I am definately going to be putting 2 x 1GB DDRs in with that.

Any ideas?

Dooom

Will you be overclocking? And what's the budget for the mobo?

If you aren't overclocking, or even just a bit, then I'd recommend the Asus A8N-SLI Premium (own the board, and overclock a lot on it, so it's grand for that aswell!).

It's got a silent heatpipe, so there'll be no horribly loud Northbridge fan, and a whole host of other features aswell as being very stable and supporting the X2 family out of the box.

/edit: If you give your budget, and a few other details as to what you want/need, I'm sure myself and some others can put together a shopping list for you? Unless you're happy to do it yourself of course.

savemejebus

Amd's new socket is coming out really soon, you could do worse than wait a month and get the new socket mobo and chip, as this is what all future amd upgrades will use

SeanW

With 512 MB ram you would be limited. That's why the AMD machine was pwned. 512MB is good for running Windows XP and some 1-2 year old games at high settings or probably newer ones at medium-low.

I can't see how something like a .NET suite or graphics package would perform well on a WinXP/512MB machine.

Dooom

savemejebus wrote:

Amd's new socket is coming out really soon, you could do worse than wait a month and get the new socket mobo and chip, as this is what all future amd upgrades will use

But for the price of AM2, it only gives a very very minor increase over the current 939 chips.
Tbh, I'd say wait until AM2 has matured a bit. That way it'll give a chance for faster chips to come out (plus it'll give them a chance to sort out the DDR2 memory) which would make switching from 939 to M2 worthwhile.

projectmayhem

Spike wrote:

ve: Go for an X2. Bar one or two catagories it will whip the Intel (games included). From what I've seen, the 4400+ is the best bang for buck.

exactly what i was going to say. you could also hold out for the new stuff - or if you're feeling patient, wait for intel to release conroe

jesus_thats_gre

Surely the 4200+ X2 provides considering more bang for your buck even though it has less cache..

conzy

AM2 has little or no performance advantages, it just brings DDR2 and an upgrade path...

Conroe is not due until September and Intel dont have the best rep for sticking to timelines, and if their currnet pricing is anything to go by, it will be savagely priced

Buy S939 its the best performance and price available at the minute, if not go for AM2 in May

awhir

this is the rig i bought 2 weeks ago.you could change the processer and the mobo and the rest would be a good ground to lie on.


£181.95 x 1 - AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3800BVBOX) (CP-134-AM)
£94.95 x 1 - DFI LanParty UT NF4 SLI-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-013-DF)
£15.95 x 1 - Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£22.95 x 1 - LG GSA-H10ABAL 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-043-LG)
£72.95 x 1 - Seagate Barracude 7200.9 NCQ 300GB ST3300622AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-066-SE)
£194.95 x 1 - PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-048-PC)
£89.50 x 1 - CoolerMaster Stacker STC-T01 - Silver Trim (No PSU) (CA-054-CM)
£51.95 x 1 - Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition inc. SP2 - OEM - 1Pk (N09-01528) (OS-001-MS)
£16.95 x 1 - Belkin F5D7000UK 802.11g Wireless PCI Adapter (NW-007-BE)
£129.95 x 1 - G.Skill 2GB DDR HZ PC4000 (2x1GB) CAS3 Dual Channel Kit (F1-4000USU2-2GBHZ) (MY-008-GS)
£87.95 x 1 - Seasonic S12 600W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-002-SS)

ve

Spike wrote:

/edit: If you give your budget, and a few other details as to what you want/need, I'm sure myself and some others can put together a shopping list for you? Unless you're happy to do it yourself of course.

If any of you were to help me out like that I would be very grateful. I'm completely willing to do my own homework, so I want everyone to know that I haven't a notion of just sitting back and letting others plan this for me.

Right well my budget for the box is about €1400 (upped it slightly).

• Antec P160 Miditower, Silver, Side window, (Without PSU)
• Corsair Value S. PC5300 DDR2 2048MB Kit w/two matched Value Select 1024MB
• Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM
• NEC DVD±RW burner, ND-3550A, 16x, Dual, Black OEM
• NorthQ 4775-400, ATX 400W Silent, 140mm Fan, 12-17dBA, 4xSATA, PCI-E, 20/24pin
• Point of View GeForce 7900GT 256MB, GDDR3, PCI-Express, DVI/Tv-Out, Retail

That lot comes to €888.00 on Komplett, leaving me with over €500 to spend on a mobo and processor. Am I missing anything?

Another important requirement that I have is that I would prefer if this thing would be quiet. I don't think I'm skillful enough to go messing with water cooling, etc just yet, but if there are quiet components out there in my budget that you know about I wouldn't mind hearing about them.

Also the above components are a guideline for what I'm looking for, feel free to suggest anything if you think I can get a better deal. Cheers.

Thank a million for any help you can give. I really REALLY appreciate it.

awhir

ve wrote:

If any of you were to help me out like that I would be very grateful. I'm completely willing to do my own homework, so I want everyone to know that I haven't a notion of just sitting back and letting others plan this for me.

Right well my budget for the box is about €1400 (upped it slightly).

• Antec P160 Miditower, Silver, Side window, (Without PSU)
• Corsair Value S. PC5300 DDR2 2048MB Kit w/two matched Value Select 1024MB
• Maxtor DiamondMax 10 300GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM
• NEC DVD±RW burner, ND-3550A, 16x, Dual, Black OEM
• NorthQ 4775-400, ATX 400W Silent, 140mm Fan, 12-17dBA, 4xSATA, PCI-E, 20/24pin
• Point of View GeForce 7900GT 256MB, GDDR3, PCI-Express, DVI/Tv-Out, Retail

That lot comes to €888.00 on Komplett, leaving me with over €500 to spend on a mobo and processor. Am I missing anything?

Another important requirement that I have is that I would prefer if this thing would be quiet. I don't think I'm skillful enough to go messing with water cooling, etc just yet, but if there are quiet components out there in my budget that you know about I wouldn't mind hearing about them.

Also the above components are a guideline for what I'm looking for, feel free to suggest anything if you think I can get a better deal. Cheers.

Thank a million for any help you can give. I really REALLY appreciate it.

ok then a quite hdd are seagate.you should a zalaman cpu cooler they are quite silent.the gfx card you can get a cooler for that zalaman 1 would be fine.

change the psu to a sasonic or tangan.

conzy

which seems to have a slower FSB than similarly priced 775 socket options.

Amd Have an integrated Memory controller and a 2ghz system bus:)

Its Intel that are cranking up the FSB to try and keep up.

Amds current technology is far superior to Intel's

Naikon

It depends on your usage. Intel processors are better for media encoding and video editing and tasks where pure clockspeed is important. AMD chips are far more efficient per clock cycle and due to the integrated hypertransport memory controller i would go with AMD for gaming as they are far superior. I wont blabber on about architectural differences but personally i prefare AMD as i play computer games. AMD chips are usually cheaper and produce on average about 86 watts in comparison to the presscott core p4 chips which at the highest frequency have consumed more than 100 watts of energy.Just my opinion:)

The_g-man

Your first point of failure at that budget level is the screen, look for fast response times to avoid jerkiness. I personally find my P4 flies along but each to their own.;)

Naikon

Pentium D 3.4Ghz = AMD 3400+
Pentium D 3.2Ghz = AMD 3200+
Pentium D 3.0Ghz = AMD 3000+
Pentium D 2.8Ghz = 2800+
P4 3.8ghz =AMD 3800+
P4 3.6ghz =AMD 3600+
P4 3.4ghz =AMD 3400+
P4 3.2ghz =AMD 3200+
P4 3.0ghz =AMD 3000+

Remember in many cases L2 cache is more important than overall clockspeed,but even though intel processors have more L2 cach due to there architecture they are less efficient than their equivilent AMD chip. personally go for a 3200+ as they are fast and you probably wouldent notice a difference in a 3400+ or 3500+.
to notice a difference you would need something like a FX-55 or a crazy overclock with incresed voltage and the like.:)
(actually if you are using development tools go more a fast intel processor)

Dooom

Here's a quick list. It's a bit over budget, and that could be rectified by downgrading the motherboard, or changing to a different one.

As it stands though, you have:
Very quiet and efficient PSU.
Zalman CPU cooler - AlCu version, so it's not as heavy as the all copper version, plus it's quiet and performs well.
I put in two Akasa Amber fans to replace the stock fans in the case - again, the Amber fans are very quiet, and still push a decent lot of air.
The 7900GT is on par with (and a bit above) the 7800GTX, so you'll have no problems with any current, or future games. Bar when DX10 hits, but you needn't worry about that.
The motherboard is excellent, as I described in an earlier post, albeit expensive. It's worth it imo.
2GB of RAM, not the best RAM, but the value kits can still be suprisingly good.
X2 4200+ - the 4400+ was an extra €200, so I thought it best to go with the 4200. It's still a top-notch CPU, and won't let you down when it comes to multi-tasking.
And finally, the HDD. Again, I chose a Seagate 300GB drive, but it pushed the budget up again, so I switched to a Samsung 250GB. SATA2, plus the Spinpoint drives are renowned for their quiet operation, aswell as performance.

That's just a quick run-up of things. You might also want to check out Overclockers.co.uk, as they can sometimes work out a bit cheaper than Komplett.

/edit: Just noticed the Asus board is out of stock, so you could switch it for another, or source it elsewhere.

If you need any more help, just ask!

Malafus

Naikon wrote:

Pentium D 3.4Ghz = AMD 3400+
Pentium D 3.2Ghz = AMD 3200+
Pentium D 3.0Ghz = AMD 3000+
Pentium D 2.8Ghz = 2800+
P4 3.8ghz =AMD 3800+
P4 3.6ghz =AMD 3600+
P4 3.4ghz =AMD 3400+
P4 3.2ghz =AMD 3200+
P4 3.0ghz =AMD 3000+

This is retarded. How is an AMD 3000+ the same as a P4 3.0GHz and a D 3.0Ghz?

Besides, AMD dropped that naming scheme years ago. It used to be a rough measure of their performance compared to an Intel chip, but not anymore.

Dooom

Not to mention the fact there's no 3600+...

ve

As you guys can see the graphics card I'm looking at currently is the Point of View GeForce 7900GT 256MB, GDDR3, PCI-Express, DVI/Tv-Out, Retail @ €352.00 on Komplett. A lot of people I've noticed who buy AMD processors/mobos also end up getting ATI graphics cards. Do people generally find ATI cards much better than nVidia or is the card I'm currently considering (above) OK considering I don't game very often. However I would like to be able to play the odd new game and expect it to perform well.

This PC will be connected to this monitor (a 21" CRT).

[edit]Spike just saw your previous post, thank you very much for the spec review and component suggestions[/edit]

awhir

ve wrote:

As you guys can see the graphics card I'm looking at currently is the Point of View GeForce 7900GT 256MB, GDDR3, PCI-Express, DVI/Tv-Out, Retail @ €352.00 on Komplett. A lot of people I've noticed who buy AMD processors/mobos also end up getting ATI graphics cards. Do people generally find ATI cards much better than nVidia or is the card I'm currently considering (above) OK considering I don't game very often. However I would like to be able to play the odd new game and expect it to perform well.

This PC will be connected to this monitor (a 21" CRT).

[edit]Spike just saw your previous post, thank you very much for the spec review and component suggestions[/edit]

here made a rig on overclockers.co.uk i used a better card for the price and it has 512memory.


AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA4200BVBOX) (CP-126-AM)
£219.95 £219.95
HD-018-SA Samsung SpinPoint P SP2504C 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-018-SA)
£51.95 £51.95
MB-111-AS Asus A8N-SLi Premium nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-111-AS)
£99.95 £99.95
FG-028-AK Akasa AK-184-L2B Ultra Quiet 92mm Fan - 3 pin (FG-028-AK)
£6.95 £13.90
FG-000-AR Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£15.95 £15.95
GX-048-PC PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-048-PC)
£199.95 £199.95
MY-006-OK OcUK Value 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit (MY-006-OK)
£99.95 £99.95
CA-001-SS Seasonic S12 500W Silent ATX2.0 Power Supply (CA-001-SS)
£75.95 £75.95
CA-006-SV Silverstone Temjin TJ05 - Silver (No PSU) (CA-006-SV)
£69.95 £69.95
CD-029-NE NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Beige) - OEM (CD-029-NE)
£23.95 £23.95

Subtotal £871.45
VAT £152.51
Total £1,023.96

Dooom

No worries, that's what this board's for!

The 7900GT is a very good card. Methinks the main reason for people migrating to Ati is simply the fact that the Ati cards hold their position for longer than the Nvidia ones.
Ie. they don't depreciate in price as quickly, and they also seem to beat the Nvidia cards in terms of performance longevity.

Dooom

Awhir's spec comes to rougly €1530 including delivery (although you're going to want to switch those 92mm fans for 120mm ones for the TJ05).
And tbh, I'd say go with the X1800. Just had a quick gander around some sites, and the X1800, while only beating the 7900GT by a few fps, has more features than the 7900 plus the image quality is better. Add in the reasons in my post just above, and I'd say you have a winner.

I'd say take his spec, or swap out the GT from my Komplett spec and add in the X1800.

As always though, it's down to personal preference.

jesus_thats_gre

X1800 is defo a better choice..

MrPinK

Naikon wrote:

It depends on your usage. Intel processors are better for media encoding and video editing and tasks where pure clockspeed is important.

Traditionally true, but not when when it comes to the dual core chips. The Pentium D's get their ass kicked on all fronts.

ve

Right as an update I've ordered my first component.

The Graphics Card: PowerColor ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail @ €350 from Overclockers.co.uk (incl. VAT & Delivery).

I would like to continue to source components over the next month or so. Also here and elsewhere I've read good reports on the Asus A8N-SLi Premium nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard . Being fairly new to hardware jobs, I would to use up one of my stupid question life-lines. That motherboard says it has an nForce4 SLi chipset. As far as I have read the chipset is simply an array of ICs that host complementary functionality to specific processors (in this case the socket 939 variety). However I've read that SLi is nVidia's approach towards a multiGPU setup, while with ATI it's Crossfire. Now for the moment I don't plan on using more than one GPU in the box, so eventhough that motherboard is using a nForce4 SLi can I use the purchased graphics card above with that motherboard, or is it a case whereby if a card and motherboard are both PCI-Express 16x then it will work. Also if you have a mobo that supports multiGPU can you still just take up one card/socket (and add a second at a later date, if you want)?

Also there is a difference of €125 between the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz Socket 939, 1MB and the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.2GHz Socket 939, 2MB. In your opinion is this cost justified. Is the 4400+ a far superior processor (considering it has 2MB of L2 cache)?

Cheers

andy1249

Firstly the graphics , any PCI ex x 16 should work in that board , Crossfire may be optimise for ATI and Nforce for Nvidia but any card should still work with that motherboard.
If you add a second card later for SLI , it has to be the exact same card , ( OK , slight differences may be tolerated , but mostly the cards must be identical ,) so you should keep in mind whether or not an identical card will be available when you go SLI.

As for the difference between the 4400 and 4200 , performance wise this is only going to be noticable on the higher end of the performance curve , you'd have to be seriously stressing the PC before it becomes an advantage , it may get you an extra few thousand on 3Dmark but is hardly likely to be noticable in day to day stuff.

Personally I'd put the 125 towards bringing the other half for a meal to stop her giving out about how much Im spending on computers !!

ve

andy1249 wrote:

Personally I'd put the 125 towards bringing the other half for a meal to stop her giving out about how much Im spending on computers !!

Funny you should mention that, it's our aniversary next weekend

Yeah maybe I'm being a bit greedy, the 4200 & 4400 share the same clock speed, so for an extra meg of L2 cache, it's probably not worth it. So to avoid the potential for slaps, the meal it is

So given that the chipset is nForce SLI, it make much difference that I'm adding an ATI based card or should I now start looking at something like the Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe Crossfire (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard. Which I probably cannot afford, but if I had to would consider it.

conzy

There is no problems running an Nvidia card in an ATI board and vice versa.

But SLI will NOT run on a Crossfire Motherboard
and Crossfire will NOT run on a SLI motherboard

If you want the option of crossfire (it will be hard to find a X1800 master card soon) get the crossfire board, If not, get any board that takes your fancy;)

ve

Murphy's Law: Because I have finally ordered and paid for a graphics cards I've had an influx of people tell me that I've ordered a very noisy graphics card.

Other reviews that I've read online tell me that the fan on the X1800 XT card is a noisy bugger and when stressed with the likes of a modern game it will cause annoyance (otherwise it's fine). Can people around here confirm this?, if so can the fan be replaced with a better (quieter one), or is there a better sollution. The case I'm planning on going for is this: Antec P160 Miditower, Silver, Side window, (Without PSU)

I like the look of this case and features don't want to end up with a brick of a PC. But am I shooting myself in the foot with regards noise levels?

conzy

It will be noisy, but quieter after market coolers are available........

And the noise will be drowned out by headphones/speakers anyway while playing a game, and at idle it should be considerably quieter.

ve

Yes perhaps when the speakers are on it won't be as obvious, but I guess I'm going to have to wait and see what this thing sounds like when I'm trying to watch a DVD.

awhir

i have sound like a airoplane starting off.just get a cooler for it of overlcokers.co.uk the zalman fatal1ty vga cooler is nice

but is very quite when running in 2d.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Zalman_398.html

ve

My significant other has just offered to by me this case. It is something I was looking at (but financially was out of my reach if I was to be realistic).

If I end up getting this case, I will probably end up using it for a few PC revisions (considering it's price and features, etc). Am I mad, or if you had someone willing to pay for this would you say Definately, or would you choose the more humble case I've linked to in a previous post above.

Considering I've bought a loud graphics card, would this case only add to the problem, or would it help the situation.

Dooom

The case is huge. And if someone offered to buy me one, I wouldn't hesitate for a second.

There's so much space in the Stacker - it's really quite enjoyable putting stuff together in one. Plus you can add a water loop without having to weld things to walls. Not to mention the amount of hdd's you can put in it.

I'd say go for it, without a doubt (course you might want to check that space isn't an issue..).

As for the graphics card, I've a friend who has one and it's not that loud. The size of the case won't really have a huge impact on the noise level. But as was suggested about earlier, if it is too loud for you, you can always pick up a VGA cooler.
Arctic Coolers are quite good, and quiet aswell. As are the Zalman coolers
If you're worried about taking the HSF off the X1800, don't be. It's pretty much just the same as doing it with the CPU.

Cuddlesworth

If you hate noise then a stacker is not your best bet. Open cases are a bad sound insulater.

ve

It was my understanding that a case which had improved ventilation would incur a lesser need for fans to speed up and generate noise. I acknowledge that fans do spin to a certain degree while powered up, but to take the X1800 XT graphics card, as said before when put under the stress of a new game it gets hotter, and the fan gets louder. In a case with better ventilation I would imagine that the card is less likely to get hotter if heat is efficiently removed from inside the box through ventilation shafts/stock fans, etc.

Or does this not really have much inpact on the cards getting hotter?

Also how long does it take for stuff to typically arrive from Overclockers.co.uk?

Gilgamesh

I really couldn't believe my eyes when I saw another Intel vs AMD thread.

personally I think we are at a turning point, and I would highly recommend to wait for whatever you do.
True, September is the timeframe for Intel's new conroe chips, and once they come out, and comparing reports of the next gen processors from intel and AMD, AMD will lose their superiority in nearly every way, except for maybe the cost of the chip.

OP, if you can wait a few months, I would.
even if you don't go for the new high end CPUs, historicaly, they current State of art ones, will drop in price and you could get yourself a bargain for a much better system than what you will get at the moment.


I do agree, that by this idea, one would wait forever and never buy anything, but I personally think that this wait is justified.

Cuddlesworth

ve wrote:

It was my understanding that a case which had improved ventilation would incur a lesser need for fans to speed up and generate noise. I acknowledge that fans do spin to a certain degree while powered up, but to take the X1800 XT graphics card, as said before when put under the stress of a new game it gets hotter, and the fan gets louder. In a case with better ventilation I would imagine that the card is less likely to get hotter if heat is efficiently removed from inside the box through ventilation shafts/stock fans, etc.

Or does this not really have much inpact on the cards getting hotter?

Its all true, but with a stacker you dont just have good ventilation you have a completly open case, all the harddrives have is a fan in front of them, the front of the case is open and the side mesh doesnt help as well. I know about the noise as I have one and I think its a great case, but when your gfx card and cpu fan start to speed up under gaming you will hear it in a stacker.

CombatCow

"ve" i have a 6800GT for sale here, if your intrested, http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054922853


CC

**oops sorry i didnt read the whole thread....

Mutant_Fruit

Gilgamesh wrote:

personally I think we are at a turning point, and I would highly recommend to wait for whatever you do.
True, September is the timeframe for Intel's new conroe chips...

I do agree, that by this idea, one would wait forever and never buy anything, but I personally think that this wait is justified.

And i bet in September AMD will announce a new chip, the conroe-killer, which will be available in a few short weeks. Will you wait for the conroe-killer then?

If a new chip (such as the conroe) gets released today, it'll still take a few weeks for the price drops to trickle down. Can you really say waiting 4 months is worth it? Thats practically a whole product cycle in the graphics card world! It's not worth the wait.

Gilgamesh

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

And i bet in September AMD will announce a new chip, the conroe-killer, which will be available in a few short weeks. Will you wait for the conroe-killer then?

no I wouldn't, am on the Intel front

My point is that the conroe isn't just another P4 processor, with a few changes, it has a lot of very good features, especially the power consumption, that alone is going to be a reason for me to upgrade my system ASAP.

conzy

The Conroe is going to be an amzing chip, even the celeron M is an amazin chip and can overclock to 3ghz on air:eek:

Intel really have a winner this time, but AMD will have something to beat it, and Intel will have something to beat that, you cant wait forever........

Cuddlesworth

conzymaher wrote:

Intel really have a winner this time, but AMD will have something to beat it, and Intel will have something to beat that, you cant wait forever........

Not till next year it looks like.