A Question of Processors

[PLightstar]

Need a little advice.....

I have all my specs sorted for my PC except for the processor, I know I have asked this before but I could not remember the replies I received.

I have narrowed it down to the AMD X2 6400 or the Intel Quad 6600 I will be mainly using it for games and music creating like Reason etc. I was thinking about the new Phenon processors but they do not seem to be able to scratch at the moment.

The rest of the specs are:

2GB CORSAIR DDR2 667MHz (2x1GB)
ASUS® M2N-E SLI: DUAL DDR2, S-ATA II, 2 x PCI-Ex, 2 x PCI
WINDOWS® VISTA Ultimate
250GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7200rpm)
20x Dual Layer LightScribe DVD Writer ±R/±RW/RAM
512MB GEFORCE 8800GT PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT
8 Channel C-Media Superior Quality Audio 7.1 (M2N-E SLI)
500W (Peak) Quiet Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan
SUPER QUIET 22 dBA AMD CPU COOLER

Any feedback will be most welcome...Thanks in advance

 

[Kryten]

I suspect from those components you're trying to keep some costs down?
From a cost point of view, the AMD X2 will probably be the way to go.
I certainly hope that power supply is a decent make - "quiet" is a word often used by some of the cheaper "don't touch with a bargepole" makes.

Speedwise, the Intel is certainly quicker than the AMD without a doubt, but there's obviously a penalty to pay in price.
Memory is rather slow - minimum you should be looking at is DDR2 800 - 667 will be bottlenecking the other hardware. Whilst it's the price it is, it's worth getting that little bit more.

Hard drive - I'm guessing that 250 is setting you back something near 40 quid.
Spend another 20 and you can double the capacity and quadruple the cache which reaps a lot of performance benefit.

Onboard sound will be more than sufficient for average gaming needs, and the motherboard is a very popular choice for AMD systems.

It's a good spec otherwise which is easily tweaked to get that little bit more performance. I think faster ram and one of those 500gb hard drives will make a hell of a lot of difference, certainly in Vista.

If you'd like that extra bit of performance and the money side of things isn't a particular worry, the q6600 G0 processor and a motherboard of choice (current top choices are the ever popular Gigabyte P35-DS3/DS4 and the Asus P5K series) - you'd probably be looking at circa £220 for a combination of those. Stock cooling would be fine on that.

 

[inactionman]

Agree with what Kryten says, although Intel processors are much better value at the moment, and overclock like beasts!

One thing I would say is that there's no real reason for SLI atm, as nothing (bar Crysis, as it was programmed by retarded monkeys) needs it, unless you are gaming on a 30" monitor!

 

[Litmus]

I had a quick look and i think this would suite your spec pretty much.

You could buy a sound card if you really wanted too.

PS oops, left off the Gfx card, but the one you chose was good enough anyway.

 

[throdgrain]

Id say go with the Intel CPU at the moment mate, not much difference in price but quite a bit more power really.

 

[Embattle]

Price/Performance wise Intel still wins through.

 

[PLightstar]

I think I am going to go down the Intel route. Thanks for the input guys.

What the hell has happened to AMD, they used to be so good with price/performance but as I talk to people they all say the same thing, which is to switch to Intel.

 

[dysfunction]

I guess these things go in cycles of competition.
Intel used to reign supreme.
AMD overtook them and now intel are back on top...

I would like to see more from AMD really...

 

[Jonty]

Hi guys

Not wishing to sound like a parrot, but I'd also go for Intel. Although budgets are important, I believe you'd regret not spending the extra in the long term (although if you can hold off until April then Intel will be cutting their prices again).

As for AMD, it's a shame they're not more competitive because it is important for the industry. The latest rumor is that nVidia may buy AMD, but personally I doubt anything major will change in the short-term.

Talking of nVidia, they're porting the PhysX engine to their CUDA programming language. Once completed, all GeForce 8 GPUs and above will have the option of running like a PhysX card too. Personally I never really liked the idea of a physics card, and the games support is still fairly low, but getting a free upgrade like this isn't a bad deal for all the GeForce 8 owners out there.

Kind regards

 

[Kryten]

Indeed. I've said before that I'm half expecting someone like VIA to express an interest in buying out AMD - but AMD are in some nasty financial do do and that's a lot of debt to buy.
Competition is ultimately a good thing for the end users - means there's alternatives, reason for all parties to keep upping their game and raising performance whilst watching the prices.
With a single company "ruling the roost" they are then in a position to make the rules, although this normally ends up in an anti-trust lawsuit

What's happened to them - buying ATI i think was nail in coffin moment.
Ironically, nVidia were very instrumental in AMD's more recent successes - without the nVidia nForce2 chipset, the AMD Barton would have been a wasted resource. It was still a good chip but on VIA/SIS motherboards it was dire. Same applies with the previous Athlon XP processors.

Since then they've been fighting an uphill struggle, and the only things keeping them alive are the OEM and budget markets for the processors and server graphics chipsets for ATI products. Every graphics card ATI sell to compete with consumer 3D gaming, they do so at a loss. And now of course, they're struggling with continued problems with the Phenom - and even the processors that haven't been riddled with those issues are still not particularly good for performance and price.

It won't be long before something big happens, and I sincerely hope it doesn't leave nVidia controlling it all.