AMD or Intel? >_<

4p · 12 Jul 2006 at 21:16

£120 for a processor

Im slightly going intels way, i look at these duel cores with higher fsb, l2 cache and clock speeds and i think that these duel cores are cheaper and better than what AMD have to offer...

Any help from you guys?

One of those duel cores can be clocked up to 4.3 i read...

UKTopGun · 12 Jul 2006 at 21:21

For £120 you gotta go AMD as the cheapest conroe is £130.

Wait until the AMD price drops and £120 will get you a nice processor.

Bezinator · 12 Jul 2006 at 21:24

UKTopGun said:
For £120 you gotta go AMD as the cheapest conroe is £130.

Wait until the AMD price drops and £120 will get you a nice processor.

Ya will be mental, some are saying like 30% price drop - time to save my pocket money for a bargin

Stelly · 12 Jul 2006 at 21:27

Intel if your looking for power

but I would go AMD for yourself

Stelly

WJA96 · 12 Jul 2006 at 21:40

Surely this is a rhetorical question as you have not stated your motherboard budget and without that we cannot give you a best processor/motherboard combo.

Do you have DDR RAM to use or can you buy DDR2? Do you require an AGP or PCIe graphics adapter?

eg. The cheapest Conroe is £153 plus delivery from OcUK but add in a £50 ASRock motherboard that will use your existing RAM and graphics and you've got a very potent system.

4p · 12 Jul 2006 at 21:51

Potent you say

My current spec.

1.5ghz amd athlon 1800+
512mb 333mhz ddr
5500fx AGP

I need new everything really .

CPU - £120-£130
Mobo - £100
Ram - £100

WJA96 · 12 Jul 2006 at 22:03

Thorpy said:
Potent you say

Like a 16 year old in an Australian bordello with a packet of Viagra

Thorpy said:
My current spec.

1.5ghz amd athlon 1800+
512mb 333mhz ddr
5500fx AGP

I need new everything really .

CPU - £120-£130
Mobo - £100
Ram - £100[/QUOTE]

OK - Sadly we're going to have to go to a competitor for some parts but...

Intel Core 2 Duo 6400 - £163
ASRock ConroeXFire775 - £56
1Gb Corsair Value Select PC5300 DDR2 RAM £53
AC Freezer 7 Pro - £18
XFX GeForce 7300 GS 512MB - £47

Plus delivery will put you about £7 over budget, but that will almost certainly clock to E6600 speeds on that board and it will therfore perform as well as an FX-62 in most benchmarks.

Cyber-Mav · 12 Jul 2006 at 22:11

i have found x2 3800 cpus now being sold for £150 inc vat and delivery. these are dropping in price now and have become very reasonable in costs. soon should be down to the 100 quid mark.

question is would a x2 3800 be a reasonable upgrade for me, or is my single core opteron gonna be better than the x2?

WJA96 · 12 Jul 2006 at 22:12

Cyber-Mav said:
i have found x2 3800 cpus now being sold for £150 inc vat and delivery. these are dropping in price now and have become very reasonable in costs. soon should be down to the 100 quid mark.

question is would a x2 3800 be a reasonable upgrade for me, or is my single core opteron gonna be better than the x2?

New thread maybe?

UKTopGun · 12 Jul 2006 at 22:26

Cyber-Mav said:
i have found x2 3800 cpus now being sold for £150 inc vat and delivery. these are dropping in price now and have become very reasonable in costs. soon should be down to the 100 quid mark.

question is would a x2 3800 be a reasonable upgrade for me, or is my single core opteron gonna be better than the x2?

If you wait a little longer the X2 3800's should go to under £115

4p · 12 Jul 2006 at 22:55

Well...

I have 600 or a little more for a complete new tower. By this i mean optical drives n all.

http://www.thermaltake.com/xaserCase/soprano/sws/sws.htm - the case

EDIT: Just read that the 7300GT/GS can be overclocked very nicely and its cheap, if i dont get a 7600gt but instead get the 7300... Where can the money be spent...

Explicit · 12 Jul 2006 at 23:38

Thorpy said:
Well...

I have 600 or a little more for a complete new tower. By this i mean optical drives n all.

http://www.thermaltake.com/xaserCas...ano/sws/sws.htm - the case

EDIT: Just read that the 7300GT/GS can be overclocked very nicely and its cheap, if i dont get a 7600gt but instead get the 7300... Where can the money be spent...

Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-126-IN)
£152.69
Intel DP965LT 965 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-011-IN)
£88.07
G.Skill 2GB DDR2 LA PC2-5300 (2x1GB) CAS4 Dual Channel Kit (F2-5400PHU2-2GBLA) (MY-012-GS)
£117.44
BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG)
£117.44
Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A31636) (HD-002-HI)
£55.17
NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE)
£25.79
Antec NSK4400 Mini Tower Case - 380W SmartPower PSU (CA-052-AN)
£41.07

Total inc VAT: £597.67

That's just to give you something to consider. Couldn't fit the Soprano into the budget.

But I really encourage you to wait two more weeks to see how AMD reacts to Conroe in terms of pricing. You might be able to pick up a cheap dual core for £100 which would allow you to buy an X1800XT over the 7600GT, for example.

4p · 12 Jul 2006 at 23:46

Hmmm think ill wait n see what AMD do then, also i was thinking about dx10 compatable cards.

pumpman · 13 Jul 2006 at 00:23

ive seen the x2 3800 oem £123 inc of del today online and as ive a bundle of 939 stuff lying about its going to be a cheap server for me

WJA96 · 13 Jul 2006 at 05:19

Explicit said:
Intel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Conroe" 1.86GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-126-IN)
£152.69
Intel DP965LT 965 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-011-IN)
£88.07
G.Skill 2GB DDR2 LA PC2-5300 (2x1GB) CAS4 Dual Channel Kit (F2-5400PHU2-2GBLA) (MY-012-GS)
£117.44
BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-025-BG)
£117.44
Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 NCQ 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A31636) (HD-002-HI)
£55.17
NEC ND4570 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-030-NE)
£25.79
Antec NSK4400 Mini Tower Case - 380W SmartPower PSU (CA-052-AN)
£41.07

Total inc VAT: £597.67

That's just to give you something to consider. Couldn't fit the Soprano into the budget.

But I really encourage you to wait two more weeks to see how AMD reacts to Conroe in terms of pricing. You might be able to pick up a cheap dual core for £100 which would allow you to buy an X1800XT over the 7600GT, for example.

I would think that PSU is a bit on the lean side for this project. Also - I could not, in good conscience, recommend anyone to buy their Core 2 Duo CPU from OcUK at the moment as they are about 10% more expensive than most competitors. You can get a 6400 from most competitors for the proice of a 6300 from OcUK, which I am certain they will rectify, but until they do, they look expensive.

I also think that motherboard is very expensive for what it is. You are paying a massive premium for pre-launch Conroe compatibility. Given what is now coming out about all the issues with these pre-launch boards, I'm much happier recommending a £50-ish board that is available now and has been tested by people on these forums.

I would also recommend staying well clear of the stock CPU cooler as it's VERY noisy. Hence my addition of the AC Freezer 7 Pro.

4p · 13 Jul 2006 at 22:25

WJA96 said:
I would think that PSU is a bit on the lean side for this project. Also - I could not, in good conscience, recommend anyone to buy their Core 2 Duo CPU from OcUK at the moment as they are about 10% more expensive than most competitors. You can get a 6400 from most competitors for the proice of a 6300 from OcUK, which I am certain they will rectify, but until they do, they look expensive.

I also think that motherboard is very expensive for what it is. You are paying a massive premium for pre-launch Conroe compatibility. Given what is now coming out about all the issues with these pre-launch boards, I'm much happier recommending a £50-ish board that is available now and has been tested by people on these forums.

I would also recommend staying well clear of the stock CPU cooler as it's VERY noisy. Hence my addition of the AC Freezer 7 Pro.

Thankyou!

Explicit · 13 Jul 2006 at 22:45

WJA96 said:
I would think that PSU is a bit on the lean side for this project. Also - I could not, in good conscience, recommend anyone to buy their Core 2 Duo CPU from OcUK at the moment as they are about 10% more expensive than most competitors. You can get a 6400 from most competitors for the proice of a 6300 from OcUK, which I am certain they will rectify, but until they do, they look expensive.

I also think that motherboard is very expensive for what it is. You are paying a massive premium for pre-launch Conroe compatibility. Given what is now coming out about all the issues with these pre-launch boards, I'm much happier recommending a £50-ish board that is available now and has been tested by people on these forums.

I would also recommend staying well clear of the stock CPU cooler as it's VERY noisy. Hence my addition of the AC Freezer 7 Pro.

That rig will barely use 300W at peak (assuming nothing is overclocked) so that PSU won't even break a sweat. As for mobo/conroe prices, unfortunately that's the consequence of being an early adopter. I agree that the stock cooler is not the best, but when you're working with a tight budget it's more important to get all the essentials into the spec. An aftermarket cooler can always be added later on when you have a bit more cash

WJA96 · 13 Jul 2006 at 22:58

Explicit said:
That rig will barely use 300W at peak (assuming nothing is overclocked) so that PSU won't even break a sweat.

I think it'll get overclocked eventually, no?

Explicit said:
As for mobo/conroe prices, unfortunately that's the consequence of being an early adopter.

No, only if you've already placed your order. If you haven't placed your order then you can get more for your money elsewhere. I understand that OcUK placed an order at a certain point with Intel, but where you are looking at a difference of £100 in the price of an X6800 (OcUK: £775, Competitor: £692) that's too much to explain away on exchange rate fluctuations.

As for the motherboards, OcUK could stock ASRock if they wanted to. They apparently don't want to. I've tested the ConroeXFire and, 775 TWINS and 775/945GZ and apart from the fact that the 945GZ doesn't support 6xxx series Core 2 Duos (the 1066FSB ones) they all work very well. I have been able to get 3.6GHz out of my E6700ES on stock volts so they even clock OK.

Explicit said:
I agree that the stock cooler is not the best, but when you're working with a tight budget it's more important to get all the essentials into the spec. An aftermarket cooler can always be added later on when you have a bit more cash

You're only having to cut corners because you're pricing everything up from OcUK. As I demonstrated above, if you buy the components carefully, you can get everything within budget. OcUK get a lot of my personal business, but only if they are price competitive and actually stock the stuff I want to buy.

Explicit · 13 Jul 2006 at 23:13

WJA96 said:
If you haven't placed your order then you can get more for your money elsewhere.

-----------

You're only having to cut corners because you're pricing everything up from OcUK.

Let's be realistic. I can't start spec'ing from competitors, that's against the rules. Even mentioning other places being cheaper can get you into trouble these days. On the other hand, you can feel free to post a spec from competitors and enjoy your holiday from these forums.

@OP: I have no problem recommending OcUK, I've dealth with them many times. Other places may be cheaper but when it comes to stock, they usually have nothing. As Gibbo has said many times already, OcUK are getting most of the European allocation for Conroes.

fish99 · 13 Jul 2006 at 23:20

WJA96 said:
I've tested the ConroeXFire and, 775 TWINS and 775/945GZ and apart from the fact that the 945GZ doesn't support 6xxx series Core 2 Duos (the 1066FSB ones) they all work very well.

Just a quick question if you don't mind - do either of those Asrock boards you mention support the E6300 out of the box or do they need a BIOS update with another chip in place?

Please excuse the hijack.