AMD or Intel

[Yorcie]

Hi Guys,

This is my first post and I am looking for advice.

I have for a long time been of the opinion that AMD were better for gaming machines than Intel, but have not been in the upgrade market for a year or more, and have really fallen behind the time times with what's hot and what's not!

My old system has and AMD Athlon 64 3200+ on a 939, and am looking to upgrade..

I know that I need to change my board, and memory too boot, so what would I be best investing in?

I game, and do a lot of photoshop work and find that my 3200+ cannot hack it no more.

I was looking at a AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+ 3.00GHz (Socket AM2) but am I making the right move? I don't want to be spending more than £250 on the processor/board/memory

Cheers

Yorcie

 

[easyrider]

Will you be overclocking?

If so go INTEL


Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £141.99


Abit IP35-E (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £58.99
£58.99

2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £24.99
£24.99

Sub Total : £225.97
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.25
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £40.99


Total : £275.21

This will be great for photoshop and will clock to 3.6ghz destroying anything by AMD by a massive margin.

 

[Trunks9486]

Right now intel is better, especially if you overclock. If you dont overclock you can get a pretty good amd set up, but using the 5000+ Black edition instead of the 6000+ one, but then again that chip shines because its very easy to overclock to 6000+ level.

Good and popular intel combos is one of the p35 boards (Gigabyte or abit) plus a E2180.

 

[Yorcie]

Will you be overclocking?

If so go INTEL


Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £141.99


Abit IP35-E (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £58.99
£58.99

2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) £24.99
£24.99

Sub Total : £225.97
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
City Link Parcel Next Day (Delivered Mon-Fri)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £8.25
VAT is being charged at 17.5% VAT : £40.99


Total : £275.21

This will be great for photoshop and will clock to 3.6ghz destroying anything by AMD by a massive margin.

Overclocking.... Duno... £166 on the CPU, can I do this safely with the stock fan?

I was having a look at:
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR Edition" Retail / OcUK Value IP35 Pro Intel P35 Motherboard / 2GB OCZ PC-8500 Dual Channel DDR2 Kit - Bundle

A little more expensive than what you suggest, but I thought it maybe a better board and memory? what are your thoughts.

Cheers

Yorcie

 

[Trunks9486]

You need a new cooler to overclock the Quad, dunno if you can overclock to anything substancial with the stock. Good coolers are the Tuniq Tower and the Thermalright Ultra 120 extreme.

 

[ots3go]

If you're not going to be overclocking there's no need to be looking at PC-8500 memory.

 

[MikeTimbers]

X2-3800 - £46.99 with a decent cooler could you get you through the next year easily. The X2-3800 will easily make 2.5GHz (usually, YMMV) and is a straight drop-in for your current chip.

 

[TwistNut]

tbh i have amd athlon x2 6400 3.2ghz
and a Asus CROSSHAIR nForce 590 SLi

and it runs my games a treat a bit expensive but im not overclocking so amd rocks and for gaming a quad core has no benifit over a duel core (so i understand correct me if i am wrong)

so id go with the amd setup if u dotn want to spend money on a lot over cooling to overclock the quad

 

[easyrider]

Overclocking.... Duno... £166 on the CPU, can I do this safely with the stock fan?

I was having a look at:
Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR Edition" Retail / OcUK Value IP35 Pro Intel P35 Motherboard / 2GB OCZ PC-8500 Dual Channel DDR2 Kit - Bundle

A little more expensive than what you suggest, but I thought it maybe a better board and memory? what are your thoughts.

Cheers

Yorcie

NO need for 8500 ram

That combo will see you 9x 400 = 3.6ghz

 

[gareth170]

tbh i have amd athlon x2 6400 3.2ghz
and a Asus CROSSHAIR nForce 590 SLi

and it runs my games a treat a bit expensive but im not overclocking so amd rocks and for gaming a quad core has no benifit over a duel core (so i understand correct me if i am wrong)

so id go with the amd setup if u dotn want to spend money on a lot over cooling to overclock the quad

depends on the game/application. i know theres 1 game that uses all 4 cores.. i have a phenom quad core which ive overclocked to 2.5ghz and the temp was only 37c load. so im guessing it can easyly do more, maybe 2.7 or 2.8ghz... because the max temp of this cpu is 70c

 

[Pneumonic]

you should get 3.2Ghz with a Q6600 on the stock cooler.. would be unlucky not to