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Budget CPU's

Smiler

Smiler

Smiler

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Hello Folks,

I have just recently put up a new thread in the general hardware section but I think here might be a better place for it.

I am looking to build an micro system to hang on the back of the monitor and would like to know which are the better options from the budget CPU's.

The contenders are:

Intel Atom Cual Core
Intel Celeron Dual Core (I thnik)
AMD Athlon Dual Core

As you can no doubt work out from the question, I have very limited knowledge on this and appologise if I'm asking the length of a piece of string with this one.

Regards,

Smiler.
 
well since the Celeron is Core CPU I would go for that, will offer better performance than the Athlon whilst probably consuming less power, the Atom is fair bit slower than both I think. ;)
 
Ta very much. Though I might be wrong with the dual core bit. I can't find where I read it as a dual-core now so I might have made it up in my head. I've looked at many similar machines and my vision has gone a bit funny.
 
do a bit of research on the web, can get some idea of the performance of each processor, anandtech have an awesome CPU comparison thing on their site.

all depends on which ones you are wanting to compare to be honest, pretty sure the Atom won't be competitive with either the Athlon or the Celeron.

any specific models in mind?

because the likes of the Athlon II X2 255 (3.1GHZ) will likely be fairly competitive against something like a Celeron E3500 (2.7GHZ)

however pretty sure that if you went with a Sandy Bridge cored Pentium Dual Core G620 (LGA1155) it becomes quite a lot faster than the Athlon II.
 
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I'm shooting much lower with the options I have in mind.

It's a bare bones micro PC system from Zotac called the Zbox.

Choices are:
Intel Atom 525 1.8ghz Dual Core
Intel Celeron SU2300 1.2ghz Dual Core
AMD E-350 APU 1.6ghz Dual Core

I shall have a look at that site you mentioned though I'm concerned that in this case the celeron might struggle a bit. As for the AMD, I haven't a clue what that is!

Cheers,

Smiler.
 
The E-350 is AMD's Zacate platform. Pulls a little more power than Intel's Atom, and thumps it in benchmarks. I was planning to use one for an mITX HTPC some time :)
 
eddiew said:
The E-350 is AMD's Zacate platform. Pulls a little more power than Intel's Atom, and thumps it in benchmarks. I was planning to use one for an mITX HTPC some time :)
Click to expand...

an E-350 system actually uses less power than a dual core Atom system.
 
marms said:
an E-350 system actually uses less power than a dual core Atom system.
Click to expand...

Is that based on one of the old Intel chipsets though? I remember the first gen had a ~25 watt chipset (was it G45?) on them that defeated the point of power savings, but I was under the impression that the Ion based boards were much more efficient.

Not arguing, genuinely curious, I plan to build an ultra low power HTPC some time, always good to know the best bits for it :)
 
E-350 for me. It's got good multimedia support, good efficiency and decent power.

The CULV processor (SU2300) is faster. But then it doesn't integrate the graphics chip. Depends what graphic it has for multimedia support, and also will end up consuming more power.
 
The E-350 is on par with the Atom D525 in terms of CPU power but presumably it has better graphics capability? Not sure about power consumption.
 
eddiew said:
Is that based on one of the old Intel chipsets though? I remember the first gen had a ~25 watt chipset (was it G45?) on them that defeated the point of power savings, but I was under the impression that the Ion based boards were much more efficient.

Not arguing, genuinely curious, I plan to build an ultra low power HTPC some time, always good to know the best bits for it :)
Click to expand...

I was just going by reviews a few months ago when i was building an itx system to run 24/7 in my bedroom.
I got an E350 cause they can be run passively and have fairly decent graphics for such a low powered system, i use it as my main computer now as i don't do much cpu intensive stuff.
 
Oh no, I knew this wasn't going to be easy. Integrated praphics on the CPU?

If you take a look at my website (link in my sig) you'll see the kind of thing I use my computer for. The only other uses apart from basic webs surfing and basic photo editing (croping, re-sizing and light levels are about it) is prehaps some basic video editing (cut and pasting scenes in windows movie maker rather than anything flash) and converting music to mp3 files for storage in a networked external hard drive.

So with this in mind, could someone please tell me what I'd be best to go for?

The machines I have in mind are from the Zatoc Zbox range.

The three I've singled out come with:

Zbox ID41 - Intel Atom 525 Dual Core (1.8ghz, up to 4gb Ram, USB 3.0)
Zbox HD-ND22 - Intel Celeron SU2300 Dual Core (1.2ghz, up to 8gb Ram, USB 2.0)
Zbox AD02 - AMD E350 APU Dual Core (1.6ghz, up to 8gb Ram, USB 3.0)

I would post a link to there website so you can see the basic specs but that would be unfair to overclockers. However, they are barebones kits and I'll still need to come here to get the RAM and Hard Drive (planning on a solid state drive) plus wireless keyboard and mouse.
Then there's the networked external hard drive and an external dvd-drive that'll only see the light of day when uploading music to mp3 for the hard drive.
So they'll still be getting a fair old wedge out of me.

Thanks again for the replies so far and for any future assistance.

Smiler.
 
I'd go for the E350 and put in 1 4gb stick of ram, leaving room for an upgrade later, it's the only one of the 3 that supports SATA 6Gbps which will make a difference if using one of the latest SSD drives and also has a couple of USB 3 sockets.
 
Hmm, that makes sense. It's a shame though as that's the only model with a cooling fan and so isn't silent in operation. Still, I suppose it'll stop me leaving the blumin thing switched on!

Looking at that performance chart that Redmint has posted a link to (thanks very much) the leader is the lowest clock speed rated of the lot, with the next two coming in pretty close to each other.

Intel Celeron SU2300 (1.2ghz)
AMD E350 (1.6ghz)
Intel Atom 525 (1.8ghz)

But if the other two can't take full advantage of a quicker Solid State Hard-Drive then they may become pointless, particularly as the higher rated (in that chart) Clelron machine doen't support USB 3.0.
Either way, all three CPUs way out perform the Pentium 4 HT 3.0ghz I'm presently suffering!

I wonder how noisey that fan really is?
 
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Smiler said:
Hmm, that makes sense. It's a shame though as that's the only model with a cooling fan and so isn't silent in operation. Still, I suppose it'll stop me leaving the blumin thing switched on!
Click to expand...

It's a bit of a shame they couldn't have had it fanless, some of the ITX E350 boards are passively cooled although they have quite big heatsinks.
 
I'd also second the E-350 machine, because when investigating HTPCs a few months back it kept beating Atom - and as marms said, it comes with USB3 and the fastest SATA.

Found a video of it being unboxed and turned on here:
- no audible noise from it, and one of the guys says "Not even sure the fan's on right now. You can adjust it so it's off most of the time," which presumably means that it'll be silent except when under heavy load :)
 
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