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Is the cheapest Conroe still likely to be faster than the fastest AMD?

Robbie G said:
Easyrider - you make a fair point about dead technology, but despite the fact that you can pick up a reasonable Conroe system (mobo + RAM + CPU) for around £300, you can already pick up a system 90% as fast for only £200 (£100 CPU £50 RAM £50 Mobo).
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That gives you no upgrade path.....
 
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Humate said:
i need 3 new computers for the business with a life cycle of 3 years max. There just for for running word and accounting software etc.

I dont know whether to buy the cheap amd. Money is no object anyway, but it may make me feel warm inside that i have maximised profits for the month.

OR alternatively, go with conroe and watch the employees faces beam with joy when they only have to endure 2 seconds for microsoft word to open rather than 5.
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If all they do is business admin why not just get celerons?
That will save you more money....

A 2.4ghz celeron will be more than enough for office tasks..And you will notice no difference with a conroe in there.

Celerons will or conroe or amd will all open office the same...lol ;) :D
Thats not where the cpu power is gained from....


So really your point is neither big or clever lol
 
locutus12 said:
Go for AMD, its the moral choice at the very least ;) :p
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leading on from the above : i was going to drive 5 miles to my nearest McDonalds today, i fancied a Big Mac meal....... i then decided instead to walk the 5 miles but rather than go to McDonalds i just ate some grass from a field......

it was the moral choice............
 
I don't like "fanboyism" in any way shape or form, the point is, people should go with what they want to go with and not what everyone else says they need or want reguardles of speed, price/performance or upgrade path.
I myself do go for the price/permormance ratio and upgrade path reguardless, AMD or Intel it doesn't matter to me.
I also think it's the wise choice to go for maximum upgradabilty and life cycle, AMD or Intel, as this would be more cost effective in the long run.
At the moment Intel have the upper hand in upgradabilty, life cycle and price/performance ratio.
I was going to upgrade to AM2 but then decided to go for Conroe for the above reasons, not because Intel is better than AMD or AMD is better than Intel, but because at this moment in time it is the wise choice to go for Conroe, in 3-6 months time the wise choice may be AMD but we will all have to wait and see what AMD and Intel have in the winds.
 
I for one have decided Conroe is not right for me at the moment. :(

After I sell my mobo, CPU and RAM, it'll cost ~ £300 for a decent Conroe rig (I wouldn't settle for a 6300, lesser mobo and lesser RAM), and it just won't bring any perceivable difference to gaming because I'm on a 22" CRT and play @ 1600x1200, even in Oblivion. FEAR is the only game I have to play lower (1024x768) because I need the fps (unlike Oblivion, where 40 is fine).

Having said that, even going Crossfire (which would give me more bang for buck @ ~ £300 for another card) would require a mobo upgrade anyway...


Must...resist....spending...money...to.....have...better....CPU

:D
 
I'm deffo going conroe in the next few months. Current rig is almost 2 yrs old now, a stock clocked 3200+ A64 and X800XT with a gig of ram. Superpi is 43seconds at default clocks :(

It's gonna cost a few hunderd but i hear 2gigs of ram, a 6400 and an X1800XT calling my name :p
 
K.I.T.T. said:
Hi guys. For the benefit of the general public, I've written an article with my E6300 compared to a 3800+ X2, both clocked at 2.5 GHz.

I'm a freelance writer for maxit mag.

Heres the link :)

http://www.maxitmag.com/testing-bay/processors/intel-core-2-duo-e6300-preview/

Now quit argueing folks, and read ;)
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A few critiques:

1) Some of your graphs are a bit, erm, biased. You should scale ALL of them from zero on the x axis. Notably the worst was the Sandra MFLOPS with a scale of 15100 - 15900 ;)

2) Would be great to see some 1600 x 1200 games benches, because, let's face it, 800x600 is not "real-world gaming".

3) Would also be great to see stock-clocked benches.
 
Jimbo Mahoney said:
2) Would be great to see some 1600 x 1200 games benches, because, let's face it, 800x600 is not "real-world gaming".
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1600x1200 benches are pointless in a CPU review (as opposed to a system review) because the system won't be CPU limited....

It's rather like testing the top speed of two cars on a section of road where you'll never get much above 80mph irrespective of the car...

Other criticisms are valid, however.
 
The low res exagerates the speed difference of the cpu, high res would only show the gpu is the same across the rigs. A SLI test would show something similar ?
 
Thanks for the constructive criticism :)

Agreed, I know I should have done some real-world gaming tests at higher resolutions, but I was under a bit of pressure from maxit and didn't really have enough time to do as many tests as i wanted to. I really wanted to do some video encoding tests and PC Mark runs :( . However, I really think that tests at lower resolutions should be included (albeit had there been higher res benches), but as far as a CPU test goes lower resolutions would be better.

As far as the graphs go...well, I blame that on MS excel..I just automatically plotted them using data from my spreadsheet and didn't change the scales. My bad.

Sorry about these issues. Hopefully, I'll improve next time (first time I ever wrote an article like that) :)
 
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