Looking to upgrade... Intel or AMD?

[Phyre]

OK, so my current system is as follows:

C2D E6300 1.86 GHz (currently running at stock).
2GB RAM
ATI Radeon 5770

I'm not really looking to upgrade my graphics card, since.. er.. I just got it. And also because I'm not really a hardcore gamer. I do play some games, but not a huge amount, and I can manage with the graphics not being on absolute maximum, especially as I'm only running on a 22" monitor right now.

Other than games, I do do a lot of programming, so multiple instances of visual studio are open. Sometimes Photoshop (CS4), DVD encoding, etc etc. So I am running a fair few CPU intensive programs. Pretty heavy on RAM as well - I often find I run out...

Soo my question is.. Intel or AMD? I've looked at a couple of "sample" systems with the AMD 1055T and i7 920. It seems right now, with most programs being single-threaded or very lightly multi-threaded, that i7 is superior. But perhaps a year or two down the line things would be different?

The AMD system came to about £370, and the i7 about £435. I could afford the i7 system, but is it really worth an extra ~£70? I doubt I'd be looking to upgrade again for at least a couple of years, so preferably the system would be enough to last until then. I'm aware 1366 is disappearing next year, but from what I've heard, no one really knows much about Bulldozer either, and whether it'll actually use AM3.

Sooo.. Yeah, my budget pretty much tops out in getting the i7 system. So that's the upper boundary, it just depends whether a cheaper system might be worth it. Obviously I don't want to spend more money than I have to.

Cheers

 

[eddyc]

I would sell your e6300 and get a q6600. Then buy another 2GB of RAM. Should cost around £130 or so in total and you will see a major performance increase. I would also aim to be overclocking the q6600 to at least 3.4 GHz to get the most out of it. You might want a new cooler depending on what you already have.

That way you can wait until new AMD architecture / new intel socket comes out and then get that.

 

[Phyre]

Yeah, I did have a thought of doing that. My problem is that I'm not much of a fan of getting the top of the range kit when it's first released. So it'd be, what, 2 years before the new stuff has been released for a bit? And I'd probably upgrade then anyway. I'm aware that the Q6600 is a good processor, but is it really that good..? Good enough to last ANOTHER 2 years I mean.

 

[eddyc]

I think the bulldozer stuff is being released Q1 of 2011 so it is down to you how long you would like to wait before getting it.

Since you feel as you do I personally would go for AMD thus saving money now but with a mind to upgrade when the bulldozer has been around for a bit. Perhaps this build:

The quad athlon will be a considerable improvement on your e6300 and will perform well for a couple of years if you so choose, especially if you overclock it a bit. The new AM3 mobo and ddr3 will allow you to upgrade to the next generation of AMD cpus (bulldozer) when they come out (or once you feel that they have bedded into the market nicely).

If you want to just buy and not upgrade then I would go for the i7 or the AMD X6. I think there is not much between them in terms of threaded performance. The i7 is certainly more elegant and will perform well for several years.

 

[Cycrow]

personally i would go for the i7, especially with the current price of the 920's

also remember the i7 will be tripple channel ram, so u'll have 6gb instead of 4gb.

visual studio really does like to eat up ram
especially multiple instances.

also if u ever consider doing multi platform programming, then the extra ram will also help when using VM's

also, for single threaded applications, the i7's with turbo boost are generally better faster as well

 

[Phyre]

Thanks for the help. I decided to go with the i7, since it seems like it will last longer by itself (as in, without upgrading to Bulldozer in a year )

 

[eddyc]

Fair dos. They are great cpus.