Upgrade: AMD or Intel

dillingerdan · 11 May 2009 at 11:26

OK, well I lost a stick of memory yesterday, and now Vista is chuggling slowly along (down from 2GB to 1GB, since my FlexXLC stick died). I'm on an E6600, with 2GB (obviously now 1GB) of memory, only real splurge in the last few years was to get rid of my nasty DFI R600 to X48. Since I lost the RAM, I don't want to drop more money on DDR2, so was thinking of AM3, or 1366, since there are DDR3 options going extremely cheap. I also managed to resist Quads for this long too, so thats also a reason to upgrade.

The thing is, do I go D0 i7 920, or an AM3 Phenom II? I know the Phenoms clock very very well, but is the i7 still faster (when Oc'd too)? Also Biostar seem to be making very good boards, and they have an option for both I believe, so are they better than DFI at the moment? They seem to be everywhere so I just want to know. Also do the DFI boards unlock the extra core on the 720?

Any help appreciated.

linktoinsanity · 11 May 2009 at 12:08

With an x48 motherboard it might be worth upgrading to an E8400/E8500 CPU (for dual, or if you really want quad go for a Q9550+) and buying this memory: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-136-CS. Much cheaper and easier than replacing the whole base of the system and Core 2 (wolfdales) are on par with the current AMD offerings anyway and it should give you a nice increase in system performance. i7 would be a bit expensive and a waste of money in your case imo.

dillingerdan · 11 May 2009 at 13:57

Although a valid point, very valid and tempting, I don't really want to stay with this now. The Core2 is fine, but it's time for some new age tech. I have been here for a while, ordered it almost as soon as Core2 appeared, so I think I want to move fully up. If I go Quad it may aswell be an i7, since it's pretty much the same price. If I bought memory for this I;d go for 2x 4GB PC9600 sets or soemthing, so close to £100 anyway, to fill the board to capacity, and I can grab DDR3 (6GB) for that much, and have much more bandwidth to play with. The only real loss would then be the motherboard. And thanks to visiting Clunk, it may be a £400 expense. Damned tempting EVGA Classified board. :eek:

I think I am definitely going to go i7, but the board thing needs questioning I guess. Might hijack that other X58 thread in the motherboards section...

Audigex · 11 May 2009 at 14:44

Biostar may unlock the 4th core on the 720 - it's still pot luck, however, with about 1/3 working fine, 1/3 being unstable and 1/3 not working at all.

As far as I'm aware it's only biostar that can do it, although I saw mention of another motherboard.

Go i7 if you can afford it and want to spend the premium, if you can't or just want bang-for-buck as opposed to just bang then choose 775 if going dual-core and AM2+/3 if you want quad (or tri) core.