AMD 3700+ or Intel D930 ?

[F1shF4t]

3700+ for sure, its quicker in current games, and the gfx card will be the weakest part way before the cpu will, it runs cooler, less power consumption.
If those comps are only being used for gaming at this point dual core will not make a difference, and when it does it would be just easier to upgrade the whole comp as it would be outdated anyways.

 

[robertk2012]

3700. GPU is the most important. Why no overclocking?

 

[RichUK]

Originally posted by: robertk2012
3700. GPU is the most important. Why no overclocking?

He's not using the workstation's for personal use, he is outfitting a gaming café. Therefore factory spec hardware is all that will be used so no overclocking, he is also using 7900gt?s with these builds.

With all that has been said I would personally go with the 3700+ myself. If you really want multithreaded performance later on down the line (to obviously keep up to date), you could just rollout some cheap s939 dual cores to replace the single cored 3700+ processors. This would be simple as the processor is the only thing that would be upgraded, and this upgrade path with provide a second core.

Best option in my opinion.

 

[classy]

930 in this scenario, its a no brainer why, 2 years is a long time. Here is why Quake 4. A lot games will be written to take advantage of dual cpus here in the near future. There are quite a few other scenarios at other websites on the net. That dual core will have a much longer "shelf life" than that single core.

 

[jaythespacehound]

3700+, even dual core optimised games seem to run better on it.

 

[sokos]

good point Classy!
So if games move that way and considering the D930 is much cheaper than the AMDx2 (my heart wants AMD but my head says Intel), what M/B should I choose for the D930?

And what difference does 945 have with 955 in games?
Is it worth to pay the extra bucks for the 955chipset or the 945 will do the job equally good in games?

 

[sokos]

Can anybody propose a decent 945 M/B to match it with the D930 ?

 

[dreddfunk]

I really can't recommend one--but here is a link to the relevant page in the most recent motherboard guide on anandtech:

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=2704&p=4

If you've already looked at it, my apologies!

 

[Acanthus]

Conroe will be the best gaming processor this year.

It will also run cooler than the Pentium-D by an enormous margain.

If you can wait it out for conroes, that will almost certainly be the way to go.

 

[ND40oz]

If you're going with the 930 and you're not overclocking, I'd say go with a 945 intel board, you know it's going to be stable and the 945 boards are considerably cheaper then the 955 and 975 boards, except for the 955 Abit board which is rediculously cheap. Which either means it's a steal or the board sucks, I personnally don't know.

That being said, my gigabyte 975 board has been running my 930 fine with a 25% overclock for the past 5 months.

 

[dguy6789]

I would say that any dual core > any single core. Even the slowest dual core that money can buy is fast enough for any task that any high end single core could do.

 

[rkfrompk]

I hate to jump in this topic for help but im in the same exact predicament he is in. I was just about to buy a 3800x2 when they seller shot up the price about 40 bucks and now im over my limit because i was already pushing the limit before he shot up the price. I just found a 930 for alot cheaper and was wondering if i should go for it. Im going to be gaming just like he is but im also going to be multi-tasking with different applications (photoshop, premiere, etc.) should i go for the 930d?

 

[sokos]

If I choose to go for the new AM2 (they hit the Greek market this week) what RAM should I go for?
800Mhz and high latency or 677 with lower latency?

 

[n7]

Go with the 930.

Dual core is a far more future proof way to go, & as was mentioned, games are generally GPU bound at higher resolutions, not CPU bound.

AMD has screwed up majorly as of late by not lowering their prices to be reasonable compared to Intel's, which makes it pretty much impossible to recommend any of their CPUs at present. (Except for very high end gmaing systems.)

 

[sokos]

update:

I got myself a MSI K9N M/b with a AM2 3500+ CPU, works nice so I ordered half of these babies!
The other half of the machines are going to be Intel D930's with i945 Foxconn M/B's (http://www.foxconnchannel.com/products_motherboard_2.cfm?pName=945G7MA-8KS2)

Now I m stuck with what RAM to get for these babies!