AMD or Intel !!!

[hexsim]

Brand new to forums, first time builder as well. Got everything down for the computer I want to build already have the parts from newegg, except I'm having second thoughts about going AMD for the CPU and I was wondering if anyone would be so kind as to give me some advice.

Ok here goes..Some people are telling me AMD is better for the buck (which is probably true) but intels are certainly better CPUs at this point. I was planning on building my computer tomorrow if i decided to keep it AMD, if not I would have to send it back along with the motherboard and swap em out for a more expensive intel CPU+MB.

The CPU I currently have is the AMD x2 6400+ and I was thinking of swapping that out for the Intel c2d e8400. Along with that I would swap out my Asus M2N-SLI nforce 570 for a Asus P5E LGA 775 Intel X38

All in all it would cost me about $170, and so my question is, is it worth it? I may in fact want to swap my 800w psu for the 900w as well if i do that since it's only about $10 more (go figure)

All in all this is the setup I have aside from cpu+mb: evga 8800gtx, creative x-fi xtremegamer, asus 20x dvdr, abs tagan bz 800w psu (may swap too for 900w), 4x g.skill 1gb, WD raptor 150g (prolly will get another eventually), all in a neatly packed antec nine hundred black steel atx mid tower case.

And yes I plan on playing lots of games, mostly fps's ;P

I'm really struggling with this one lol, everyone I ask says one of 2 things; either that I will barely see a difference certainly not one thats worth $200, or that I will see a large difference and that Intel blows AMD out of the water lately and it's totally worth the wait/money. It would be greatly appreciated if someone could convince me one way or the other ;D

Thanks in advance.

 

[cprince]

I'm split on the CPU part, but on the graphic card, you should go with the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2. It's faster than the 8800GTX in most cases.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Originally posted by: hexsim
Brand new to forums, first time builder as well. Got everything down for the computer I want to build already have the parts from newegg, except I'm having second thoughts about going AMD for the CPU and I was wondering if anyone would be so kind as to give me some advice.

Ok here goes..Some people are telling me AMD is better for the buck (which is probably true) but intels are certainly better CPUs at this point. I was planning on building my computer tomorrow if i decided to keep it AMD, if not I would have to send it back along with the motherboard and swap em out for a more expensive intel CPU+MB.

The CPU I currently have is the AMD x2 6400+ and I was thinking of swapping that out for the Intel c2d e8400. Along with that I would swap out my Asus M2N-SLI nforce 570 for a Asus P5E LGA 775 Intel X38

All in all it would cost me about $170, and so my question is, is it worth it? I may in fact want to swap my 800w psu for the 900w as well if i do that since it's only about $10 more (go figure)

All in all this is the setup I have aside from cpu+mb: evga 8800gtx, creative x-fi xtremegamer, asus 20x dvdr, abs tagan bz 800w psu (may swap too for 900w), 4x g.skill 1gb, WD raptor 150g (prolly will get another eventually), all in a neatly packed antec nine hundred black steel atx mid tower case.

And yes I plan on playing lots of games, mostly fps's ;P

I'm really struggling with this one lol, everyone I ask says one of 2 things; either that I will barely see a difference certainly not one thats worth $200, or that I will see a large difference and that Intel blows AMD out of the water lately and it's totally worth the wait/money. It would be greatly appreciated if someone could convince me one way or the other ;D

Thanks in advance.

I wouldn't upgrade....most games are limited by the video card at most resolutions, so upgrading your CPU won't make much of a difference anyway. And you already have plenty of RAM as well.

You could try overclocking your AMD CPU to get a little more speed out of it, and compare with your stock speed in games to see if you can notice a difference.

Also, an 800W PS is overkill for either system, I run a Q6600 overclocked to 3.5GHz, and a 8800GT VC, on a 520W Corsair.

Save the money, and decide when cheap 45nm quad cores come out maybe at the end of this year or next year. Or maybe put the money to a new LCD moniotr, depending on what you have now.

 

[DSF]

Honestly, if you're willing to send things back, there are a lot of places you could've made better choices.

The 8800GTX is outdated. The G92-core 8800GTS offers similar performance at a noticeably lower price. You don't need an 800W power supply, much less a 900W one. As the poster above said, 520W would be plenty, especially if you send the GTX back.

AMD may be better bang for the buck at the low end, but not so much when you're paying for one of their higher end CPUs like the 6400. At that point you're definitely better off with a Core2Duo. Since you're running an Nvidia graphics card though, I wouldn't pay the price premium for an X38 board. You'll see very little benefit from it. I'd get a good P35 board instead.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Whoops, I thought you already had built (and couldn't return) the AMD setup, and you were wondering of upgrading to a new intel setup.

If you can send it back, then I would certainly switch to an Intel P35 (not X38, there is not benefit unless you want to do crossfire, and they are more expensive) board and a e8400 of your choice. Also, I agree with DSF, get a 8800GT or GTS (a lot of GT's are factory OC'd to allmost GTS speeds now).

Get a Corsair or Seasonic 500-600W PSU, that will be more then enough.

If you want to OC, I would get a 3rd party HS witha 120mm fan to help keep temps down.

 

[AsusGuy]

Well to be fair to both sides the 6400+ is a very good chip that will keep you happy for a while. However the e8400 runs cooler and can overclock very well which will put it ahead of the AMD system if you are going to OC. But if it?s a big hassle to return the parts and pay shipping etc. then just keep what you have you will be happy. I think every other poster is this thread has made a very good point though if you really want performance OC then it?s ok to go Intel. But it will not blow AMD out of the water unless you can reach a high OC.

 

[Viditor]

I would look at the Radeon HD 3870 X2 1GB ($449.99 at NewEgg)
Currently this is the fastest single card solution, and it's about the same price as the 8800GTX.

I don't think you will see $170 worth of performance gains going from the 6400+ to the e8400, but it depends on what apps you use...if it's mainly games, then you probably won't.

 

[btcomm1]

Depends on what games, you play. Intel's have a bigger l2 cache which can help games and you can overclock them like crazy and they run cooler. They are a better CPU but I would agree that the GTX is not the way to go. If I were you I would either go for the 8800GTS 512 MB version g92 which is almost like the ultra only costs a lot less or go with the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 which is like others have said about the same price as the gtx but performs better in most cases.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: btcomm1
Depends on what games, you play. Intel's have a bigger l2 cache which can help games and you can overclock them like crazy and they run cooler. They are a better CPU but I would agree that the GTX is not the way to go. If I were you I would either go for the 8800GTS 512 MB version g92 which is almost like the ultra only costs a lot less or go with the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 which is like others have said about the same price as the gtx but performs better in most cases.

I agree that the e8400 is a better chip...I just don't think it's worth an extra $170 (JMHO).
As to the 8800GTS-512, that's not a bad choice either (and it's only $300). I guess it depends on which games we're talking about.
The OP should go look at recent benches and decide...

 

[Tempered81]

theres deals for an e8400 for 189 and an 8800gts 512 for 269 currently - a great start.

 

[taltamir]

intel, hands down. e8400 to be exact

 

[Mondoman]

Originally posted by: Viditor...
I agree that the e8400 is a better chip...I just don't think it's worth an extra $170 (JMHO).....

Fortunately, it doesn't cost an extra $170:

CPU: The AMD x2 6400+ costs $164 at newegg, but if you look at the fine print *it doesn't come with a CPU cooler*, and man that sucker puts out a lot of heat! Add on a Freezer 64 Pro and that's an extra $20 or so, for a total of $184. An e8400 will cost about $230 now ($40 less in a few months), so even with the hyped-up price, the Intel CPU will cost the OP $45 more than his original choice. If he goes with something like an e2160 for now and OCs to 3GHz, he would save $110 over his original CPU choice.

MB: The M2N-SLI MB he would return runs $90 at newegg. A very nice GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3R MB will run $125, while an even nicer GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3P MB will run $150. That'll cost the OP $35-55 more than his original choice, but for a higher-quality MB.

Thus, OP's cost difference for the Intel vs AMD MB+CPU ranges from a savings of $75 (e2160 + EP35-DS3R) to an additional cost of $100 (e8400 + EP35-DS3P).

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: Mondoman

Originally posted by: Viditor...
I agree that the e8400 is a better chip...I just don't think it's worth an extra $170 (JMHO).....

Fortunately, it doesn't cost an extra $170:

CPU: The AMD x2 6400+ costs $164 at newegg, but if you look at the fine print *it doesn't come with a CPU cooler*, and man that sucker puts out a lot of heat! Add on a Freezer 64 Pro and that's an extra $20 or so, for a total of $184. An e8400 will cost about $230 now ($40 less in a few months), so even with the hyped-up price, the Intel CPU will cost the OP $45 more than his original choice. If he goes with something like an e2160 for now and OCs to 3GHz, he would save $110 over his original CPU choice.

MB: The M2N-SLI MB he would return runs $90 at newegg. A very nice GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3R MB will run $125, while an even nicer GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3P MB will run $150. That'll cost the OP $35-55 more than his original choice, but for a higher-quality MB.

Thus, OP's cost difference for the Intel vs AMD MB+CPU ranges from a savings of $75 (e2160 + EP35-DS3R) to an additional cost of $100 (e8400 + EP35-DS3P).

Umm...quoted from the OP...

"All in all it would cost me about $170"

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: Viditor
Umm...quoted from the OP...

"All in all it would cost me about $170"

I believe that was including the price of an unnecessary X38 motherboard.

 

[Viditor]

Originally posted by: DSF

Originally posted by: Viditor
Umm...quoted from the OP...

"All in all it would cost me about $170"

I believe that was including the price of an unnecessary X38 motherboard.

Except that the cheaper boards don't use PCI 2.0...the P5E LGA 775 Intel X38 that the OP mentioned does. I would also suggest that the ASUS board will have a higher quality build, but it doesn't matter...it's what the OP was looking at.

 

[Scottae]

If I were you Id trim that memory down to two 2 Gb sticks so you could add more later. Not the 4 1gb sticks. Mushkin, G.Skill, OCZ, all have a DDR2 1000Mhz 4Gb(2x2Gb) kits at newegg


Note* Are the X38 still having DDR2 memory issues? or they get that fixed? If not Id maybe go with a P35 board and save some cash.

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: Viditor

Originally posted by: DSF

Originally posted by: Viditor
Umm...quoted from the OP...

"All in all it would cost me about $170"

I believe that was including the price of an unnecessary X38 motherboard.

Except that the cheaper boards don't use PCI 2.0...the P5E LGA 775 Intel X38 that the OP mentioned does. I would also suggest that the ASUS board will have a higher quality build, but it doesn't matter...it's what the OP was looking at.

As far as I know, there isn't currently any performance increase to be had by going from PCI-e 1.1 to PCI-e 2.0.

 

[jameswhite1979]

Intel Core 2 Duo 1.6gHz easy clock to 3.0gHz with a ati 3850 but I hear the 387o is great. Build this stuff for friend other day and is faster than my rig

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Mondoman

Originally posted by: Viditor...
I agree that the e8400 is a better chip...I just don't think it's worth an extra $170 (JMHO).....

Fortunately, it doesn't cost an extra $170:

CPU: The AMD x2 6400+ costs $164 at newegg, but if you look at the fine print *it doesn't come with a CPU cooler*, and man that sucker puts out a lot of heat! Add on a Freezer 64 Pro and that's an extra $20 or so, for a total of $184. An e8400 will cost about $230 now ($40 less in a few months), so even with the hyped-up price, the Intel CPU will cost the OP $45 more than his original choice. If he goes with something like an e2160 for now and OCs to 3GHz, he would save $110 over his original CPU choice.

MB: The M2N-SLI MB he would return runs $90 at newegg. A very nice GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3R MB will run $125, while an even nicer GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3P MB will run $150. That'll cost the OP $35-55 more than his original choice, but for a higher-quality MB.

Thus, OP's cost difference for the Intel vs AMD MB+CPU ranges from a savings of $75 (e2160 + EP35-DS3R) to an additional cost of $100 (e8400 + EP35-DS3P).

I didn't read the fine print actually... so after upgrading from a 3800+ to a 6400+, running it underclocked (tp 6000+ speed) with the 3800 cooler for a few days and then getting my 50$ quality heatsink (it was still very hot btw... its a HOT chip!) It was still unstable at stock speed. I noticed it was faster, but not enough...
So I returned it for a refund (rather then replacement)... and bought an E8400...

Lemme put it this way... when I upgraded from a P3 550 to an athlonXP 2500+ barton core (1.9ghz but with extra cache) I noticed a night and day experience...
Thats they type of difference that I saw going from a 3800 to a 6400... and again from a 6400 to a E8400... its night and day.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/...2&model2=921&chart=429
Rendering in xvid.
X2 3800+: 3.31 minutes
X2 6000+: 2.33 minutes
E8400: 1.44 minutes

Also, look at the phenom 9700 quad core there... 2.30 minutes.. haha! (the 9600 and 9500 fall below the X2 6000 in performance!)

And winrar:
X2 3800+: 3.54 minutes
X2 6000+: 2.53 minutes
E8400:2.25 minutes

And Quake IV:
X2 3800+: 76.7fps
X2 6000+: 105.2fps (beating the phenom 9700, 9600, and 9500)
E8400: 136.9fps

And photoshop:
X2 3800+: 3.08 minutes
X2 6000+: 2.06 minutes
E8400:1.40 minutes

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: Mondoman

Originally posted by: Viditor...
I agree that the e8400 is a better chip...I just don't think it's worth an extra $170 (JMHO).....

Fortunately, it doesn't cost an extra $170:

CPU: The AMD x2 6400+ costs $164 at newegg, but if you look at the fine print *it doesn't come with a CPU cooler*, and man that sucker puts out a lot of heat! Add on a Freezer 64 Pro and that's an extra $20 or so, for a total of $184. An e8400 will cost about $230 now ($40 less in a few months), so even with the hyped-up price, the Intel CPU will cost the OP $45 more than his original choice. If he goes with something like an e2160 for now and OCs to 3GHz, he would save $110 over his original CPU choice.

MB: The M2N-SLI MB he would return runs $90 at newegg. A very nice GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3R MB will run $125, while an even nicer GIGABYTE GA-EP35-DS3P MB will run $150. That'll cost the OP $35-55 more than his original choice, but for a higher-quality MB.

Thus, OP's cost difference for the Intel vs AMD MB+CPU ranges from a savings of $75 (e2160 + EP35-DS3R) to an additional cost of $100 (e8400 + EP35-DS3P).

I didn't read the fine print actually... so after upgrading from a 3800+ to a 6400+, running it underclocked (tp 6000+ speed) with the 3800 cooler for a few days and then getting my 50$ quality heatsink (it was still very hot btw... its a HOT chip!) It was still unstable at stock speed. I noticed it was faster, but not enough...
So I returned it for a refund (rather then replacement)... and bought an E8400...

Lemme put it this way... when I upgraded from a P3 550 to an athlonXP 2500+ barton core (1.9ghz but with extra cache) I noticed a night and day experience...
Thats they type of difference that I saw going from a 3800 to a 6400... and again from a 6400 to a E8400... its night and day.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/...2&model2=921&chart=429
Rendering in xvid.
X2 3800+: 3.31 minutes
X2 6000+: 2.33 minutes
E8400: 1.44 minutes

Also, look at the phenom 9700 quad core there... 2.30 minutes.. haha! (the 9600 and 9500 fall below the X2 6000 in performance!)

And winrar:
X2 3800+: 3.54 minutes
X2 6000+: 2.53 minutes
E8400:2.25 minutes

And Quake IV:
X2 3800+: 76.7fps
X2 6000+: 105.2fps (beating the phenom 9700, 9600, and 9500)
E8400: 136.9fps

And photoshop:
X2 3800+: 3.08 minutes
X2 6000+: 2.06 minutes
E8400:1.40 minutes

Maybe I'm wierd, but the E8400, while obviously faster then the 6000+, isn't something I'd upgrade my 6000+ (if I had one) for. Woohoo! I saved 26 seconds in photoshop! 30 seconds in Winrar...! I mean, no doubt it's faster and if I were trying to build an ultimate dual core rig that's what I'd go with, but I think AMD gets dumped on too much while still being competitive, at least with price. What is the price difference between a 6000+ and E8400? Now, if you want to overclock, that's a different story.

 

[taltamir]

The difference between a 3800 to a 6000 is about the same as the difference between a 6000 and an E84000..
Well.. apply those kind of improvement to load times in games...
Winrar is a compression/decompression program... NWN2 I have to decompress a 500MB+ file every time I change a level (every 5 minutes of game time)...
One lever in particular...
With a 3800 it took me 60 seconds...
With a 6000 it took about 30 seconds...
With a a E8400 it takes 15 seconds... I am actually enjoying the game... (I managed to cut down load times on the 3800 to 20 seconds and make it playable by setting ALL graphics settings to max, reducing the size of the texture files needed to be decompressed). Now I can play at high settings, and it looks GOOD!
Its not that my video card wasn't fast enough or even the CPU for rendering the graphics... its just that the load times were unbearable...
I am also enjoying seeing load screens in some games flicker for less then a second.. that there is how I know I got it good.

And NWN2 only uses 300-600MB of ram out of my 4GB... GAH! whats the point of all that ram if it isn't being used!

The sad part is how the slow the phenom is...

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: taltamir

The sad part is how the slow the phenom is...

Yes, taltamir, we get it. You don't like AMD.

We also get that post after post you tell the same lame story about uggrading your 6400+. First you upgraded it to a q6600. Now you've upgraded your 6400+ to a e8400.

We get it.

We also get that you 'cherry-pick' benchies from Tom's to prove your point.

NOW. Bacik to the matter at hand. If the OP wants to 'swap', I'd consider he swap out that Asus M2N-SLI nforce 570 board for a newer chipset - or at least one that would give him 2 times x16 lanes in a multi-gpu setup if that is where he wants to go.

For another $20 he could have gone with the MSI 790fx and gotten 2x PCIe2 16s each with 16 lanes.

 

[Markfw]

If he is going to swap out the motherboard, why not switch to Intel ? As a previous AMD zealot(still have 2, trying to sell one off), I now know that AMD currently has nothing to offer, except at the very bottom of the price range.

 

[v8envy]

Originally posted by: taltamir
..
Winrar is a compression/decompression program... NWN2 I have to decompress a 500MB+ file every time I change a level (every 5 minutes of game time)...
One lever in particular...
With a 3800 it took me 60 seconds...
With a 6000 it took about 30 seconds...
With a a E8400 it takes 15 seconds... I am actually enjoying the game...

Something very strange is going on with your machine. 15 seconds (more like 10) is roughly how long it took me to switch levels with a 2.5 ghz Venice CPU and 2 gigs of DDR ram and a not that blazing 200G 7200 rpm seagate drive. Yes, there was a loading delay -- but it wasn't disruptive to the point of ruining my gaming experience.

I'm going to guess you have virus scanning going on in the background, set to scan every file on the fly. Or your hard drive (and swap file) is full except the outer 10% and fragmented beyond description. That's the only way to explain performance that poor.

Seriously, check http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl...-shootout_4.html#sect0 this out. Performance comparison between E2XXX, E4XXX, E8XXX and a bunch of AMD processors. While the AMD cpus get soundly beaten in every test in that review the difference well under 50% (not 200%), even on the most cpu demanding tasks. And the 6400+ is very competitive with a stock clocked E4500 (not that anyone would leave the Intel cpu stock clocked). Had they overclocked all the cpus to their highest likely overclocks only then would it have been a bloodbath.

But we already know AMD has nothing to offer the enthusiast -- that's not the discussion.

The 4400x2-ish CPUs at the $50 price level are still strong contenders for the bargain bin. At the $100 and over price point Intel walks away even without overclocking in the picture.

 

[IT Professional Ant]

I wouldn't send it back..

I have built alot of pc's..

and the bang for the buck is still amd.. always has been the better option when money is an issue and you want good performance.. I am not a fan boy.. I just am tight with my money..


but ask yourself.. is a tiny bit of performance gain really that important.. the 6400 screams.. I have my 6000+ clocked to 3.2 and it is nutso.. it never chugs on a thing..

I just made a computer with a 6600 2.4 quad core intel.. it was about 600 dollars more then what I built mine for and after installing windows and all the software yadda yadda yadda.. not a hell of alot different and suprisingly not very much shorter to install windows and the other programs.. So that tells me my client that was very specific about what they wanted me to build wasted thier money.. Oh well not my money..

I also looked at all the intel motherboard solutions.. the best Intel Motherboards by the big names are much more expensive then the best motherboards by the same company for AMD processors.. Intel motherboards that are top of the line 200 to 300 dollars.. AMD motherboards that are top of the line 100 to 200..

damn the man cheer for the little guy..