e6600 vs. AMD x4 635: Which sucks less?

[cheesehead]

I'm in need of a new PC, and I'm trying to decide whether to keep the AMD bits I just bought on eBay or swap 'em for an Intel system.

The two options are the AMD Athlon II 635 (2.9ghz) and the Intel E6600 (3.06ghz). The AMD has two more cores, but it seems that I'm not going to get much benefit from it - most of what I do consists of gaming, CAD, and ludicrously overcomplicated Excel spreadsheets, and none of them seem to make much use of the third and fourth cores.

Of course, the e6600 is an ancient CPU. There's also the question of overclocking - something both chips should be good at, though the AMD is reputed to be excellent. Which should I buy?

 

[SickBeast]

IMO the AMD setup is better. It should also have an upgrade path to the X6 Thubans provided it's AM3 and the bios supports them.

 

[Termie]

The Athlon II 635 is superior, for everything but "general computing":

Review including Intel Pentium e6700: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/cpu-benchmark-value_5.html#sect1

Review including Athlon II 640: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/cpu-benchmark-mainstream_5.html#sect1

 

[Arkaign]

Athlon II, as it's far easier to get feature-rich AM3 mobos than S775 mobos at this point, better value per $. The S775 mobo will almost certainly have weak Intel-integrated video, whereas there are AMD 800-series mobos for cheap with pretty decent ATI 42xx video onboard, along with USB3, etc.

 

[Arkaign]

Btw, are you building the PC, or buying a prebuilt? I'm asking as it's curious why these two particular chips are the choices.

The E6600 is $84 on the egg, while the X3 715BE Phenom II is $76 sans cooler (decent coolers are $20ish). The X3 BE has 6MB L3 cache, and will be better than the Athlon II or E6600 by far for general use/gaming. As it's a BE, simply changing the multipliers in the bios and perhaps a tiny voltage boost should easily get you to 3.4ghz or beyond as well, without having to run your memory or any other components out of spec.

 

[Throckmorton]

You need the quad core for modern games. Don't buy into the "games only use 2 cores" myth.

 

[Arkaign]

You need the quad core for modern games. Don't buy into the "games only use 2 cores" myth.

While I agree that more cores is better for modern games, in the case of PhII X3/X4 vs. Athlon II X4, the lack of L3 cache just severely cripples the Athlon II in games :

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2836/8

So much so that in every case I've seen, the X3 BE beats the X4 AthII stock for stock, and of course it's easier to OC as well.

 

[IntelUser2000]

I'm in need of a new PC, and I'm trying to decide whether to keep the AMD bits I just bought on eBay or swap 'em for an Intel system.

If you bought the AMD parts already just use that one. You'll see at default even in single thread apps the Athlon II is just faster: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/122?vs=61

Overclocking is a hit and miss, but I doubt the Athlon II would be slower when the two chips are clocked similar. The E6600 is just old.

 

[toyota]

I'm in need of a new PC, and I'm trying to decide whether to keep the AMD bits I just bought on eBay or swap 'em for an Intel system.

The two options are the AMD Athlon II 635 (2.9ghz) and the Intel E6600 (3.06ghz). The AMD has two more cores, but it seems that I'm not going to get much benefit from it - most of what I do consists of gaming, CAD, and ludicrously overcomplicated Excel spreadsheets, and none of them seem to make much use of the third and fourth cores.

Of course, the e6600 is an ancient CPU. There's also the question of overclocking - something both chips should be good at, though the AMD is reputed to be excellent. Which should I buy?

the Pentium E6600 that you have is not an ancient cpu as it only came out about 6 or 7 months ago.

 

[cheesehead]

Btw, are you building the PC, or buying a prebuilt? I'm asking as it's curious why these two particular chips are the choices.

Building. I bought a motherboard and 2GB DDR3 for $40 on Craigslist, and was trying to figure out what kind of CPU to use. One benchmark I saw basically put the X4 ahead in everything, but another I found stated that it was totally useless compared to the almighty e8400.

Of course, direct comparison benchmarks are !#$ rare.

 

[Markfw]

the Pentium E6600 that you have is not an ancient cpu as it only came out about 6 or 7 months ago.

July 27, 2006 is not 6 or 7 months ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2_microprocessors

 

[Arkaign]

Building. I bought a motherboard and 2GB DDR3 for $40 on Craigslist, and was trying to figure out what kind of CPU to use. One benchmark I saw basically put the X4 ahead in everything, but another I found stated that it was totally useless compared to the almighty e8400.

Of course, direct comparison benchmarks are !#$ rare.

Allright, well let's look at it this way :

The Phenom II was the first time AMD really caught up to the rough IPC of the Core 2 Duo / Quad series, though it varies a bit depending on the cache size of the Intel chip you're asking about. Both the C2D and PhII/AthII architechture takes a pretty solid hit on the chin with too little cache, particularly for gaming, but for other things quite often as well.

The E8400 is great, though you should easily be able to outperform stock E8400 speeds with the X3 PhII Black Edition. You'll have more cache as well, 512K dedicated per core in addition to the 6MB of dynamic L3.

It'd be wonderful if you could afford the full X4 Black Edition, but the X3 will be a good middle ground. The unlocked multiplier will make Ocing it ridiculously easy, and it will vastly outperform the Athlon II X4 in many areas due to tremendous increase in cache (7.5MB vs. 2MB total) and ease of overclock. The Pentium Dual Core E6600 (the currently available chip) also has 2MB of cache, and while decent, is no match for the chips with 6MB or more of cache such as E8400 and X3/X4 BE.

 

[Arkaign]

July 27, 2006 is not 6 or 7 months ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2_microprocessors

I'm shocked that you could get confused by this It's almost certain (but not quite), that OP is referring to the currently available Pentium DC E6600, which is a recent release. For all practical purposes, it is a rebranded C2D with 2MB of L2, just as the E6300 and E6400 initially had, along with 45nm tech and increased clock speed. Finding a used original 2006 C2D E6600 w/4MB 2.4Ghz CPU would be pretty wasteful and silly.

So yeah, there are two entirely different E6600 Socket 775 CPUs, both are real C2D tech, but Intel has moved 'Pentium' branding sort of as the new Celeron.

P-D E6600 > C2D E6600, by a decent bit due to 45nm tech and a big clock speed boost, even if the cache size is only 2MB.

 

[toyota]

July 27, 2006 is not 6 or 7 months ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2_microprocessors

I am embarrassed for you. I even made sure I typed "Pentium" E6600. lol

 

[Arkaign]

I am embarrassed for you. I even made sure I typed "Pentium" E6600. lol

Heh, I think he's either joking with us or just simply beyond such pedestrian things as sub-$100 dual cores

The OP's text specifies 3.06ghz, so it's definitely gotta be the PD E6600.

 

[toyota]

Heh, I think he's either joking with us or just simply beyond such pedestrian things as sub-$100 dual cores

The OP's text specifies 3.06ghz, so it's definitely gotta be the PD E6600.

he was definitely not joking. lol

like most people, he saw E6600 and automatically thought of the old Core 2 duo. it is quite confusing especially if someone does not state the speed and or mention its a Pentium.

 

[cheesehead]

he was definitely not joking. lol

like most people, he saw E6600 and automatically thought of the old Core 2 duo. it is quite confusing especially if someone does not state the speed and or mention its a Pentium.

I can't keep any of these things straight.

I might just get an E8400 and overclock the bejeesus out of it. A friend of mine wants a gaming rig, so I can sell the stuff for what I paid for it, no trouble.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Oh damnit, then that makes it different. But the OP already has the Athlon II so he should just keep it.

 

[nyker96]

hands down the x4, if you OC it.

 

[Arkaign]

I can't keep any of these things straight.

I might just get an E8400 and overclock the bejeesus out of it. A friend of mine wants a gaming rig, so I can sell the stuff for what I paid for it, no trouble.

Why would you get an E8400? They're good, but for the $ you can get current gen stuff like PhII X4 BE or i5, both of which will definitely be better. E8400 is still a nifty chip but $170 on the egg, ouch. For $30 more there's the i5-750 Lynnfield Quad w/8MB cache, which is a world better overall.

 

[Markfw]

he was definitely not joking. lol

like most people, he saw E6600 and automatically thought of the old Core 2 duo. it is quite confusing especially if someone does not state the speed and or mention its a Pentium.

You got that right ! I knew there was 2 different E6300's and 6400's, but I didn;t know (don;t follow) the E6600 wolfdale variant.

arg....Boy do I feel stupid. Wikipedia doesn;t even have it listed !!! But newegg does.

When the OP said "ancient" I assumed it was the older one.

 

[cheesehead]

hands down the x4, if you OC it.

I'm curious - why?

Why would you get an E8400? They're good, but for the $ you can get current gen stuff like PhII X4 BE or i5, both of which will definitely be better. E8400 is still a nifty chip but $170 on the egg, ouch. For $30 more there's the i5-750 Lynnfield Quad w/8MB cache, which is a world better overall.

Because I can get a used e8400 for $100.

 

[soccerballtux]

I'm curious - why?

When you OC the bus on any AMD chip they become a lot faster.
I went from 200mhz to 225mhz bus and it made my chip at 2.1ghz feel like it felt when it was at 3.5ghz on the 200mhz bus.

 

[guskline]

I put together a rig with an Athlon II X4 640 and it is FAST. See my sig

 

[cheesehead]

I put together a rig with an Athlon II X4 640 and it is FAST. See my sig

Fast is subjective. Fast compared to what?

Of course, considering what I can afford for video cards, it's likely a moot point.

That said, I'm also quite concerned about Autodesk Inventor, an old-fashioned single threaded CAD program. It's basically a CPU monster.