Pentium D930 or AMD 3500+

[DaBigHurt]

Quick Advise Question, Ive noticed in the CPU Charts these 2 pretty much change Blow for Blow in the Benchamrks, The 930 winning 15 and AMD winning 14 + the Price/Perfomrance ration by a hair.

So If I was thinking of getting one of these two, should I go for the Dual-Core Pentium or stick with AMD's game preformance? I have NEVER bought a pentium, Im stricktly AMD, but the x2's are a little pricey for me.

They are about $15 difference in Newegg. And If I should go for the Pentium, which MoBo should i use? Since I dont know much about Socket T Boards.

my rig right now.
AMD Athlon 3200+
ASUS SLI
76OOGT
x-fi music

 

[Scout]

Ummm... with your current rig, there doesn't seem to be much point in buying the 3500. You won't see an incredible speed difference over your 3200. The 930 brings with it the advantages of dual cores, so that would be the only reason to upgrade in my opinion...

So unless you're addicted to building new stuff (like most of us on this forum!), you should just keep your current rig.

 

[DaBigHurt]

Well Im not really "upgrading", Im selling my current machine to a friend that needs one, but I wanted to build the same one since im on the same budget. But then I started to look at pentiums out of curiosity. I dont have a problem with switching to Pentium for at least this rig until Vista comes out which I probably would upgrade again anyway.

 

[Scout]

Gotcha... Well, then I would think it's a question of do you want dual core? They simply feel a bit smoother to me. Power consumption and heat will be a bit more with the 930 if that's a factor for you. (That nice Hoover sound in the background is my P4 3.7 Ghz.!)

 

[DaBigHurt]

Power & Heat is not concern for me, I'll probably get a Zalman cooler anyway. THe noise wouldnt be a concern for me anyway, who plays games on mute anyway?
So I guess Ill go with the P, being as u already have one, I appreciate your help, as long as my sytem good FPS,.

Have any suggestions on a Mobo for me?

Thanx 4 ur help.

P.S: im pretty Tech-savy so feel free to get technical if its easier 4 u.

 

[Caboose-1]

Power & Heat is not concern for me, I'll probably get a Zalman cooler anyway. THe noise wouldnt be a concern for me anyway, who plays games on mute anyway?
So I guess Ill go with the P, being as u already have one, I appreciate your help, as long as my sytem good FPS,.

Have any suggestions on a Mobo for me?

Thanx 4 ur help.

P.S: im pretty Tech-savy so feel free to get technical if its easier 4 u.

Yes! Another person that doesn't care about noise (like myself). I play my games with headphones, so I don't hear my PC at all. It is convenient not caring about noise, heat and power, those can all be remedied.

 

[Heyyou27]

I love how the stock FX60 with the 7800GT outperforms the overclocked FX60 at 2.8GHz with the X1900 Crossfire setup.

 

[DaBigHurt]

Yes I had a feeling someone was gonna say that. Well I dont mind waiting. Just as long as they dont kill me with the prices, I can wait.
Thanx.

 

[Caboose-1]

I love how the stock FX60 with the 7800GT outperforms the overclocked FX60 at 2.8GHz with the X1900 Crossfire setup.

This is why I don't listen to benchmarks often, they mean nothing to me. In real world applications the OCed FX-60 with Crossfire would completely pwn the stock with the 7800GT. Anyone care to explain why it was bested by a lesser rig?

 

[DaBigHurt]

it is possible to decrease performance slighlty by upping the OC of a chip

Thats what is was thinking also.

 

[Caboose-1]

The signal here is pretty clear, based on this data, even being skeptical about the FX setup, Conroe is pretty much butt-thumping the FX-60.

Well what'd ya expect? It is a newer chip.

 

[Scout]

You'll get a lot of opinions on that... personally I like Asus. They cost a bit more but their high end boards overclock very nicely.

 

[Heyyou27]

Well, AMD chips do not overclock as high in general which means for the mainstream and enthusiast chips AMD is binning out their chips with less margin in the capability of their process.

I'd say a lot of this has to do with AMD's 90nm process vs. Intel's 65nm process.

 

[mjp1618]

I love how the stock FX60 with the 7800GT outperforms the overclocked FX60 at 2.8GHz with the X1900 Crossfire setup.

That's the problem with "real-world" benchmarks; too many variables.

And that's why synthetic benchmarks are so easy to analyse and defend. Just a mathematical score to check.

Just check out XS, you will find lots of unquestionable benchmarks - SuperPi, 3DMark, etc..