E6600 OR X2 5000

[still_life]

This may seem like a bit of a stupid question.... But an e6600 or an AMD x2 5000. Please take into account upgradability. I'm currently leaning toward the 5000 because of it's built in memory controller and future am2 upgrades.

 

[jaguarskx]

The built in memory controller doesn't really mean much especially since the E6600 will out perform the X2 5000 at stock speed.

As for upgrading to a new CPU in the future, I have to agree that AM2 is nice since the next gen Athlon is supposed to be compatible with it. However, Intel will be releasing faster C2D CPUs.

One downside to Intel though is that Conroe's successor (which is estimated to come out in 2008) will most likely require a new chipset even if they stay with socket LGA775. But that's at least 2 years from now.

 

[Frozen_Fallout]

This may seem like a bit of a stupid question.... But an e6600 or an AMD x2 5000. Please take into account upgradability. I'm currently leaning toward the 5000 because of it's built in memory controller and future am2 upgrades.

I would get the C2D compared to the X2. Even if you upgrade a year from now AMD doesn't look like it has anything that will beat the C2D e6600. And if you OC the heck out of it you are looking at one heck of a CPU that will last you quite a while.

 

[jaguarskx]

Most likely not. The Core Quads will be compatible with all mobos using the 975X chipset, and most (if not all) mobos using the P965 chipset.

I can't say if Intel's next gen CPU will be compatible with the P965 and 975x chipsets. But that's at least 2 years away.

 

[gOJDO]

The E6600 outperforms every CPU that AMD have!
It consumes less energy than the X2 5000 and dissipates less heat and it overclocks much more. The E6600 is better choice than X2 5000+ in all aspects.

The E6600 performance is almost not afected by memory latencies and performs almost same with DDR2-667 and DDR2-800. It has very nice features and technologies that are much more efficient than the IMC on the X2 CPUs: memory disambiguation, excelent prefetchers and large shared L2 cache.

On the other side, the sAM2 X2 5000+ needs low latency(CL4 or less) DDR2-800 inorder to perfrom same as the s939 with DDR-400 CL2. With DDR2-667 the sAM2 will perform slower than the same clocked s939 with DDR-400.

Like other discutants said, most of the Core2 mainboards with i975 and i965 will support Core2 Quad. Also other chipsets will support C2Q, you have to look after mainboards with VRM 1.1.

All the sAM2 mainboards will support futre sAM2+ and sAM3 CPUs with the K8L architecture. But these CPUs will not be available until Q3 2007.
The s939 mainboards are going to die together with the s939 90nm CPUs.

 

[rodney_ws]

What the guy above me said!