Decisions.......decisions

[vinyl]

OK my head is about to burst. I'm in indecision as I am an avid AMD supporter. It is about time for me to upgrade but intel is lookin good.
So here is my dilema.
I can get a am2 x2 4600 and a Asus M2N32-SLI-WF for 398$ cdn.

OR

I can buy a core 2 duo 6400 and a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 for 419$

What to do????? Do I go intel after years of devotion or will i be happy with the amd setup????? I play games and have a EVGA 7900GT that i picked up but I'm lost on what to buy for ram as well. Any help would be appreciated. Thnx

 

[1Tanker]

OK my head is about to burst. I'm in indecision as I am an avid AMD supporter. It is about time for me to upgrade but intel is lookin good.
So here is my dilema.
I can get a am2 x2 4600 and a Asus M2N32-SLI-WF for 398$ cdn.

OR

I can buy a core 2 duo 6400 and a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 for 419$

What to do????? Do I go intel after years of devotion or will i be happy with the amd setup????? I play games and have a EVGA 7900GT that i picked up but I'm lost on what to buy for ram as well. Any help would be appreciated. Thnx

Both will perform similarly. If you plan on overclocking, then the Intel setup is(without a doubt) the best way to go. With the AM2 setup, you're highly, highly advised to get DDR2-800(even without overclocking). With the Intel setup, if you aren't overclocking...DDR2-533 will do just fine, but for overclocking the Intel...you should run DDR2-800 as well(to run 1:1 FSB:RAM). GL

PS. Overall the Intel setup should perform slightly better in a lot of apps, and especially games.

 

[NotAPimecone]

I'm sure you'd be happy with either setup. For games, the CPU doesn't matter as much - either will do just fine. I think the E6400 beats the 4600 in most of the benchmarks in the CPU charts, sometimes substantially, other times barely, and once in a while, the 4600 is on top. In games, the E6400 comes out on top, but it seems to be in situations where both are putting out about 100FPS or more, and you're not going to be able to experience the difference anyway.

All that's at stock speeds. The E6400 is a monster overclocker (I don't know how the 4600 overclocks, though). Mine, for example, is OC'd to 3.44GHz @ 1.325V from the stock speed of 2.13GHz @ 1.25V with a Zalman 9700 cooling.

I suppose if you care about SLI, then you should go with the X2 and SLI board, as the DS3 doesn't support dual-card graphics, and you'd have to step up to a more expensive board.

I also don't really know what you need for RAM on the 4600, but for the C2D:

DDR2-533 will do if you don't plan to overclock
DDR2-667 or 675 will do for moderate overclocks
DDR2-800 will do for pretty much any overclock (and is good if you don't overclock but want the RAM to run async with the FSB)

 

[vinyl]

thanx guys. Hey NotAPimecone is it as simple as just raisin the voltage and fsb to get that speed?? And how stable?

 

[NotAPimecone]

Pretty much. This was my first overclock ever. There are a couple of good Core2 overclocking guides in the forums, they were a very good start.

And then, hour after hour of memtest86+ and dual-orthos.

Mine's very stable at 3.4GHz. I've run memtest for 10+ passes trouble-free, and dual-prime for 36 hours, and dual-orthos for 24 hours just because I'd heard of people getting no errors in one, and errors in the other. No problems for me, though.

I haven't tested as extensively at 3.44GHz yet, but I ran dual-orthos for a couple of hours with no errors. I don't think I can get much further comfortably on my current cooling, though. I've tried 3.52 and 3.6GHz, but even with enough voltage to make me a little antsy about temps (not dangerous, but getting up to about 62C), it would reboot after about 15-30 minutes of dual-orthos. I may be able to squeeze a bit more performance out of my cooling (I could try the STG-1 that came with my Zalman, I hear it performs a little better than the AS5 I used instead), but I don't know if it's worth all the extra work. Also, I've found out that my power supply isn't very good (Ultra X-finity), I might do better with a higher-end PSU that provides more stable power.

 

[pshrk]

I just got an E6400 and I am very happy with it. I upgraded from a Prescott, but I have a few Athlon XPs as well. Upgrading from a Prescott allowed me turn all of my fans in my case down so low that I can barley hear my computer anymore. Either setup will be fine, but I would recommend the E6400.

If you go Intel I would try to fit an Asus motherboard into my budget, I have an Asus and I am very pleased with it. My previous Intel motherboard was a Gigabyte one and it was good, but I am much much happier with the Asus. Additionally, I hear that the AM2 Asus motherboards aren't very good but I don't have one so keep that in mind too. Just some things to think about.

Hope this helped at least a little

 

[vinyl]

If you go Intel I would try to fit an Asus motherboard into my budget, I have an Asus and I am very pleased with it. My previous Intel motherboard was a Gigabyte one and it was good, but I am much much happier with the Asus.

Thanks Guys I think I'm gonna go with the E6400 but what would be the better Asus board for the price and should I be looking at the 975 chipset??

 

[Crapola]

If you go Intel I would try to fit an Asus motherboard into my budget, I have an Asus and I am very pleased with it. My previous Intel motherboard was a Gigabyte one and it was good, but I am much much happier with the Asus.

Thanks Guys I think I'm gonna go with the E6400 but what would be the better Asus board for the price and should I be looking at the 975 chipset??


Before you buy the MoBo, check out the OC forum. Wusy has a nice guide to OCing the C2D. 8O

 

[vinyl]

Before you buy the MoBo, check out the OC forum. Wusy has a nice guide to OCing the C2D. 8O

Got a link?

 

[NotAPimecone]

You lazy sod...

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Core2Duo-Overclocking-Guide-v1-ftopict197995.html

 

[vinyl]

LoL thanx man I'm a bit of a newb and when i did a search for wusy i came up with soooo many threads. thnx again