3600 or 820

Hi I've been asked to build a new system for a relative, however its on a scrict bugget.

It doesnt need to be massively powerful, however it must run modern programs and vista and the like.

now I've sorted out most of the parts, but when it comes to the cpu ive hit a problem. It's odvious that the c2d series are much better than the XPs price/performance. But they don't go low enough in price (Including the e4300) - it's not just the cost of the chip, but the motherboard as well, both together come about £160 ($350 - i think).

However, XP 64 X2 line are very cheap these days and the motherboards (AM2) are also cheap. both together come to about £100 ($215) - but for a little more I could get a Pentium (gasp) D 820 and p965 board, this would allow for future up grade to a C2D system, however im sure if AMD will release a new chip they will grab a new socket or move to Socket F entirely.

So what would you recomend a PD 820 (with the chance of future upgrade avalible) or the XP64X2 3600 or something entirly different.

Thanks

Vern's right, but if your relative is thinking of upgrading to a C2D, then the Pentium will be a good route. But get a 915D over the 820D...it has double the cache, and runs cooler. Just another tidbit to chew on. GL

Thanks for the input it seem to me that AMD will do me the best justice, so unless anyone has a radical ideas, I think i will put a 3600 or 3800 into the build -

is there a signifigant performance increse between a 3600 or 3800? bearing in mind it will be coupled with 1Gb of RAM 7300GS Vista HB 64bit

With today's pricing, I'd go with a $110 X2 4600+ ($100 OEM) at least.

I just built a new computer for my sister on a tight budget. I used the 65nm version of the AMD X2 4800+ (US$135) and a motherboard based on the AMD 690G chipset (US$99) which has surprisingly good video built into the mobo (that total translates to £118 according to Yahoo). It runs Vista Home Prem fine with the aero interface. I was actually going to use the 4200+ originally but decided the budget would support the 4800+. I wanted to stick to 65 Watt CPUs to keep the cooling down. I'm very impressed with what the AMD products can do for budget systems. I am planning a similar system for my HTPC, I like the HDMI built into the 690G board, but I'll probably go with a 3600+ there so I can hope for passive cooling.

I would recommend AMD and consider onboard video for a budget system to run Vista.

I think passive for an x2 3600+ might be iffy. You'll want a kick-arse aftermarket heatsink.
Yes; huge fin area and a good (maybe 120mm) case fan somewhere near it to blow out all the hot air of the heatsink. Passive cooling is a science apart, because you have to think well of the whole case and it's ventilation but if you do it well, it's a really good thing. Undervolting can also help a lot to lower the temps in this case and I think there is room for serious undervolting in a 65nm X2 3600+. Maybe (but these are only rough numbers of mine) it will comfortably sit on 1.25 or even 1.20V on full load.

x2 3600 with a cheap amd chipset all the way, just get an amd 690g board that has the best integrated gfx on the market right now and you'll be set. Just get the arctic cooling freezer 64, stay away from the zalmans, I almost destroyed my cpu because of the retards at zalman who designed the way it clips onto the cpu

That's why I think the amd 690g is such a great chipset, it's cheap, and has very powerful integrated gfx (relative)

To tell you the truth (I'm not going to lie to you since it will cost you down the road), just about all integrated mobos suck for overclocking, that's something that you'd want the 570ultra chipset by nvidia or the 580x chipset (though I haven't really paid attention to it's overclocking). But the 690g chipset has excellent features which is why I recommend it, if you want an overclocker, teh 570ultra and a gfx card would probably be the way to go

I wanted to demo that chipset tell us more how is the gaming on it?
Hey dewd,
I haven't tried gaming on it yet. I just finished putting it together last night (3 day shipping after the price cuts), and it's currently running a 24 hour memtest to make sure everything's happy. I'll install a couple games tomorrow or Monday and get back to you on that. I'm not a big FPS person, so I'll probably try Oblivion and Titan Quest, they're about the most demanding I have, and maybe I'll try the SupCom demo too.

I think passive for an x2 3600+ might be iffy. You'll want a kick-arse aftermarket heatsink.
I was thinking maybe the Thermalright HR-01-K8 (plus the AM2 bracket thingy). It claims to be designed for fanless cooling. Anybody got experience with these? The 690G chipset seems to run fairly cool, but I haven't put any demanding 3D games on it yet.

I was also planning to leave cool'n'quiet enabled, and maybe underclock a bit. This is all intended for an HTPC in an entertainment center that moves a lot of air internally (to keep the receiver, PS3, and Xbox360 happy). That build is sometime in the future (mid summer?), my "gaming" computer with a P4 and AGP 7800GS is due for replacement next (hello e6600 and HD2900XT/8800GTX ).

That's total bullsh!t and fanboyism right there

You're a complete idiot if you think that's a smart move, I'm going to be lmao when the k10 cpus come out and the op and I upgrade our am2 systems to a faster cpu for a cheaper overall cost and it blows conroe out of the water. Of course it really depends on what the actual silicon can do when they release it, but seeing what k10 is supposed to have, I'm expecting something huge from amd especially since they refresh their architectures only every 3 or 4 years.

also cache means nothing and you are a complete idiot yet again if you would buy the windsor 3600, since that one costs more, runs hotter and doesn't oc as high as the 65nm brisbane 3600 with 512kb cache per core which demolishes the 820 in about every benchmark. I would say it's safe to say that an oc'd 3600 also beats the 965presler that is the top netburst cpu out there, so for the price, you can't beat the 3600. n00b

For the highlighted reasons....

....

Look at his post count, location and the thing he said. It just has to be a troll account. If he comes back to defend his position, I'm the real father of Anna Nicole's child (forget what the DNA test said..)

Eh. You flame, you'll take the blame by yourself. Hence, the "Don't feed the Trolls".

Ewww, so when she was fat did you slap her azz and ride the wave? roll her in flour to find the wet spot? Get a hydraulic jack to clean between folds?He was just looking for his laptop, underneath those hooters....and one thing lead to another. 8O

Ewww, so when she was fat did you slap her azz and ride the wave? roll her in flour to find the wet spot? Get a hydraulic jack to clean between folds?He was just looking for his laptop, underneath those hooters....and one thing lead to another. 8O
There are just somethings we don't discuss. That would be one of them *shudders*

Funny you should ask... I've been using a PD820 for a little under two years, and I have a brand new X2 3600+ working for me in my HTPC.

First off, the X2 can be put in a cheaper board, so that should be considered. However, you'll want to get 800MHz RAM for it, whereas you'll get away with 533MHz RAM for the PD. It's not like the X2 won't work well on 533 RAM, but it's able to take advantage of better stuff so it's worth the extra $20/GB (which you saved on the cheaper mobo).

Secondly, the X2 is a very cool-running chip, and the 820 is a very hot-running chip. If you have a good cooling solution in place, this might not be a huge issue for you, but if the computer is used a lot, you should consider that the overall cost of ownership will be less for the 3600+ just because of the power it saves.

Both chips should overclock very well. I have my PD820 running at 3.36 GHz, at a reduced Vcore of 1.3V. I haven't pushed the X2 to the limits, since it's in a HTPC and not a machine where I need a hell of a lot of power. I'm running it at 2.185 GHz.

I run folding@home on both of these machines, and at the frequencies I'm using, the PD is quite a bit faster. However, I've found that per clock the X2 is about 1.5 times as productive (folding@home is very floating-point intensive). If you decide to overclock to the 3GHz region, the X2 will beat the 820 at everything, hands-down, and at lower power consumption.

A further consideration is upgradeability. If you get the a 965 chipset board, you'll be able to drop a C2D in later (maybe even a Penryn). On the other side, the AM2 socket should handle the upcoming AM2+ processors, due out at the end of the year. If your friend decides to upgrade in a couple years, there should be a very cheap AM2+ processor available that will be leaps and bounds better than the 3600+.

Best way seems AMD indeed, but I am wondering why noone is recommending buying the cheapest AM2 motherboards out there, the ones that run on the geforce 6150/nforce 430 chipset...
Is there anything wrong with it for it to be this cheap?

As a intel fan boy let me tell you:

1) the 800 series is junk :!: - the only good chip is the 805 - and its really not as good as a amd x2

2) the 800 series was only bridge for the quad core and until the 900 series was ready. The 840 EE was the saddest point in intel history - period!

below $70 805, ~$80-$150 x2 am2, then a e4300 or e6300, then e6600 ($300)then a q6700 ($970) - skip the rest

I wanted to demo that chipset tell us more how is the gaming on it?
Hey dewd,
I haven't tried gaming on it yet. I just finished putting it together last night (3 day shipping after the price cuts), and it's currently running a 24 hour memtest to make sure everything's happy. I'll install a couple games tomorrow or Monday and get back to you on that. I'm not a big FPS person, so I'll probably try Oblivion and Titan Quest, they're about the most demanding I have, and maybe I'll try the SupCom demo too.

This is something i'm very interested in as well. Those 690g chipsets look to be a very good option. There are boards out there with this chipset that clock fairly good actually. I think you could expect 2.6 out of it maybe more. The HT bus on these things has reached heights of >1900mhz, which should help the integrate graphics as well which also overclock nicely by results i've seen.
All right I've now had a chance to try a few games out on the 690G chipset. The CPU is a 4800+ (Brisbane) with 1 GB of DDR2-800 RAM, and the mobo is the Sapphire Pure Innovatio HDMI. Keep in mind that this computer was built as a general purpose machine for my sister not a gaming PC, the whole thing cost less than a single 8800GTX card. Here's what I found:

Oblivion: This game was able to run on the 690G - sort of. The typical framerates were running around 12 frames per second at 1024x768 (1280x960 was pretty much unbearable) with no AA or HDR or any other fancy stuff. The image quality looked pretty decent (until I went outside) but the framerates were atrocious. For comparison, my regular computer is a P4 3.2 HT with an AGP 7800GS, which was pulling 40-50 frames per second at the same settings (no, I don't normally play at 10x7, even with the obsolete PC, just wanted to see how it compared). I would say these results are pretty much expected, Oblivion is known for being very GPU dependent, and if a sub $100 motherboard including integrated graphics could even run with a $100 standalone graphics card I would be surprised, much less a high end GPU. So I offically recommend against playing Oblivion with the 690G onboard graphics, I don't yet have a PCIe card to see how the board performs with an actual GPU, but that kind of defeats the purpose of this chipset anyway. Nevertheless, here's some screenshots to laugh at.


OK this one wasn't TOO bad...

Animating the goblin slowed the frames down a bit...

Ouch! 6 FPS!


After conceding defeat on Oblivion, I loaded up Titan Quest. The performance here was actually quite bearable. The graphics were a little below (~25 FPS) what I get on the P4/7800GS, and I didn't find it painful to play. This is not as good as using the standalone vid card, but again this is not surprising.

Next I moved on to the Supreme Commander demo. In this test the new computer did relatively well. At the beginning of the mission, the P4/7800GS performed a little bit better, which didn't seem too surprising, since the 7800GS isn't that bad a GPU and there wasn't much CPU load yet with my 4 units. As the level progressed, I found that the AMD machine actually started to significantly outperform the P4 as the unit count grew. I attribute this to the GPU being less important in this game compared to the CPU, combined with the superiority of the X2 over the P4, where the P4 started to really struggle as more units were in play.

Finally, I loaded up a less graphical but still 3D game, Civilization 4. This one played just fine .I tend to think this type of game is more appropriate for the integrated video anyway. I am also appreciating this computer as I sit here typing without having to listen to the roar of all the cooling fans that the P4 has, despite F@H moving along at about 50% faster than the P4 in the background on the other core.

Since this computer is for my sister and will be delivered in a week (and it's my first AMD build in about 10 years, since a K6-II), I don't really want to go playing around with overclocking on this. Still, I hope I have answered a little bit about gaming with the 690G chipset. In summary, it will work in some cases but don't try it with GPU intensive games like Oblivion.

Also, I agree with BaronMatrix on this point: the C2D may be the best now, but the X2s are still very nice CPUs, especially at these current prices. For what this computer is intended for, the AMD works quite well. Which, to get off the tangent, this computer's intention is in line with the thread's OP's intention.

Glad to be of help. EDIT: Plus, I had to convince myself that the 8800/8900/HD2900 I'm going to get for my under-construction gaming machine is worth it. Convincing accomplished. [/EDIT] I definitely recommend this chipset for systems that don't have to play graphically intense games. To tell the truth, I was amazed that Oblivion ran at all, a year ago when it came out it kicked my old 9800 Pro's butt almost as badly as it did the 690G, which led me to get the GF7800GS. (Being stuck with SKT 478 and AGP is no fun).

Also, I forgot to mention that this whole system is running comfortably off of a 330 Watt Seasonic - try that with a discrete GPU. The only noise from the computer as it runs is from the el cheapo case fan, which I might just spring for a scythe (noctua is not compatible with the spirit of this system) to make it really quiet. I never really paid attention to how much noise the GPU fan makes on my old computer, but the chipset is very quiet (no NB fan, just a big HS).

looks nice, I was expecting great results from amd because of the high end gfx they put in it and how cheap it is compared to the cheapest worthwhile 965g boards

Hmm, seemed pretty interesting, but it was very one sided, something I expected from scientia and I don't think all the information can be trusted, though a great deal I believe that intel would do just to get more sales

3600 all the way, it's very overclockable and solid at it's price range.