Which would you recommend?

[equivocality]

Im only going to spend about $175 on a mobo/cpu combo...

I like to do special effects on my computer, and hardly play games.


So im between these two:

athlon 64 x2 am2 5200 cpu fan

OR

core 2 duo e4300 cpu fan

Which of the two is best for computer graphics/special effects, etc.

I'm hearing a lot of crazyiness about amd doing ddr2 finally whatnot...

I just want some honest opinions as I've not been keeping up with hardware news.



Thanks

 

[razortonguekiss]

its basically preference, although the 5200 would be the better performer.

the 5200 has faster "bus" speed, and they have an equal amount of cache - although the 4300 has shared cache, while the 5200 has dedicated cache, so the L2 would have to communicate - for computer graphics, at least more complex ones, the 4300 might have a slight advantage... although I'd say that probably won't be the case anyways - the higher speeds of the 5200 offset that. the 5200 has higher initial frequency, although I imagine the 4300 might be better for overclockin.

 

[emp]

And in order not to cripple the 5200+ you're going to need DDR2 800 memory, whereas the E4300 will be fine even with DDR2 533.

(But the 5200+ is faster by a fair margin than the E4300)

 

[Valdis]

5200+ of course. havent you read the news that AMD needs money real bad? oh and its faster than the e4300 too

 

[shadowmaster625]

for 175, you will be lucky just to get a system that runs stable, if you plan on sticking an E4300 in a motherboard that cheap. You really need to drop at least $110 on an intel mobo in order to make it worth buying vs an amd. Best bet is to buy something like a P35-DS3R for 130 and then buy the cheapest pentium 21xx and overclock it. Still, that would run you over $200....

For 175 you'll want the AMD.

Just make sure you buy 2 matching stix of ddr2800. Dont skimp on that!

 

[equivocality]

I have pc 4200 memory (Which I can return for something faster)

And the motherboard I was looking at for the 5200 is an ECS NFORCE4M-A

The memory will be fast enough?

 

[equivocality]

I just read that the AMD 5200 runs real hot, and sometimes causes the system to shot down due to over heating.

Is this true?

I'm going to use this for special effects/ video editing. Some games from time to time.

How close does the core duo 4300 compare to the amd 5200?

pros and cons of both?

Thanks