intel or amd for media

[claytonian]

one question, i have heard that amd is better for this kind of stuff, is this true?


Im looking to build a media center pc for around 200 bucks, all i need is a mobo cpu(dual core) and 2gb ram, what do you guys suggest, im not going to be doing any gaming FYI, I want to rip my entire music collection, and i want to do it fairly quickly, i have a 52x cddvd drive so that wont be a problem. I want to upgrade to vista but it isnt imparative if if will cause the cost to go over 200. I like newegg and have dealt with them before. Any help/advice would be hugely appreciated, and I would like to order on sunday, so quick replies would be great.

 

[purplerat]

A cheap AM2 board, an AMD 3800 or 4200 X2 and 2 gigs of whatever Ram you can find for ~$50

 

[claytonian]

have any specific suggestions?

 

[elpresidente2075]

If you have a full ATX system, you may want to look for the Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H. I have it and it is wonderful. A 4000 series AM2-based AMD processor, and 2G of G.Skill RAM and you'll be almost exactly at 200 bucks.

 

[claytonian]

by full atx, do you mean the case? cause i only have the case that is on the emachines t3512(I know) and i think its a mid tower

 

[claytonian]

What do you guys think?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103735
3800+ X2

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211066
2gb ddr2 800 ADATA

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128034
GIGABYTE GA-M61P-S3 AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6100 ATX AMD Motherboard

paired with 500gb my book, 8500gt 52x cvdvd


will it run much better than a celeron D 3.2 with 1gb pc 3200 and an unknown crap mobo?

 

[elpresidente2075]

It will be a great system, and much better than the other one you describe. Also, you may want to look into getting one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&Subcategory=5&Description=&Type=&N=2010100005&srchInDesc=&MinPrice=&MaxPrice=&PropertyCodeValue=384%3A6820

I have the Sony and the LG and neither have given me any problems.

 

[jaguarskx]

If sticking to your budget of $200 is your most important priority then stick with AMD.

If you are willing to spend more for better performance then wait for the Intel Penryns to come out since they will have SSE4 instruction sets which can boost DivX encoding performance phenomenally if you are using at least version 6.6.2 (which includes SSE4 coding). I believe the X264 codec (open source version of H264) also includes SSE4 coding, but I need to research that.

Early Penryn benchmarks (April 2007) using DivX 6.6.2 vs. a similarly clocked Conroe showed a 100% performance increase, or in other words encoding time has been cut in half.

When comparing a similarly clocked Penryn to the Conroe using DivX without any SSE4 optimization (i.e. prior to DivX 6.6.2) the performance increase is a respectable 10%.

 

[jaguarskx]

Side note:

I think AMD plans to implement SSE4a in their Barcelona chip, but SSE4 and SSE4a instruction sets are not interchangeable with each other because the instruction sets are implemented differently.

Having said that mating the SSE4 version of DivX with an AMD CPU which includes SS4a will not result in any performance boost. DivX would need to implement additional coding for SSE4a.

 

[claytonian]

Thanks a lot for that jaguars, that was some good info. I want to mostly use it for music though, how do you thinkk that this system will work for that?



edit: also anybody want to suggest a mobo that will work with this stuff that has an esata for my mybook? that is faster that usb also right?

 

[jaguarskx]

Oh, sorry I didn't read your post entirely. I saw media and immediately I thought video.

As for audio, I would just stick with AMD. I don't really know of any audio encoding software that uses SSE4 so spending the extra money for an Intel CPU will not be worth it.

As for Vista, it's out of your budget and not really worth it in my opinion. For the moment, I'm thinking about sticking with Win XP Pro until Microsoft releases Vista's replacement in late 2009 / early 2010.

Initially when I first heard about Vista I though I was definitely going to upgrade, but MS stripped out two major things which made me decide against upgrading to Vista:

1. Better security.
2. New file system.

Both would have more or less made current viruses and trojans less able to infect Vista from what I've read.

To me Vista is just an updated desktop.

 

[sepayne21]

if you're gonig to scrap your mobo anyways, you may want to look into figuring out what mobo it is. if it is a socket 775 you could look into flashing the bios with the mobo manufacturers bios then check what cpu's are supported with your new bios

once the bios is flashed you will probably be able to just drop in a dual core p4(not as good as amd's socket am2, but your best upgrade/price)

as long as you have a dual core, it'll probably suit you fine

oh, try to just swap out the proc first and if that doesn't work, then experiment with flashing the bios. If you want overclocking options (which will be slim to none) you'll almost have to flash the bios.

good luck

 

[sepayne21]

I found your mobo to be this

http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/d101ggc/index.htm

let me know if this is right or not. if it is, you can just drop in 1 of these

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010340343+50001157+1051707842+1302820275+1389627502+1050919436&Configurator=&Subcategory=343&description=&Ntk=&srchInDesc=

the Pent D 925 for $99 would be your cheapest upgrade and will give you a big boost in performance. although you're still stuck with ddr1 memory.

I think the best option is going to be socket am2 if you already have a copy of windows, but if you don't you're looking at having to buy xp $99, memory $40, mobo $50, and proc $63 (unless you're going to pirate windows hehe)

so, if you have xp, go amd, if you don't I'd recommend just upgrading your processor

 

[Can Not]

Initially when I first heard about Vista I though I was definitely going to upgrade, but MS stripped out two major things which made me decide against upgrading to Vista:

1. Better security.
2. New file system.
3. REAL 64bit support

added

-------------

You don't need 2GB of RAM. 1GB is plenty for what you are doing.

Someone suggestes an Intel Preslar, I say no, get an Allendale, but check for compatibility first. Allendales start at $75, consume less power, and can overclock wildly.

Also, I think you should invest in a GOOD soundcard, now or later. That's really more important than the whole rest of the computer.

 

[jaguarskx]

3. REAL 64bit support

Doesn't really matter to me because there are no 64-bit programs that I need to use.

 

[sepayne21]

added

-------------

You don't need 2GB of RAM. 1GB is plenty for what you are doing.

Someone suggestes an Intel Preslar, I say no, get an Allendale, but check for compatibility first. Allendales start at $75, consume less power, and can overclock wildly.

Also, I think you should invest in a GOOD soundcard, now or later. That's really more important than the whole rest of the computer.

I looked at allendale first b/c p4 sucks compared to core 2, but it does not support any core 2 cpu's

oh, and I agree with you about the memory, 1gb is enough

 

[Can Not]

Doesn't really matter to me because there are no 64-bit programs that I need to use.

Yeah, but if Vista was a 64bit only OS then you could bet your life 64bit would have been stable.

 

[Joe_The_Dragon]

if you get a board with on board video get one with a dvi or hdmi port.

 

[claytonian]

thanks for all of the replies and insight, i have made my decision, a biostar mobo 2gb gskill ddr2 800 and a 2.4 4800+
I appreciate all of the help and i want to close this thread