Whats the deal with Windsor vs. Brisbane?

[joetheone]

Hey guys, i am going to be ordering an Athlon 64 X2 processor for a new rig for my parents. While browsing through tom's charts to see which one hits the sweet spot, i noticed that lower clocked windsors seemed to be consistently beating higher clocked Brisbane models.

Whats the deal here? I know the windsors are older 90nm tech while the brisbane's are 65nm, but since i won't be overclocking, should i get a windsor or a brisbane?

Thanks for the help

 

[turboflame]

Brisbanes have slightly higher cache latency than their 90nm counterparts, the performance difference is usually negated buy buying a brisbane clocked 100mhz higher than the comparable windsor.

I'd say get a brisbane, they run cooler and use less power

 

[quanger]

with cool 'n' quiet anabled, the difference in power consumption is negligable.

 

[B-Unit]

Yea, unless your parents are avid gamers, I would go with a Brisbane. The latency is part, the other part is the 90nm chips use 2x1MB L2 as opposed to the 2x512 on the 65nm. In day to day use, which is the catagory im sure your parents would fall into, you will never notice the difference.

 

[altazi]

Go for the Athlon X2 5000+ BE. It's a Brisbane, is cheap (~$100), and overclocks very easily due to its unlocked multiplier. Natively a 2.6GHz device, I hit 3.0GHz just by changing the multiplier - no messing with voltages or anything else.

Using a GeCube HD3870, I can play any game I want to, and achieve reasonable performance. I'm not into beating my head on who has the highest FPS; all that I know is that my machine does very well at 1920 x 1200 playing Oblivion and Half-Life 2.

I love my 5000+ BE system, but it does have one downside. My main computer room is downstairs, and this machine doesn't do as good a job at keeping the room warm!

 

[joetheone]

The thing is that i would like to be able to play the occasional RTS on my parents comp when i'm home from school, and it seems to me that for less money you get more performance out of a windsor. Also I would love to buy the 5000+ BE, but it doesn't come with a heatsink and is a little out of my budget.

 

[caamsa]

The thing is that i would like to be able to play the occasional RTS on my parents comp when i'm home from school, and it seems to me that for less money you get more performance out of a windsor. Also I would love to buy the 5000+ BE, but it doesn't come with a heatsink and is a little out of my budget.

Here you go. Wife has one in her computer it is great. This is the lower wattage one, my wife's I think is the 89 watt or some thing like that.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Windsor 2.4GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Processor $66.00 this is a steal. My wifes system has a 8800GS and 2 gigs ram. She mainly plays City of Heroes.

I am sure if you wanted (you could over clock it a little). Prob hit 2.6 or 2.8 easily.

 

[joetheone]

Thats actually the exact model i currently have in my cart @ the egg. I'm planning on pairing it with an EVGA 8800GS and 2 gigs of RAM as well. How does your wife's system game and perform in every day tasks (e-mail, office, ect)? The build is mainly for my parents to work from home on, but i plan on playing some recent (and hopefully future) RTS games on it such as company of heroes and sins of a solar empire.

 

[caamsa]

Thats actually the exact model i currently have in my cart @ the egg. I'm planning on pairing it with an EVGA 8800GS and 2 gigs of RAM as well. How does your wife's system game and perform in every day tasks (e-mail, office, ect)? The build is mainly for my parents to work from home on, but i plan on playing some recent (and hopefully future) RTS games on it such as company of heroes and sins of a solar empire.

The wife's system runs great as long as I can keep her from down loading spyware and other crap onto her system. She plays mainly City of Heroes. She will alt out of Heroes to chat using AIM and never seems to have a problem. System does not slow down. It is better than my system....of course only until I get a better video card.

Just watch out which 8800GS you get, the fan on the XFX version (the one the wife has) is very loud to the point where it is annoying. I have heard that the EVGA is not as loud. It should handle the games you mention quite well. What resolution is the monitor>?

 

[joetheone]

the monitor will be 1280*1024

 

[caamsa]

the monitor will be 1280*1024

Same as the wife's, you should be fine.