Is AMD the better option for non over clockers?

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rooseveltdon

rooseveltdon

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I am building my first system and i am probably going to be using an AMD cpu (AM2+), I am not 100% sure on which cpu i should settle for but i don't plan on over clocking my cpu or ram and honestly it seems to me that i get more bang for my buck with AMD rather than intel. I am not a major gamer but i would like to try some pc games like half life 2, F.E.A.R and bioshock, the only game i play regularly is WoW and that is not a graphically demanding game to begin with. So before i go ahead and start buying the parts i would like your opinions, since i don't plan on over clocking is AMD the better choice for me?

System Specs:
AMD athlon x2 5600 black edition(lol in case i do change my mind about overclocking in the future) or X2 6000

ASRock N61P-S AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE Micro ATX AMD Motherboard ( or A780FullDisplayPort in case i want to spend more)


Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory

seagate 500gb harddrive

lite on dvd Burner with LightScribe (or an LG combo drive)

Nvidia 9500 gt or HD4850 for my graphics card

alien case from xoxide

an extra case fan just in case
(and this build didn't cost me much either)



 
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enigma067

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firefoxx04

firefoxx04

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if you think you wont oc then i think you should get a faster athlon that isnt the black edition. im not sure on prices but wouldn't a Athlon 5000 black edition cost as much as a athlon that is 3ghz at stock voltage and non black edition. i have the athlon 5000 non black edition and i easily oc it to 2.8 and it has room to get to 3.0 without much just need a new cooler. so i would go with a faster non black edition and get more bang for your buck. check out this CPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103272

this one is faster and has 2mb cache i belive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103228

so the 3.2ghz one is $90
and the 5600 is $70 (non black edition) so the black edition is probelby as exspensive as the 6500. and each of these CPUs can OC a little by just upping the FSB. and make sure your board is AM2+ because you can always upgrade to a quad and some AM2+ boards will have support for the new AM3 (mine does if i do the bios update) unless your going to run 64bit OS then you might consider only 3GB RAM since you cant utalize all 4GB with 32GB.
 
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roofus

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why not post a comparison of a Yorkfield? that would be much more comparable than an i7 in every single way. if the OP looks around here he will find out for himself so why mislead someone into thinking they have to get a 1k CPU to contend with the p2 940? he could easily build a Yorkfield system for about the same amount and same performance, maybe more since the p2 on average falls somewhere between the Kentsfield and Yorkfield.
 
The_Blood_Raven

The_Blood_Raven

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A Q9400 is equal to a Phenom 2 940 and costs a few $ less. That said the Phenom 2 940 is the best AMD CPU and the Q9400 is mid range, with the Q9550/Q9650 and of course the i7 920 destroy it.
 
lee-gamer

lee-gamer

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I'll say choose the 4850 which will blow away the 9500 GT..
The 4850 is a Mid-High End card...
You can play every game at max with it...
It's the best bang for money around...

You can also consider the 4870 which is a High-End card....
 
roadrunner197069

roadrunner197069

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Wow, my moms $280 e1200 PC can do HD with onboard video, so according Enigmao67 it must be as good as a P2 and i7.

Oh, and my i7 rig with 4 SSDs in raid 0 and a 500g hdd and a 640g hdd, 4870, 6g DDR3, and a $200 case was only $1700, so I think there price is way off unless the had 2x 4870x2 in that i7 rig.

Seriously if your gonna compare i7 vs anything use something more demanding then HD. HD doesnt require major power.
 
average joe

average joe

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Don't accidently confuse a 9500 with a 9600gt. They 9600 is way better. They make low profile versions of these for Small Form Factor Cases.

A 4830 will own both of these if you don't need a half hieght card.

I looked at your caes you don't need a 1/2 hieght card.

The 4850 is one of the best cards you can get. Great card buy it right now.

Switch to 1066 ram and down clock it till you get your P2 or get the Kuma x2 I think there some FSB speed differences between the two older x2's and the KUMA or P2. I'll defer to someone who works with the AM2 chips more than I do. I think it will auto downclock the ram till you switch to a new chip

Then upgrade to a Phemon 2 ASAP.

 
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nsimo86

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What is your budget?

If you are going AMD, do yourself a favor and get a 790gx motherboard with south bridge 750.

Depending on what you want to spend you should get either a x2 7750, x3 8750, or x4 9850. I would suggest going phenom 2 but it doesn't look like you need that much power.

Go with at least a radeon 4830 if not a 4850.

Everything else looks fine but make sure you get a quality power supply and not just a cheap one bundled with a case.
 
average joe

average joe

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Oops, This board has a 790gx.
It's not my brand but people seem to like it.
The new AMD boards are confusing.



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138129
 
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jerseygamer

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There is no point in buying any AMD chips aside from the Denebs atm. If you go Intel you have more options. For systems with less then 4 cores Intel is the obvious choise but AMD does compete very well in the quad market now with the new P2s.
 
dragonsprayer

dragonsprayer

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all cpu's are the same - this is a statement i have made for years.

what it means is other then the multipler, a some things turned off or difference is in cache they are basically the same.

fx-60 and the first amd dual cores ran around 2.8ghz that topped out at around 3.4ghz with safe and sane voltage

C2D in 2006 ran around 3.4ghz, a x6800 might hit 3.8ghz

first c2d quad core qx6700 ran 3.6ghz the last qx9650 4.2ghz

last c2d ran up tp 4.6ghz


the lower the cpu speed is the better its potential to overclock higher

you have factor bus speed vs mutliper or base clock in the new i7 or in amd it was hyper transport

is a e6300 that different from a e8400? die shrinks an tweeks get you from 3.4ghz to 4.4ghz over 2 years

i7 920 runs at the same speed at the extreme cpu do the heat constraints and intels punishing marketing and techincal people - they could have locked the base clocked.



 
average joe

average joe

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Multipliers make a difference.

The e6400 might overclock better than e6300 in theory becuase it is locked on a higher mutiplier.

I have an E6400 which I mildly overclock now and then but I'm not a pro by any means.

With a locked multiplier I am forced to increase the FSB to overclock.

How high I can raise the FSB is the limit I can over clock my chip.

This is assuming that your motherboard will eventually reach a maxium FSB speed it it can stably run at before something else limits you, such as heat, dirty power, chinese capacitors, cheap ram, an old soundblaster card you refuse to throw away ...

A chip with a higher multiplier will over clock more than a chip with a lower one when FSB is the limiting factor.

The E8400 chip has a higher multiplier and runs cooler and has additional cache. Clock for Clock it substantially faster than an E6300.

 
Y

yipsl

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I agree. Intel has higher IPC right now and has prices to compete against AMD but has worse choices for motherboard IGP's and many of their cheaper alternatives to the Phenom II are either EOL (the Q6600) or virtually EOL (the Q9400).

I'm moving the 8750 over to my wife's ASUS 690G board after I put a Phenom II 940 in mine. Too bad I built this before the 790GX came out with SB750, but this will work as an affordable upgrade for a couple of years.

AMD's chipsets can't be matched by Intel right now and ATI GPU's are finally better than Nvidia in the midrange. That's one reason I chose AMD. The only bad experience I've had in years with AMD has been a probable bad resistor on my 3870x2.

It's on the way to Newegg for a replacement after 11 1/2 months. UPS should have it there Wednesday. At least it died warranty.

That said, I was able to continue playing Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria with medium/high settings on the HD3200 while I was troubleshooting the card in other PC's and trying to eliminate any other possibility.

I really miss "built by ATI' cards. I bought them exclusively in the AGP days, but since AMD bought the company, all choices are partners. At least this snafu wasn't an ATI design problem like Nvidia's bump material issues.

 
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jitpublisher

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Well you have gotten a lot of good advice already......but my question is.......
Is this AMD build a better choice over what??????? You said Intel, but exactly what was your Intel choice? Does not make much to sense to ask which, and then only list 1 build.
If you want to stay with AMD, you definetly want to go with a Phenom 2. Nothing else. Phenom 2 940, that has enough power to last you a long time to come, and the price is right.

Any other CPU, like the 2 you have picked above, honestly there are better/faster/cheaper Intel choices.
 
uguv

uguv

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Typical Engima067 post. First he links to that stupid AMD marketing video then he compares the price of an i7 965 to a phenom II 940.

The Phenom II 940 would certainly meet your needs but Intel some offering around the price range that offer similar performance.
 
rooseveltdon

rooseveltdon

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then give me an example of better faster intel choices cause i dont see them
 
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ir_efrem

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I'll toss in my 2 coppers...

If you are going dual core, get an Intel. You will have a very nice upgrade path to a higher end quad core, when prices drop to affordable levels. Lets not forget that the dual core intel cpus are no slouch. In almost ALL games out right now a higher clocked dual core will trump a quad core in gaming.

If you want a quad core right now the upgrade path is tricky. Phenom2 quads are getting a new motherboard here soon. When the Phenom finally gets an update to it's architecture no one knows without a doubt that they will work in in current motherboards. So your current AM2 motherboard may be a dead end, then again it might work just fine.

Intel quad cores are getting all sorts of changes. I7 will become more mainstream and get a new socket. So buying a current I7 may limit your CPU choices. With a new socket coming out almost all socket 775 CPUs will be a dead end completely.

If you want a cheap capable system while spending the LEAST amount of money your best bet is probably an AM2 motherboard that is capable of upgrading to a Phenom2 later on. Be very selective with your motherboard purchase and make sure it will support a Phenom2.

When buying a dual core AM2 you may want to consider getting the fastest one available now. No need to worry about overclocking that way.

Better performance can be had with an Intel cpu right now though. Even if socket 775 is a dead end there are quad core cpus that are faster than Phenom2 with very little price difference.

Everyone is a bit excited because the new Phenom2 performs well in comparison but it's still not faster than Intel offerings.

I was in your spot and what I did was buy a decent motherboard (no SLI or Crossfire) socket 775. I bought an E5200 and overclocked it to 3.0Ghz (from 2.5Ghz). At 3Ghz the E5200 pretty much runs faster than most if not all AM2 dual cores, and it cost somewhere around $80. Add a decent gigabyte motherboard for just over $80 and I have alot of performance on the cheap. Its not my only system but it runs like a champ.

If I want to upgrade it to a quad core later on it will be easy. I probably will when the newer socket 775 quad cores drop in price after the I7 based cpus hit mainstream.

In reality none of the CPU choices will hurt you in performance (not realistically anyway), just make sure to get a decent graphics card. 4830 minimum for ATI/AMD --- a minimum of a 9800gt if you prefer NVIDIA. Really its all up to you.
 
cletus_slackjawd

cletus_slackjawd

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If you buy an expensive CPU to make you feel good, go for it. You'll be rewarded with high synthetic benchmark numbers and an EOL CPU in 6-12month. For me, I use my computer nearly every day for hours at a time to play online FPS, and others, encode movies to PSP and IPOD, and burn DVDs. Have not seen much a difference between my old AMD 2.4 and Intel Q6600. Sure I may get something burned or encoded a few minutes or seconds later, but not really a big deal... Hate how everyone says Phenom will be destroyed by I7 such and such... Put it to one of those blind side by side comparisons and I bet you would not be so sure which CPU was under the hood lol.
 
rooseveltdon

rooseveltdon

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I agree that s why i might probably just go AMD i don t really care about over clocking and i am not an uber gamer so i think i would be fine with amd anyway
 
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megamanx00

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The only thing I recommend is that you consider getting a board thats AM3 ready so you'll have more options as far as upgrading the CPU. Of course if you will probably just replace the whole thing latter on then it shouldn't be too much of a concern.
 
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ir_efrem

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The reason I mention the E5200 and overclocking is because it is stupid simple to get it to 3ghz. Set fsb to 240, adjust the memory divider if need be, and you are done. Poof you have the performance of a CPU that cost 2.5x as much.

No need for expensive RAM or an expensive motherboard. With an upgrade path to 45nm Quad Core Intel CPUs which have already dropped in price here recently.

Look at the CPU charts here at TOMs you can probably expect an E5200 to run at about the speed of a normal core2duo @ 2.9mhz.

The E8300 @ 2.83ghz is faster than the best dual core AM2 in all the gaming benchmarks. In some cases by a very large margin.

Now look at all the benchmarks comparing the E8300 to the 6400+, you will see a definite pattern. An E5200 with a very simple overclock to 3ghz will give about the same performance if not a little better is some cases.

Take my thoughts for what they are are, just wanted to explain the full reason behind why I made the choice :)
 
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