Intel E7400 or AMD Phenom 2 X3 710

Hey everyone,

I am going to be building a new system soon.

I had the E7400 in mind, but saw the price of the X3 710 (@ 120$) and thought I should consider it.

I will be using the system for gaming, and the other routine stuff (browsing, light photoshop, encoding, extracting/compressing)

I will also be able to overclock the E7400 to an easy 3.2 Ghz.

Which CPU do you think is a better bang for the buck since I do not want to spend more than 120$ on the CPU.

My GPU is probably going to be the ATI HD4830.

Thanks in advance,

Go with the X3.

Thanks guys. Any specific motherboard for 100$? I read about the 4th core unlocking and I would like to have a motherboard that is capable of doing it.

Could you please suggest me some?

I recommend you bump the X3 up to the 720 BE, it's got an unlocked multiplier, it overclocks very well, it has the extra core over the 7400, and its only $20 more.

+1 to third level the x3 720 is a black edition and u can overclock it like hell and yes all am3 cpu's are am2+ compatible.
will check out and let u know about the idle temps.

oh btw the 720be when oced beats the e8200 as well!

Yeah the AM3 Phenom IIs are backwards compatible with AM2+ mobos and can use DDR2 as well.

What do you guys think of the GIGABYTE GA-MA780G-UD3H AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G instead of the DS2H.

The UD3H is a bit cheaper and seems to have better reviews than the DS2H.

Any comments on this?

Nope. I am perfectly fine with 3 cores. As you can see, I am looking at Gigabyte motherboards which cannot unlock the 4th core!

go for the 720be its a beast of a proccy if u r still unsure check out this review to be absolutely sure

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/ [...] 0be/3.html

hope this helps and happy gaming!

I've heard it can go 4.2 on air.
Now I highly doubt that it's going to happen for everyone, but i think if u invest about 20 bucks in an aftermarket cooler you can OC that sucker up to 3.7-ish.

oh do get the 4850 and post some benchies!

Yeah.

Now let me tell you something, even with OCing I recomming sticking with one good vid car as opposed to two mediocre ones in an SLI/CF setup. The reason is, the Phenom II is great, but not insanely amazing performance wise - which makes sense, considering its price. It'll bottleneck dual GPUs . With a single GPU + OC'd 720, you'll be a happy man.

u r right but the 720be is good enough to handle 1 single 4850!

and u know wat i ran my 9600gt on a p4 3ghz which bottlenecked it by only 5% compared to c2d proccessors so u need not worry about bottlenecking and 4850 prices will drop soon as the new 4950,4970 and 4970x2 will be launched in march ny ati!

Nice I am getting me the same processor next week but Im getting me a single 4870 1gb Do you think It will bottleneck a little or not at all

The Asrock AOD790GX/128 with a SB750 cost $105. BIOS v. 1.3 does the job nicely.

people with e8400 run a 4870 without any problems and the 720 be beats ity in most benchies so why should it bottleneck the gpu??? jus overclock the proccy and u should be fine! it also depends on wat resolution ur gaming at

I have read your post MISry and I have some questions. Did you run the CPU at stock with the stock HSF at any given time? If you did, could you please tell me what your idle/load temps were?

I plan on buying the processor and using the stock HSF but with ARCTIC COOLING MX-2 thermal compound. Any idea how far in terms of overclocking that will get me while keeping safe temps in mind?

Thanks

Thanks for the numbers MISry. I think I can settle for a 3.2 until I buy a better HSF. Are you doing all your overclocking with AMD's Overdrive utility or BIOS?

So I can conclude that the 720 is way better than the E7400 and competes with the E8400?

I hope you know u can unlock them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! on my gigabyte ud4h i can press crtl f1 to bring up advanced bios options then you got into the M.I.T and go per core and set each core calabration at -2% i got my 4th core no problem on this board running like a dream. Only problem is this board has a quirk with the CPU multiplier. It cant go past 13x which is AMD 710 x3 standard. My cpu is seen as a AMD 10 x4

And every one of your posts is blatant fanboyism.

The AMD X3 710/720 have a better upgrade path, cheap (and very good) motherboard compatibility, and a third core for the future, and things like GTA 4. Both overclock very well, and to similar speeds, and clock-for-clock they're pretty close, also. I'd go for higher future performance, which is the X3.

I think I can agree that the x3 720 is a better choice than the e7400 at the given price level, however, every other post suggesting a e7400 always ends up going in the direction of the e5400 which is a less expensive processor @ $96 on the egg and when OCed has basically the same performance as an OCed e7400 (-1 MB in cache = no biggie). Depending where your budget is, it is definitely worth a look to save cash and potentially get you up there to a better graphics card...

In terms of "fanboyism" all I have seen on this post is a bunch of dude's playing ookie cookie with the 720...

My question to AMD is why does it take 3 processors to match the core 2 e8400's performance? It seems very sketchy to me... I have read on this post several times that the 720 when "OC'ed" beats the e8400, but is the e8400 also OCed during these benchmarks?? I have heard that the e8400 can reach 4.0 ghz easily. And depending upon usage, games don't show a noticeable improvement above 3.4ghz but other progs will...

I have been in the same predicament as xserver (OP) for quite some time with no resolution on a processor... I really like the price and 3rd core on the 720, I can't go e5400 b/c I want virtualization (check out youtube vids) so I'm stuck between the e8400 and 720 while trying to find money for the q6600.

Thanks for the coupon xserver, but I've decided to wait... New processors are coming out April 20th, and prices should go down on everything (hopefully).

The x3 720 is a good choice and has the AM3 feauture which is nice. Great combo deals at the egg right now too. Best of luck with the 4th core if you're up for it!

I just bought a new setup cos my old machine died

Using the stock cooler X3 710, runs real cool, no matter how much you push it, always below 40degC. And my box has 5 hard drives and a HD4870, so lots of heat and no cable management.

Look for some of those boards (Biostar, Asrock?) that will allow you to unlock the 4th core.