Intel vs. AMD

I'm proud of my system and I didn't even build half of it!!!
Lol @ signiature by the way! Imaeshack, nice...

 

Sam,

I missed this when you posted it before. Here's what I got from the Antec web page on the 900. It is supposed to come with 4 fans standard with 2 optional fans available!

# Advanced cooling system:
- 1 top 200mm TriCool fan with 3-speed switch control
- 1 rear 120mm TriCool fan with 3-speed switch control
- 2 front 120mm special black TriCool blue LED fans with 3-speed switch control to cool HDDs
- 1 side (optional) 120mm fan to cool graphic cards
- 1 middle (optional) 120mm fan to cool CPU or graphic cards
The 3 120s should make a fair amount of noise as here's the spec on them: Noise Level: 25 / 28 / 30 dBA!
The RPMs ar fairley high as well: RPM: 1200 / 1600 / 2000 RPM
The max on the Xclio is 800 RPM so it should be much quieter!

Since I copied and pasted right from Antec's page on the 900, I'll take thier word for it! I still like the Xclio better! It's grown on me! LOL!!!

Happy Computering,
theone

 

looks like it will be the middle of march before ati unleashes the r600 on the world.

 

and for around 89.00 dollars a steal!

 

25dB minimum? holy hell. I'd find all those fans replaced with quieter ones! I don't even think my thermaltake thunderblade is that loud on minimum voltage... The 200mm might be a bit hard to replace too.
Although it's a cool concept, I'm not a great fan of the XClio's looks personaly, out of all the cases I've seen I still prefer mine, with its <20dB fans. When I shut down the GPU fan in ATiTool temporarily you can pretty much only hear the hard disks at startup. That's quiet in my book, whatever the figures are.

Good, i can save up!

 

I seen theonejrs said the AMD is cheaper to build than Conroe and you don't have to buy newer DDR2 and board. Don't you have to buy board and memory for both if you don't have any? I looked at newegg and prices look same. There cheap and high priced for DDR and DDR2. Top boards cost more for Conroe and DDR2. I hear even 6300 will work better than anything past when set right. Wouldn't performance be worth difference in cost of the motherboard? Conroe has been around for a while now and has prove to be better than anything from before.

Tomshardware, Anandtech and others say Zalman 9500 is best. Does theonejrs know better than techs in research there? Theonejrs is only one I've heard saying Arctic is better than Zalman.

 

You see, most people just can't afford the cost of performance so the cheaper path is more common with the average user. My first build was an AMD that was put together for under $500 that played games well and still would.

My second build was also an AMD. A dual core that I only recently parted with. It would blow away 40% of user PCs on Afterdawn right now. Now I have this PC and it would blow away 80% all non-Conroe user builds on this site. How do I know? Because this IS the performance cap on an average budget.

Why do I choose AMD, you ask?

Because, dollar for dollar, it provides more performance. While Conroe does have better performance, it is overpriced for the performance you get compared to similarly priced dual core and single core AMD processors.

EDIT: And theonejrs is right. The hardware sites test at unrealistically cool room temperatures and with an open case sometimes. The Arctic Freezer performs better under more realistic temps.

 

Unless you play games that require a lot of 3d rendering a decent gpu will do the job. That don't matter if it's Intel or AMD. Conroe don't have to have the best RAM to work. It would use same RAM you have with your AM2. Also, there is decent boards for Conroe besides highest priced ones. Even high end 939 boards sell for near $200. People don't have to buy most expensive. Using similar priced parts, conroe performance is supposed to be best. My friend built a Conroe without putting all expensive parts in and it's better than my AMD X2. PC World, Toms, Anandtech and others all say that the Conroe is the best performance for the money. Do you know more than their experts or are they lying?

We don't live in the middle of the "Dust Bowl", so Zalman's work great; better than Arctic Freezers.

Gigabyte and DFI sell good Conroe boards for about the same as Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe price. Check Newegg.

I hear AMD is trying to give away processors until they get as good as Conroe. ha ha Wish I had bought mine at giveaway prices.

 

First I'll comment on the fans. We don't live in middle of the dust bowl but the fans were tested in 62-65*F rooms while the average is 70-75*F. It makes a big difference.

Second, they are using estimated street prices when in reality prices are much higher. If you look at AMD prices they are much lower than the similarly performing Conroes.

Screw the big name sites and take it from us guys who are actually using the parts and seeing the constant price changes. You can't depend on big name sites for a market analysis 5-6 months after a product comes out. The market is too dynamic. The X2 4200+ performs near the e6300 but the e6300 costs more. And the single core 3700+ will easily outperform both at almost bargain basement prices:

e6300:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115005

X2 4200+:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103747

A64 3700+:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103539

But then you have to factor in the sub $200 FX55 and sub-$400 FX57. Single core doesn't make them any slower and they'll still give all but the two highest Conroes a healthy butt-kicking.

For performance on the high end I definitely recommend a Conroe. But for low end bang-for-buck it's definitely one of the lower end AMD dual cores or one of the MUCH faster AMD single cores if multi-tasking isn't a priority.

 

Estuansis,

You have to be talking about the Dual-Cores. FX-60, Opteron 185 or something like that. The FX-57 doesn't come close to any Conroe in performance. My A64 4000+ or the FX-57 which is just about the fastest single core socket 939 chip won't do half of what a 6300 conroe will do. I don't know where you are finding this information but I can assure you that it's incorrect. I'm not yapping at you but just letting you know that someone is feeding you bad info.

The Conroe 6300 will more than double the speed of the A64 4000+, at even a mild OC! It's capable of about 1/3 more than my D-940, and the D-940 will run rings around any single core!

Happy Holidays,
theone

 

E6400 - $220
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115004&ATT=19-115-004&CMP=OTC-pr1c3grabb3r

AMD 4400 - $200
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103546

Prices today at Newegg. The 6400 is good and when set up on a good board with decent RAM it will beat about any of the AMD processor, stock of overclocked. I've seen my friend's Conroe and we compared. So in the real world I have seen the Conroe beat the AMD. With what I've seen myself and what I read, it is hard to believe AMD is as good as Conroe.

I have done bench comparisons and do video work and done other real world tests myself. Dual cores, even the slower ones beat the fast single cores. They may have faster clock speeds, but AMD taught us that fast clock speeds don't always get more work done. Intel took a lesson from AMD on that. Look at the bench tests for Arithmetic and Multi Media on SiSoft Sandra and you can see that dual cores beat fx55 and 57. I looked at some of the things theonejrs posted and he showed that with his sandra tests. $20 more for a e6400 over a 4400 AMD, not much price difference. I spend more for a date . From what I see, the e6400 is a steal at that price. Even DocTy here at AD says Conroe works better for the money. They say he knows a lot and works on both AMD and Intel computers. From what I see of my friend's PC, DocTy is right. I also saw where even the 6300 can be overclocked to outperform the best of the AMD processors and that is with the AMD processors overclocked too.

For the fans, they compare them at the same temps in the labs. They don't do one in a freezer and the other in a stove. Even if they do it with the panels off, they all have the same advantage. That is unless you say they're cheating for one brand. You use what you want. I'll use what I got, a Zalman. It keeps my CPU colder than the board.

I hate to say it, but my friend's Conroe Computer kicks my computer's butt and I paid more for my computer and it's an AMD.

I always wonder who is feeding people stuff. I know what I see and it supports what I read here at AD from theonejrs on dual cores, DocTy on Conroes, and a lot of what Sammorriss says supports that. If you're going to build a new PC, most people say you're better off with Conroe till AMD comes up with something better. Me, I'll believe the experts at the big sites when what I see supports them. Nobody much is saying AMD kicks Intel butt unless they own an AMD. I own a AMD and Conroe kicks it.

 

Didn't BigDK say something about Conroe being better than AMD? He's here at afterdawn.

 

Yes. But in your single threaded gaming and compression tests the single core Athlons will hold their own nicely. The Conroes will own anything in any sort of straight up horsepower or arithmetic benchmark. Only because they are dual core and much newer technology. A super refined AMD X2 if I might say.

I always use gaming as a benchmark because it represents the majority of consumers that will be interested in the upgrade to begin with. 3D rendering takes all sorts of different types of processing power and I feel a processor is fairly represented in a gaming benchmark because of this.

I might be a fanboy but I admit that under most circumstances AMD gets stomped by intel. Pure and simple.

But the sheer speed and horsepower of the FX57 cannot be ignored. In most cases the e6300 and e6400 will be beaten by the FX57. From what I've seen the two will only win in heavily dual core optimized applications.

Check this out. It is a fairly balanced comparison. It uses fairly un-optimized benchmarks as a basis.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?

Only in a multithreaded benchmarks do the Conroe and the X2 really hold a big enough advantage.

theonejrs, while the D940 is respectable in its own right you can see that it consistently places in the bottom of the pack.

 

theonejrs' 940 wasn't the point. It was used as a example of even the lesser Intel dual cores being able to run circles around a single core. AMD dual cores are better than the old Netburst dual cores and in the same way, if not to a greater extent, the Conroes are better than the AMD processors. Most complete tests will include a 3D gaming bench as well as the Arithmetic and Multi Media. Even at those the single cores can't compete with dual cores. A highly OCed FX57 might be able to compete in a game where a single core is all that is needed. Not many games are written for dual core. But take the dual cores, overclock them and they will still smoke an FX57, even at gaming. The single cores are old tech and they just can't compete. I had some old Pentiums clocked as high as a stock FX57, so getting to their level of performance isn't that big a deal.

I wouldn't say that about a Conroe. As far as refined, the AMDs are a more refined setup with the Hypertransport to manage memory. Using memory is one of Intel's problems. With Core 2 Duo architecture and the shared Cache, Intel has improved. Currently Intels are the best processor for getting the work done, gaming, multimedia, drafting or anything else. AMD has the best memory management. AMD has the best chance for the next big step in processor development with hypertransport, but they haven't taken the step to beat Intel yet.

I looked at your link to benches at tomshardware. With Quake the fx57 was below the P4 Prescott 570. With F.E.A.R. it was just above the Pentium EE 965 Presler and well below the E6400 Conroe. Even with the games it can't compete with good dual cores. Only the FX62 was able to score better than the E6400 Conroe at stock settings. For the builder that can overclock a system, the FX62 will loose to even the e6400 because the Conroes overclock a lot better.

E6400 - $220
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115004

FX62 - $680
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103861

According to those benches you pointed out at toms, for AMD to match Conroe at gaming a processor that costs over 3 times more has to be used.

None of the AMDs match the E6600 stock or overclocked and it only costs $309, less than half the price of an FX62.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115003

I don't see where comparable AMD processors are even close to the Conroes according to what you pointed out. That's why us AMD fans are waiting for AMD to get off their bottom.

 

PacMan777

You are right in so many way. Yes it is true that you can build a computer That is outstanding with both Intel and Amd "older tech". Using 2 core chips for both. Excluding single core. Amd does have an advantage over Intel in that department including the overclocking area flat out.As with all things tech moves on.
Estuansis said

Simply not true. Single core is not even in the equation...duh.
and while upgrading to conroe is a bit more expensive... so will the new Amd processors and hardware.( which are still vaporware).
Eventually both Amd user and Intel users will have to go on to the next level of computing. Both not cheap. But Intel hit first.
Estuansis said

Without a doubt rubbish. By the time Amd "catches up with Intel". There new chip and associated hardware will not be in the ballpark in price.
theonejrs said

So as far as suggestions, you can stay behind with the cheaper tech or move on with the newer better tech, Yes it is not cheaper, but you are onto the next platform that is going to happen and is already here. It's a fact of life that the computer keeps reinventing itself so to speak. Right now the Conroe is it, Amd can't touch even the most economy chip e-6300 by much. Comparing the fx series Amd to the conroe Is most embarrasing. All depends on the proper mobo and memory.
Not cheap, but you are on the next platform that amd users are still waiting to achieave.
By the way...look at the encoding times of vidio to get a real picture of chip speed. vidio game comparision has too many variables such as card, chipset and driver revision.
In the real world vidio cards and game run much better the benches,,, with nvidia being the best.

 

Estuansis & PacMan777,
I never bought my Pressler with gaming in mind. What I use it for mostly is encoding video, something the D-940 does a real good job with. I also do some very tiny miniature air turbine design work using AutoCad 2004, so you know it's serious work. I just finished one that's rated at 500,000 RPM! Again, the 940 does very well at that kind of work.

As far as the FX-57 goes the 4000+ at 2.76GHz is just a hair slower at just under 10,000MIPS. Last time I looked the price was down to under $80 at New egg. It's better than an FX-55 by a bunch, which costs $139. and the FX-57 is $319. Which single core would you buy? The Opterons are some of the best built and well tested CPUs on the planet. They have better stepping than the Athlons and are designed to run 24/7/365 for years! What I like best is the FX-57 like Performance for 80 bucks, and it will run rings around any P4 easily!

The most amazing thing is that it will OC 15%, considering most high end chips barely overclock at all unless you water cool them. At 2.76GHz it idles about 28C. Stressed to the max, it barely hits 43C! If you need a really fast single core then this chips for you! At $80 it's a steal!

Happy Holidays,
theone

 

puts a smile on my face lol!!

i do like the way my PC is running with this Opteron 185 for sure

 

aabbccdd,

I see the environment a lot of servers live in and I'm here to tell you it's not very computer friendly. Usually they are stuffed in some small room without thought for decent ventilation or AC, or a closet with a fart sniffer hung in a drop ceiling! Opteron failures are not a common thing, so they are pretty tough.

I'll bet yours is one sweet running machine! I'm very interested in seeing just how close it comes to the conroes in performance. I know it all takes time as you don't just go in and turn up the wick. You have to adjust, test, adjust some more and live with the changes for a while to make sure everything is good. What speed are you up to now?

I finally got the Cooler Master Cavalier case today. At 1.5" deeper and 1" taller but the same 8" width, it's only a little larger than my present case. The extra room is welcome as it makes for a much neater build. It's also quieter, even with the Zalman. There were no problems as the wires were all long enough. I had to put a fan on the duct as the Zalman is so big the duct wouldn't clear it even with the cuff removed. All I had was ones with blue LEDs, but it goes nicely with the blue lights for the power and hard drive lights and the power switch is backlighted blue as well. The Prescott runs a bit cooler in this case. I like it as it's attractive enough for any home or office environment. The drive door is a solid piece of brush finished, anodized aluminum as is the part of the computer under the door. It uses 2 tiny magnetic catches that stick to 2 of the faceplate screws. Both sides are held securely when it's closed so there's no door rattle. The door is reversible and takes about 30 to switch sides. I like this case so much, I may even get one for my D-940, probably in black. I wish it had a window but then again it's so quiet without one. Another nice feature I like is that the front panel wires come out in such a way that you can bundle up all the excess wire, put a zip tie on them and store them between the side cover and the little niche between the lower drive bays. The MB mounts on a seperate tray which leaves about a 5"x1" space to store the excess in! makes for a very neat looking installation. The extra space inside makes cable layout a snap, even with flat cables. I always use new 80 wire cables when I do a build so it's no problem folding them to make the ribbon cable lay flat against the side of the tray, and stay there. I can even hide most of the PS cable along the edge of the MB tray. Even the plug in's for the drives are all neat and orderly. It's amazing how much difference that extra 1.5" extra depth means to making a neat and orderly build. I'm gonna try and take some pictures tomorrow if I can get the time. I'll post them if I do!

Ayway, you take care and enjoy your new toy. I know when you are ready to wow us, we'll see some benches. Have a Merry christmas and a Happy New Year.

Happy Holidays,
theone

 

IS this thread even about Intel vs Amd or just everyone talking about there specs LOL!
so ill post mine.
3.4ghz P4 with HT (Not fancy but im not changine till 90+% of games are dual core threads)
2048mb Pc3200 DDR2 Samsung Ram
512mb Ati Radeon X1900XTX
320gb Segate baracuda S-ATA @7200rpm
??Make 100gb @7200rpm sata
160gb external segate hard drive
5.1 Creative soundblaster with 5.1 logitech speakers
21inch Viewsonic 8ms screen
2xPhillips DVD combo
800W PSU
My final purchase 4 weeks ago the Asus Ageia PhysX card but still i think it wasnt worth it the only game i have that uses it is Ghost reckon advanced warfighter and it makes the hand textures and explosions looks more real

 

Baltekmi,

That's why the Opteron 185 is such a good deal. It greatly improves the price/performance ratio! FX-60 or better performance for a whole lot less money. It's probibly AMDs best socket 939 CPU! I just hope they keep making them for a while longer. I want one!!!

I guess we are all going to find out what it can do once aabbccdd get's his all sorted out. I want one in the TForce 6100 939 MB as I bet with all the high quality stuff he has, it will OC about 15% to 3.0GHz! I'm betting that it will do the same in the TFource! As an upgrade, when you have all the extras on hand to begin with, it's a nice upgrade for a reasonable price. Of course, if you are starting from scratch then it would make no sense as the Conroe would be the best buy.

Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,

Happy Holidays,
theone