Intel vs. AMD

Apparently it's not going to be for a while yet, they're supposedly focusing on 65nm rather than increased performance, but I hope they can get something out before the end of the year or Intel have our market to themselves.

 

BigDK,

I'm curious as to why you would say that. All things being equal, it's the same chip with a lower FSB and a higher multiplier. At any given speed it's the superior chip! Motherboard and memory temps stay lower so there's less strain there. You can overclock it to about 3.3 to 3.4GHz on air which you can't really do with the E6300 unless you live in a meat locker! Anandtech ran it at 3.37GHz with the stock Intel cooler and a minor bump in voltages! I mean the Intel cooler is so good, I have a drawer full of them that I'll never use! LOL!! Not even for my stock running customer builds. I have a reputation to maintain! They don't even make good paperweights unless you leave them in the box!

It's like comparing two identical cars except one gets 5 more miles to the gallon than the other. It just surprises me that Intel came out with the E6300's replacement before it canned the original. Once the E6320 is here along with it's 4 MB cache, there will be no more E6300. No reason or need for it as the E4300 does everything at least as good as the E6300 and overclocks better to boot!

Happy Computering,
theone

 

I think what he means is that at stock, the E6300 performs significantly better, which it should since the E4300 starts at a lower clock speed.

 

At stock speed the E6300 beats the E4300 in every benchmark thrown at it, that is forjust less than an extra £10.
It also does not have the Intel virtualization technology that the E6300 uses, as although the same chip type, it is switched off.
Most people won't run multiple OS on a machine, but for those that do, it is pointless buying the E4300.
You never know what is around the corner, so having the option of VT is worth it when combined with the extra bench scores.

Although I would stress that if you're after an OC'er then the E4300 is about as good as it gets.

 

I'm thinking E4300 for my file PC, to combine with a small overclock projec. I'm not after extreme numbers, but some significant gains, which I never achieved with any of my PCs thus far.

 

sammorris,

That would make you a nice rig (very OC'able to boot). I'm not badmouthing it but your poor ole 4200+ X2 would probably collect dust BTW I'm going with the core 2 duo 1.66ghz cpu and 128mb ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 video card for my laptop. Going to order it today. Still some room to upgrade later if I choose to.

 

sammorris,

While it's true that the 6300 is a tad faster at stock speeds, it's also faster at 1.86 vs 1.80GHz to start with. I went back and looked at the benchmarks and there is a very small difference between the 6300 and the 4300. They are virtually listed 6300 with the 4300 on the next line below it in all of the benchmarks but the difference in every test could be covered by production differences between samples, it's that close! The amount of difference, is not what I would call significantly better!

The only reason the 6300 is faster at all is because of the odd numbered native buss speed (266.5MHz vs 200Mhz). I would rather have the 4300! I see absolutely no advantage in getting a 6300 over the 4300! At it's worst it's maybe a hundred MIPS slower. I doubt that anyone would even notice.

Happy Computering,
theone

 

For £110 you can't go wrong.

 

The E6300 out performs the E4300 by 1 - 6 % on benchmarks.

That isn't much at all, but then the extra £9 for the CPU isn't much at all either, so the facts are that comparably at stock speeds there is no difference between price and performance.

However if choosing one of them to run at stock speed, then the best choice would be the one that has the better performance, that is unless you deliberately like to choose lower performing products for some strange reason?

Although the difference is small, the fact remains that the differences are there.

Overlooking the VT technology is fine if you don't use it or never will, but you still can’t dismiss it as a none existent feature when comparing the 2 CPU’s.
I use MS Virtual PC so it is something I wouldn’t want to do without.

I don’t think that making the statement about CPU’s benchmarks being affected by the batches they came from is a valid argument at all.
Most benchmarking at stock speed will only be effected by the platform it is tested on, batch numbers would normally come into play when you start to overclock, where one batch may out perform another.
At stock the CPU’s normally remain quite stable and perform within an almost non existent window.

 

BigDK,

You are absolutely right there! Another consideration for me is the summertime temps here. They run in excess of 45C. I've personally been here to see 47C. That's hot! I have a less than 1 year old 8000 BTU A/C unit in a 12" x 12" room and it's not enough to deal with the radient heat of the late summer afternoons, especially since it's a SW corner room with very little shade!

I only wish I could find out if the 4300 will work in the Asus P5N-E MB. It only has the 1333/1066 buss and no one so far has been able to tell me if it will work! I even called Intel and got one of those service techs that maybe could thread the paper in an adding machine! Asus was no help either. At $139, the P5N-E SLI is a bargain as it's a great overclocker and has Quad-Core compatability as well!

Happy Computering,
theone

 

It should take the E4300 without any issues, but as yet the E4300 is not listed on the compatible CPUs.
Asus may just need to update the list, as I've seen users with the E4300 in that board.(look for this users sig Bigdream)
http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?p=3182586
As far as know the 650 chipset is rated between 1333 to 533.
It takes all the other Core 2 CPUs. and also takes a whole range of 800FSB and 533 FSB CPU's as listed in the CPU support list.
http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx?SLanguage=en-us&model=P5N-E SLI

 

BigDK,

I should have thought it through a little more as you are absolutely correct. Unless you are overclocking, it either runs at the right settings or it doesn't run. There would be no variables! Duh!!! Brain Cramp!

Thanks for that other info. I greatly appreciate it. For about $750 I can get the 4300, P5N-E, DDR2800, 120 GB S-ata 3.0, 7600GT, DVD Rom and DVD burner. I have a case, PS, Fans and a floppy!

Hot Dog!

Happy Computering and thanks,
theone

 

No Problem.
I'm glad it helps.
It'll be good to see some feedback on the E4300 if you get it.
I'm pretty sure thats what I'll end up putting with the P5WDH when the other motherboard is up and running.
For $750 that is going to be a lot of PC with a lot of potential.

 

I'm currently looking at an E4300, a DS3, a gig of XMS2 and whatever reasonably-priced graphics card is the order of the day, in a couple of months time. Should be interesting, and depressing to see how far that sails past the processing power of my current machine for a fraction of the cost!

 

The extra performance should ease the depression, and the old parts will help pay for the new build.

They have the E4300 running at 3.38GHz on stock cooling on that board, and the results put it higher than the stock speed results of the X6800 in most apps, it just falls behind slightly in gaming probably due to the cache size, but it is still showing very high scores.

http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2903

DS3 Rev 2.0 setup example with E4300:

Current : 356mhz x 9 @ 3203mhz, (Stable - 6hr Orthos)
vCore - 1.380v
Rest are stock voltages
I've gone for a Gigabyte board this time around, as the FSB is very easy to push up, and they seem to run the CPU higher in relation to the voltage input required.

My DQ6 turned up today from Dabs, but is going straight back as it was the REV 1.0 board not the REV 2.0 (not happy) considering the length of time REV 2.0 has been out, Dabs were sent this REV 1.0 board from Gigabyte on the 16th Jan, just two weeks ago, so I think they've been done over.
looking eslewhere now for a confirmed REV 2.0 if anyone knows of a UK shipper with the REV 2.0 in stock.

 

Ouch, unlucky! The 4300 isn't going to be a replacement build, it's going to be a supplementary PC to house my data storage. However, I decided to make it an OC project since I've yet to have much success with doing so.

 

Chatted with my ole buddy kivory666. Although he no longer participates on this forum, we keep in contact. He has his E6600 up to 3.95ghz stable with his new eVGA 680i mobo and water cooling. Wow. I'm very content with 3.2ghz although I'm sure I could reach 3.4ghz on air. This blows the doors off my old P4 3.4ghz at 3.6ghz.

Anybody tried vista yet? That's all I could get on my new laptop as of last friday. Hope they've got all the wrinkles ironed out otherwise it will be reformated with XP Pro nothing flat. They also bumped the only available video card to a 256mb X1400 due to vista OS. Cost me another $50 as oppossed to the 128mb X1300.

 

I know someone who has an early copy of the business version, and it has some good features, but also some little annoyances too.

 

If Microsoft has all the bugs out of an OS it will be a first. They still don't have all the bugs out of XP, though it's livable.

You're probably better off with the better card in the laptop if you're going to be doing anything with video on it or running any graphics intensive programs.

 

sammorris,

Well you couldn't have picked a better chip to do it with! I may even consider waiting for the E4400!

Happy Computering,
theone