AMD or Intel

[erebon]

Or at least as important:

Which manufacturer:

1. Asus
2. MSI
3. Gigabyte

I've worked with MSI and Gigabyte before and now I'm planning for a new MB and Gfx.
nForce4 Ultra and 6600GT they should be.
Which Manufacturer should I go for? Any other suggestions?

And a HDD 80-120 Gigs plus a powersupply. What do you suggest?

 

[Reefsmoka]

At the moment its a no brainer to go with AMD. They're cheaper in the price/perfromance Vs Intel, they run cooler than Intel and there future-proof with the 64-Bit technology.

As for the motherboard selection, there all good makes, it just depends on what you want with it, S-ATA, Raid, nForce 3 or 4, PCI-Express/AGP, Overclocking. If i had to choose it would be Gigabyte.

If your getting a new hard drive then dont go for nothing less than 120 gig. The price betweem 80 and 120 gig is a matter of around £20, so you'll only be ripping yourself off with an 80gig hd. As for make, Maxtor, Western Digital and Samsung are the best out there.

And choosing a powersupply can be dangerous, so make sure you get something 400 Watt+ with a good name behind it. Enermax, Antec, Tagan, OCZ, Zalman or Hiper are the only ones I would choose from.

 

[erebon]

At the moment its a no brainer to go with AMD. They're cheaper in the price/perfromance Vs Intel, they run cooler than Intel and there future-proof with the 64-Bit technology.[/QUOTE

]


Copmpletely agreed!

As for the motherboard selection, there all good makes, it just depends on what you want with it, S-ATA, Raid, nForce 3 or 4, PCI-Express/AGP, Overclocking.

SATA, PCI-Express and some decent sound is why I'll go for nForce 4.

If i had to choose it would be Gigabyte.

Most likely I'll do. Though MSI has got the better softwarepackage with it's Gfx...

If your getting a new hard drive then dont go for nothing less than 120 gig. The price betweem 80 and 120 gig is a matter of around £20, so you'll only be ripping yourself off with an 80gig hd. As for make, Maxtor, Western Digital and Samsung are the best out there.

Any specific Maxtor model you'd recommend?

And choosing a powersupply can be dangerous, so make sure you get something 400 Watt+ with a good name behind it. Enermax, Antec, Tagan, OCZ, Zalman or Hiper are the only ones I would choose from.

You're an angel
I have no idea 'bout PSUs ya know...

 

[erebon]

And RAM models. Please.

Sorry for posting again, but I'm not after postcounts anyway. I say this as people in another Forum complained about posting two messages in row

 

[Reefsmoka]

The Maxtor DimondMax Plus 9 is there top of the ranger, but after ive just seen how small the price difference is between 120gig and 300gig maybe you should reconsider on the size of drive. Check out the Maxtor drives and prices here.

Getting a good make of memory is important too, the makes you should go for are OCZ, Corsair, Samsung, Crucial, Kingston and maybe Geil (but a certain flopps has put me off em). Your going to need PC3200 if your getting a 64Bit CPU. And if you go for a gig of corsair value (PC3200) you should be able to get it for less than £110 delivered.

 

[ChristopherP]

plus 10 reef...

 

[Reefsmoka]

Plus 9 for 120gig, Plus 10 for 160Gig and above .

 

[ChristopherP]

worth getting the 160, the plus 10 is better technology

 

[erebon]

I may be wrong but: AREN'T THE DRIVES DIRRRRRRRRRRRRRT CHEAP??? Perhaps the price I got is wrong but I thought they'd be far above 100pound for 120Gigs. With these prices I could easily go for 200 Gigs.

A RAM question: The Hypertransport bus works with 4GB/s (FSB1000 in Intel terms)
What do you think, is it better to get a pair of DDR500(PC4000) with moderate timings to match the FSB or DDR400 with low latencies?

I found this on the site:

Maximizing the new XL Series: The RAM Guy Practices Extreme Overclocking
My favorite feature of the new XL series is the trademarked Plug-and-Frag technology which makes these modules boot up at aggressive 2-2-2-5 latencies. And those latencies are supported at PC3200, making XL modules perfect for AMD based systems where low latency is king. If your system uses an Athlon™ 64 CPU, we’ve done the tweaking for you. Our benchmark testing indicates that Intel P4 systems deliver optimum performance at very high clock speeds. Moreover, random sample testing in our labs shows these sticks will typically run with 2.5-3-3-7 latencies at PC4000 (DDR500) speed. With that much overclocking headroom, the XL modules are also perfect for your Intel based system. So regardless which camp you’re in, AMD or Intel, these new XL modules have something to offer!

I'm confused. Will the higher latencies be a flaw in an AMD based system?

 

[ChristopherP]

If you can, get CAS 2 memory, if you can't, get CAS 2.5... Try to stay away from CAS 3 but you tend to see looser timings in higher speed memory e.g. My PC4200 is native CAS 3...

 

[erebon]

If you can, get CAS 2 memory, if you can't, get CAS 2.5... Try to stay away from CAS 3 but you tend to see looser timings in higher speed memory e.g. My PC4200 is native CAS 3...

Hmmm... Yep, I know it's not completely correct, but take a look at this:

3 /2 = 1.5
and
4000/3200 = 1.25
thus PC4000 with CAS 3 is 1.5/1.25 = 1.2 times slower than PC3200 with CAS 2.

Let's say I take PC4200 and run it at PC4000 with CAS 2.5, then we have:

2.5/2 = 1.25
and
4000/3200 = 1.25
thus PC4000 with CAS 2.5 is as fast as PC3200 with CAS 2 because 1.25/1.25 = 1. With the plus of running in pace with the Hypertransport Bus.

My question: Does it make sense to do such tweaks? Will it get me more performance?

You could just as well shrug at my insanity and call the guys with those white coats...

 

[ChristopherP]

err...

My PC4200 (CAS 3-8-4-4) Runs fine at CAS 2-5-3-3 when CPU is at stock speeds...

If you have PC4000 that is rated CAS 2.5, don't expect it to get any lower. You might get lucky. The lowest you will get is 2, as the motherboard will only give you the options of 2, 2.5 or 3

 

[erebon]

LOL

Don't take me too serious. My brain works in funny ways at times Insanity is one of the main factors of my life.

Thanks for the advice. I shall look around to find some decent PC4000 at CAS 2.5 and if I don't I just let it be with the PC3200.

You know, the funny thing is that I'm not that much of a gamer

 

[Moco]

Well intel chipsets are for multi-application use. thats the only way it gains any ground over an amd processor - non 64-bit. they are get faster with 2 or more apps running at once. but if your a solid gamer then go amd. they're more for single application uses; as in system instensive games. so if it office use, go intel, gaming, go amd. This is for NON 64-BIT.

 

[ChristopherP]

Intel are very good if your into media encoding and movies etc... encoding works on pure clock speeds as opposed to architechture efficiency, so though the FX-55 is faster, it would be beaten by say a 3.0 prescott when encoding a file...

Go 64 bit...

I reckon that Microsoft, Dell and Intel are all one big company... These are my reasons:

1.) Dell only sell Intel machines
2.) Dell only use Microsoft OS
3.) Intel only make 32bit processors
4.) Microsoft still havent released 64bit windows

Everything there helps the other two companies. Chances are its pure coincidence...

 

[Moco]

very true... microsoft runs a monopoly anyways, you ever seen windows come with any other internet explorer besides microsoft's internet explorer. or how bout not sharing source code w/o company's paying around the 2 million mark to have enough code to make it even compatable with windows. :-/ not so fun, just hoping to get some more bugs fixes for linux soon. and always use mozilla for in IE. But then again, I'm partial to not liking them.

 

[psd99]

go for AMD!

u can get GOOD value for money with AMD, Intel are ripping people off bigtime!

 

[Reefsmoka]

Intel are very good if your into media encoding and movies etc... encoding works on pure clock speeds as opposed to architechture efficiency, so though the FX-55 is faster, it would be beaten by say a 3.0 prescott when encoding a file...

Go 64 bit...

I reckon that Microsoft, Dell and Intel are all one big company... These are my reasons:

1.) Dell only sell Intel machines
2.) Dell only use Microsoft OS
3.) Intel only make 32bit processors
4.) Microsoft still havent released 64bit windows

Everything there helps the other two companies. Chances are its pure coincidence...

1.) Dell might be making AMD machines soon. Dell have been round along time, when Intel was the king, and Intel have served them well.
2.) virtually every computer company in the world only uses Windows OS
3.) They've got a few 64-Bit processors in the works.
4.) Theres a free 64-bit windows available, its valid for 365 days!

 

[erebon]

I've already bought:

an AMD 64 3000+
a Gigabyte 6600GT (no ViVo it's not availabvle here)
a Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 10 w/ 200GB
a Zalman CNPS7000A Cu cooler

Today I'll be ordering a Zalman PSU (400W)
And I'll have to wait for my MB, a Gigabyte GA-8KNXP-9 w/ nForce Ultra(still not available in the market), RAM(2x256 Crucial no Corair available ), DVD-Burner, and monitor...

 

[Bennett101]

Good choice. I prefer AMD over Intel