Budget Solution -- Cheap Core2 vs Cheaper X2

[andrew.gullans]

I'm about to build two computers using a budget that's a hair under
$2000; one of them is going to be a single-core gaming machine
(probably 939 Venice w/ x1900xt gpu), the other will be a respectable
budged dual-core system ("budget dual-core", to hear such words, aren't
these wonderful times to be alive?).

So, I am stuck between these choices:

E6300 @ $184 + Abit IL9 Pro @ $84
3800+X2 @ $139 + Abit NF-M2 nView @ $89

The Abit IL9 Pro has the advantage of TWO PCI-E x16 slots (although one
is only electrically capable of PCI-E x4 operation), and disadvantage
of absolutely no overclocking potential. I will probably not be
upgrading the CPU on this board.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819115005
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127015

The Abit NF-M2 nView has the disadvantage of a dearth of expansion
slots (only 1x PCI-E and 16x PCI-E, so I'm hamstrung on future physics
cards), but the advantage of uber-overclockability (to 400 and beyond).
In the future I may upgrade to quad-core K8L on this board.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103733
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127013

For RAM, I will use 2 Gb of the most cost-effective G.Skill (or
comparable) DDR2 533 (for the Intel) or DDR2 800 (for the AMD -- if I
splurge). Cost approximate = $209.

My question is, six months from now, which cpu+mobo will I be more
happy with?

 

[Dave]

My question is, six months from now, which cpu+mobo will I be more

happy with?

3800+ X2

by far, it isn't even close

 

[Ken]

Dave said the following on 12/30/2006 12:13 PM:

3800+ X2

by far, it isn't even close

Why is that? I am just beginning to think about a new system.

Thaks
Ken

 

[Dave]

Dave said the following on 12/30/2006 12:13 PM:

Why is that? I am just beginning to think about a new system.

Thaks
Ken

Performance. The other processor is a low-end budget processor, even by
today's standards. But the X2 is still pretty powerful, even by today's
standards. -Dave

 

[Clint]

What are you basing this (better performance) on? The reading I've done
suggests the E6300 will outperform the 3800+, both at stock speeds. As
examples:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2802
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html

Clint

 

[sam_pcdoctor]

Single core or dual core doesn't matter, it is the software you are
running that counts, if your software is not optimize for dual core,
single core with higher speed will win.
Please also take note of heating problem, I have friend using a 256MB
high end graphic card but his 3D game very laggy until he opened the
side cover & added two more fans blowing at the graphic card, then
thing works better now.

sam_pcdoctor#529190
Life is short, play hard.
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http://www.gamestotal.com/>Strategy Games
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http://gc.gamestotal.com/>Galactic Conques
http://gc.gamestotal.com/>Strategy Games
http://www.stephenyong.com/runescape.htm>Runescape
http://www.stephenyong.com/kingsofchaos.htm>Kings of chaos
sign up-> http://uc.gamestotal.com/?tft=g4p6

 

[Clint]

Can you explain your point more clearly? Both processors that he was
comparing are dual core. And your friend's over-heating graphics card seems
fairly irrelevant as well.

Clint

 

[andrew.gullans]

Performance. The other processor is a low-end budget processor, even by

today's standards. But the X2 is still pretty powerful, even by today's
standards. -Dave

.....I am shocked to hear the E6300 called a "low-end budget processor."
Yes, it is Intel's lowest-end offering of the Core 2 Duo family, but
I've been lead to believe that clock for clock it spanks K8 and
overclocks further. Or were you referring to the X2 3800+ as "budget"
(which it is)?....

Okay, so the question is, by spending an extra hundred dollars, what
kind of performance gain will I really see/feel going from a highly
overclocked X2 3800+ to a lightly overclocked E6300? Is the extra
performance really worth $100, or am I just going to be shaving seconds
off my video editing and adding a couple frames per second to my
gaming?

Also, is it sensible to build an AM2 platform in the hopes of upgrading
to a fast AMD quad-core K8L star-series processor? Will Clovertown and
Yorktown go to town on the benches and be way better than AMD's quad
core, or will AMD's superior connectivity and higher memory bandwidth
allow it to shine against Intel's "chokier" bandwidth-limited design?

I mean, how much better is HyperTransport than Front Side Bus?

 

[Gert Elstermann]

....I am shocked to hear the E6300 called a "low-end budget processor."
Yes, it is Intel's lowest-end offering of the Core 2 Duo family, but
I've been lead to believe that clock for clock it spanks K8 and
overclocks further. Or were you referring to the X2 3800+ as "budget"
(which it is)?....

The C2D is definitely superior, see e. g.
<http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=471&model2=433&chart=174>

If an E6300 is too expensive for you, you might take into
consideration the forthcoming C2D E4300 (FSB 800 instead of 1066), see
e. g. <http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5414>


Roy

 

[andrew.gullans]

The C2D is definitely superior, see e. g.

<http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=471&model2=433&chart=174>

Roy

Ah, but will Intel's quad-core solution be superior to AMD's? That is
the thousand dollar question. I know next year I'll be able to plug a
quad-core Barcelona K8L into the NF-M2, and the optimizations on the
evolving K8L architecture will at least close the gap between it and
Core 2.

The nVidia AM2 solution is alot more solid than anything I'm seeing on
socket 775 -- the GeForce 6150+430 reportedly overclocks *stably* to
333x3 and 400x2, while few P965 and 680i can even barely reach 250x4 or
300x3, and I doubt either chipset will really be able to let a
Cloverton or Yorktown reach its potential against K8L/Barcelona. What
does everyone else think?

I'll be building this machine as a poor-man's
video-editor/PVR/gaming/folding-rig, to be upgraded to a good quad-core
with 4-8 gigs of RAM when DDR2 and Barcelona or Clovertown prices come
down. Video card will be a super-cheap X1900 that will fold while the
integrated video chipset plays movies to my 22" screen, giving me
plenty of DirectX 9 performance out of every game for the next 2-3
years.

Final budget for the entire build must be less than $1100. Remember
that $133 Athlon + $89 motherboard = $222, while $194 Core 2 Duo + $120
motherboard = $312, which is a difference of $90 -- is the little bit
extra performance now worth a hundred dollars, or is it better to go a
little bit cheaper now to have a better platform to take advantage of
Barcelona K8L later?

 

[Peter van der Goes]

Ah, but will Intel's quad-core solution be superior to AMD's? That is
the thousand dollar question. I know next year I'll be able to plug a
quad-core Barcelona K8L into the NF-M2, and the optimizations on the
evolving K8L architecture will at least close the gap between it and
Core 2.

The nVidia AM2 solution is alot more solid than anything I'm seeing on
socket 775 -- the GeForce 6150+430 reportedly overclocks *stably* to
333x3 and 400x2, while few P965 and 680i can even barely reach 250x4 or
300x3, and I doubt either chipset will really be able to let a
Cloverton or Yorktown reach its potential against K8L/Barcelona. What
does everyone else think?

I'll be building this machine as a poor-man's
video-editor/PVR/gaming/folding-rig, to be upgraded to a good quad-core
with 4-8 gigs of RAM when DDR2 and Barcelona or Clovertown prices come
down. Video card will be a super-cheap X1900 that will fold while the
integrated video chipset plays movies to my 22" screen, giving me
plenty of DirectX 9 performance out of every game for the next 2-3
years.

Final budget for the entire build must be less than $1100. Remember
that $133 Athlon + $89 motherboard = $222, while $194 Core 2 Duo + $120
motherboard = $312, which is a difference of $90 -- is the little bit
extra performance now worth a hundred dollars, or is it better to go a
little bit cheaper now to have a better platform to take advantage of
Barcelona K8L later?

Please get me up to date
You seem to be saying that AMD's quad core CPU's will be AM2? Where can I
find out more about this?
I've been procrastinating about upgrading that last Athlon XP machine here
to either an AM2 X2 or to a C2D. The price differences you described are a
factor for me as well. As the other PC's here are all AMD X2, I was
concerned that an AM2 solution would soon be superseded by a newer socket
and a switch from DDR2 to DDR3 memory.
If there are to be quad core AM2 CPU's, that will help me make a decision.

 

[andrew.gullans]

Please get me up to date
You seem to be saying that AMD's quad core CPU's will be AM2? Where can I
find out more about this?
I've been procrastinating about upgrading that last Athlon XP machine here
to either an AM2 X2 or to a C2D. The price differences you described are a
factor for me as well. As the other PC's here are all AMD X2, I was
concerned that an AM2 solution would soon be superseded by a newer socket
and a switch from DDR2 to DDR3 memory.
If there are to be quad core AM2 CPU's, that will help me make a decision.

Ah, a comrade in arms! Okay, this is what I've been seeing:

K8L (a nomenclature which has largely been dropped in favor of the name
"Barcelona" by AMD) will be drop-in compatible with current AM2 boards.
Even the DDR3/HT3.0 K8L quad-cores will be backwards compatible and
can be plugged into a regular old DDR2/HT2.0 AM2 board.

HyperTransport 2.0 provides WAAAAAY more memory bandwidth than an X2
can ever use. HyperTransport 3.0 will provide about double that, or
TWICE AS MUCH bandwidth as you already can't even begin to use. HT 3.0
will be great on 16-way servers that have four quad-core chips, but a
single quad-core or even octo-core chip will certainly not be wanting
on an HT 2.0 bus. So, there's no reason to wait for HT 3.0 if you're
only using a single CPU socket.

Barcelona is showing 40%-70% performance gains over K8. (someone else
please site this with a link) Basically, except for HT 3.0, none of
the optimizations implemented by Barcelona will be hampered by
inhabiting an AM2 board bought today. AFAIK, Core 2 Duo is currently
20%-40% faster than K8, so this means K8L should be faster than Core 2
Duo and Core 2 Quad.

The following links paint a picture that says
"Barcelona > Kentsfield" & "Barcelona !< Yorkfield":

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=r...DB9g6o6OXNQQLyxY=&sig2=RnFYfrjIwdO6BfLdn69HFw
http://insanetek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4916
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTE3NCwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
http://xtreview.com/addcomment-id-1006-view-0.065-m-processors-opteron-class-K8L.html
http://discussions.hardwarecentral.com/showthread.php?p=1000212&mode=threaded
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061206-8363.html
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2006Dec/bch20061229000672.htm
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=19164
http://digg.com/hardware/AMD_AM2_worth_it


Some of those threads may disappoint you, but most of them should elate
you, as far as K8L is concerned. Of course, you should feel somewhat
uncertain, as Barcelona and Yorkfield (Intel's future 8-core CPU)
aren't yet on the market. Yorkfield will probably be the only thing
able to catch Barcelona, but Yorkfield will probably be a pair of twin
dual core processors on a die which again -- drum roll -- will have to
go through the FSB to talk to each other, and STILL won't have on-die
memory controllers. Add to that that Yorkfield will probably require a
new motherboard, and still not soundly crush Barcelona, and, to my
wallet, it's (almost) a no-brainer which platform to go with for the
long haul (3+ years).

Yes, AMD's new 65nm native quad-core CPUs will provide superior
core-to-core-to-core-to-core communication compared to intel's
multi-core solution (which is two Core 2 Duos kludged together but not
really connected, having to communicate to each other through the front
side bus, which is way slower than communicating on-die)....not to
mention, AMD's got that nifty on-die memory controller, but Intel still
doesn't have anything on the roadmap in the direction of integrating
memory controller on die, and relying on an external memory controller
on the motherboard will hamstring throughput and bottleneck the four
cores, which is, of course, the reason for 6+MB of L2 cache on the
Intels as compared to AMD's 512x4 MB L2 + 2+MB L3 cache (AMD doesn't
need as much cache as Intel).

Wait, someone's gonna call me an AMD fanboy now. Sorry, I like to
spend my money on the underdog -- (to stimulate the healthy
technological-development competition we're seeing now) -- rather than
the topdog -- (buying Intel right now, to me, would feel too much like
contributing to a stagnating monopoly).

You can google "Barcelona K8L AM2" for more, and FYI "Altair" will be
the first AMD chip in the "star-named" family (followed predictable
enough by more cpus named after stars like "Algol", "Aldabaren",
"Procyon", "Vega" (my fav) and "Betelgeuse" (that one's gonna smoke --
okay, I'm kidding, I've never yet heard plans by AMD to name a chip
"Betelgeuse", but I bet that'd be teh best CPU evar cuz dat's a RED
GIANT, dood!).

 

[Tony Hill]

Please get me up to date
You seem to be saying that AMD's quad core CPU's will be AM2? Where can I
find out more about this?

The story between AM2 and AM3 sockets is a bit confusing at the
moment. The story, as far as I understand it, is that ALL quad core
desktop processors from AMD will be socket AM3, *BUT* those socket AM3
chips will work just fine in a socket AM2 motherboard.

In other words, socket AM2 and socket AM3 are pin-compatible, but if
you want to make use of the more advanced features (Hypertransport 3.0
and DDR3 memory) you need both an AM3 processor and AM3 motherboard.
The following link provides this info:

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3169

Note that this is by no means guaranteed though! Also, even if it is
true it is most certainly possible that *current* AM2 motherboards
will NOT support a quad-core, K8L based socket AM3 processor when they
are released, even if Socket AM2 boards released 6+ months from now
will. We've seen many times in the past that there is MUCH more to
compatibility than just the socket!

I've been procrastinating about upgrading that last Athlon XP machine here
to either an AM2 X2 or to a C2D. The price differences you described are a
factor for me as well.

I'm also in a similar boat, or if anything worse. I've priced it out
and an AMD Athlon64 X2 4600+ and accompanied motherboard is actually
cheaper than an Intel Core 2 Duo 6300 and motherboard. When you start
comparing these two chips at their stock speeds (I personnaly never
recommend buying based on what one might or might not overclock to),
it becomes a rather difficult decision. Looking at the benchmarks
they are certainly pretty close with the AMD chip winning some and the
Intel winning others.

The real problem for Intel here is that decent Socket 775 boards seem
to be $30+ more than a decent AM2 board. As such I could afford a
more expensive AMD processor and still end up with the same overall
system cost.

Of course, next week Intel plans on releasing their Core 2 Duo E4300
chips which will change the equations again.

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

As the other PC's here are all AMD X2, I was
concerned that an AM2 solution would soon be superseded by a newer socket
and a switch from DDR2 to DDR3 memory.
If there are to be quad core AM2 CPU's, that will help me make a decision.

No matter what you buy today, tomorrow something newer/better/cheaper
will be available. You're chances of having a viable upgrade path for
either AMD or Intel processors is VERY slim. Basically all you can
count on for either solution is what is officially supported today.
Anything beyond that is gravy.

 

[The little lost angel]

Barcelona is showing 40%-70% performance gains over K8. (someone else
please site this with a link)

The closest I've come to finding a site that supports your claim of up
to 70% improvement are references to claims that AMD's Randy Allen
made about the Barcelona in this video here
http://virtualexperience.amd.com/index.html?cid=quadcore&co=quadcore

At about 2:27 into the video, you have a chart showing Barcelona being
- up to 70% faster than an Opteron 2200 8E or Xeon 5160 in OLTP
- and what looks like 10% over a Xeon 5355.

The next slide shows 40% in Spec FP_rate2000 over the Opteron 2200
and 30%~35% over the Xeon 5355.

Given that the Opteron is a dual core and the Barcelona is quad core,
that's 40%~70% more for twice the cores. It doesn't make Barcelona
look like it's much better core for core than the K8.

I'm not quite sure what does fp_rate rely on but apparently OLTP is
highly affected by latencies so AMD's basically showing off the
intercore and HTT connections which has always a weakness given the
Intel platform.

If 10~35% is the best AMD can cherry pick against Intel's current quad
core product at that point, then I would think by the time K8L
arrives, Intel would have probably wiped the margin to nothing.

 

[Davej]

[...]
Final budget for the entire build must be less than $1100. Remember
that $133 Athlon + $89 motherboard = $222, while $194 Core 2 Duo + $120
motherboard = $312, which is a difference of $90 -- is the little bit
extra performance now worth a hundred dollars, or is it better to go a
little bit cheaper now to have a better platform to take advantage of
Barcelona K8L later?

Is this a fair starting point for today? Rather than an E6300 shouldn't
you be comparing the price of a P4 ?

 

[xorbit]

[...]
Final budget for the entire build must be less than $1100. Remember
that $133 Athlon + $89 motherboard = $222, while $194 Core 2 Duo + $120
motherboard = $312, which is a difference of $90 -- is the little bit
extra performance now worth a hundred dollars, or is it better to go a
little bit cheaper now to have a better platform to take advantage of
Barcelona K8L later?

Is this a fair starting point for today? Rather than an E6300 shouldn't
you be comparing the price of a P4 ?

Then AMD would have a sizable advantage.

 

[Davej]

[...]
Final budget for the entire build must be less than $1100. Remember
that $133 Athlon + $89 motherboard = $222, while $194 Core 2 Duo + $120
motherboard = $312, which is a difference of $90 -- is the little bit
extra performance now worth a hundred dollars, or is it better to go a
little bit cheaper now to have a better platform to take advantage of
Barcelona K8L later?

Is this a fair starting point for today? Rather than an E6300 shouldn't
you be comparing the price of a P4 ?

Then AMD would have a sizable advantage.

Ok, my bad, but maybe an X2 4400+ or 4600+ ???
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=468&model2=433&chart=166

 

[nobody]

On 17 Jan 2007 12:03:00 -0800, (e-mail address removed) wrote:

....snip...

K8L (a nomenclature which has largely been dropped in favor of the name
"Barcelona" by AMD) will be drop-in compatible with current AM2 boards.
Even the DDR3/HT3.0 K8L quad-cores will be backwards compatible and
can be plugged into a regular old DDR2/HT2.0 AM2 board.

HyperTransport 2.0 provides WAAAAAY more memory bandwidth than an X2
can ever use. HyperTransport 3.0 will provide about double that, or
TWICE AS MUCH bandwidth as you already can't even begin to use. HT 3.0
will be great on 16-way servers that have four quad-core chips, but a
single quad-core or even octo-core chip will certainly not be wanting
on an HT 2.0 bus. So, there's no reason to wait for HT 3.0 if you're
only using a single CPU socket.

Barcelona is showing 40%-70% performance gains over K8. (someone else
please site this with a link) Basically, except for HT 3.0, none of
the optimizations implemented by Barcelona will be hampered by
inhabiting an AM2 board bought today. AFAIK, Core 2 Duo is currently
20%-40% faster than K8, so this means K8L should be faster than Core 2
Duo and Core 2 Quad.

....snip...

While you can *reasonably* hope for compatibility of AM2 and AM3, just
don't count on it as a given. It all will depend on many small
things, the willingness of mobo maker to issue the BIOS recognizing
the newer chips being first. I already got burned - MSI flat out
refused to allow 90nm Opty 2xx in my K8T board, much less so dual
core, even though it's the same socket 940. The best I could plug in
is 130nm Sledgehammer 250, and since I already run a couple of 248, it
makes no sense to upgrade any further :-(.
Good luck
NNN