Processors!

[propersplitbrainme]

Goddamit to heck! Last time I built a PC from scratch (or even component parts) the choice of CPU was quite straightforward; to go for a 1.7 gig, 2 gig, 2.1 gig etc.
Now there appear to be about 20 or 30 different versions of, essentially, the same flamin CPU, dual core, quad core, apple core...FFS.

So, sticking merely to Intel CPUs at the monent, is there any NEED to get a Core 2 Quad CPU as opposed to a Duo? Does any mainstream software or OS actually use the quad architecture or would I be wasting money when a duo would do the job, my use would essentially be gaming and some 3D graphics design.

To give you some idea of my dilema, assuming a budget of £190 for a CPU I could have this:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.66 Ghz

Or this....

Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 3.33Ghz

There's no doubt places other than Dabs where i could get it cheaper, and some will have a preference for AMD and point out yet another alternative, but can we keep it simple just now DT_Xtremez_31:

Obviously there are other considerations such as decent MB, RAM and graphics card, but I'm just starting with the procesor at the moment.

Cheers in advance.

 

[welshjpc]

A core 2 duo has essentially two processors inside its casing, a core 2 quad has, erm, four; meaning that multiple tasks can be handled by seperate processors, reducing overall stress on the system therefore reducing the chance of the "blue screen of death".

If you plan on just web browsing, basic home office stuff etc you don't really need a super dooper processor.

A duo would be more than comfortable and good for 2-3 years before any creaks may begin to show whereas a quad would see you (supposedly) future proof for 4+ years (depending on Moore's law and all that).

If running Vista then memory (RAM) is more important.

If playing games (and you mentioned 3D graphics design) then a serious graphics card is more important.

So it all comes down to future proofing when you buy a processor, all major OSs nowadays will work to get the best out of your chip.

 

[MontyPlumbs]

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/common_cpus.html

As Welshjpc says, not much point in buying the quad Core IMHO, spend the cash on a high end GFX card!

There really is no point in getting the quad core even for future proofing, in a year or so something else will be along that makes it redundant anyway!

A list of software known to use all four cores is here

Or, save yourself a bundle and buy an AMD Phenom (like I've got) it's great!

 

[propersplitbrainme]

Or, save yourself a bundle and buy an AMD Phenom (like I've got) it's great!

Yeah...I've had AMDs for a while now, the last Intel I had was a Pentium 133 MMX!! So for some reason decided to go back to Intel, however I've just knocked together two PCs with as close to identical specs as I could on my local retailers 'build your PC here' thingy on their website and...

INTEL Based:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3 GHz
4 GB Corsair Ram
Abit IP-35 MB
ECS 9600GT 512MB Graphics card
WD 160GB SATA II HDD
Windows Vista Home premium
(Other bits such as DVD drive)

£662.70 Inc VAT

AMD Based:

AMD Phenom Quad Core 9550 2.2/3.1 Ghz
4 GB Corsair Ram
Abit AN78GS MB
ECS 9600GT 512MB Graphics card
WD 160GB SATA II HDD
Windows Vista Home premium
(Other bits such as DVD drive)

£571.05 Inc VAT

So thats 90 sovs difference near as dammit which means I could go up to a Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 260 graphics card on the AMD machine and that weighs in at £668.34, only 8 more than the Intel with a 9600 card. No doubt I could get it cheaper if I looked elsewhere as well.
Hmm, more conunundrums.

 

[Albert Park]

About 18 months ago AMD had caught up with Intel, and began producing processors that, in direct comparison, were far superior in all aspects. This was a wake up for Intel, who have since reclaimed any lost ground and ship 'more bang for your bucks' CPUs.

It's a no-brainer. Intel all the way.

 

[propersplitbrainme]

It's a no-brainer. Intel all the way.

Oh great, thanks a lot. Just when I was close to making my mind up DT_Xtremez_14:

 

[MontyPlumbs]

Yeah...I've had AMDs for a while now, the last Intel I had was a Pentium 133 MMX!! So for some reason decided to go back to Intel, however I've just knocked together two PCs with as close to identical specs as I could on my local retailers 'build your PC here' thingy on their website and...

INTEL Based:

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3 GHz
4 GB Corsair Ram
Abit IP-35 MB
ECS 9600GT 512MB Graphics card
WD 160GB SATA II HDD
Windows Vista Home premium
(Other bits such as DVD drive)

£662.70 Inc VAT

AMD Based:

AMD Phenom Quad Core 9550 2.2/3.1 Ghz
4 GB Corsair Ram
Abit AN78GS MB
ECS 9600GT 512MB Graphics card
WD 160GB SATA II HDD
Windows Vista Home premium
(Other bits such as DVD drive)

£571.05 Inc VAT

So thats 90 sovs difference near as dammit which means I could go up to a Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 260 graphics card on the AMD machine and that weighs in at £668.34, only 8 more than the Intel with a 9600 card. No doubt I could get it cheaper if I looked elsewhere as well.
Hmm, more conunundrums.

NZXT Alpha Tower Case + EZ 600W PSU
AMD Phenom 9550 Quad Core
4gb Corsair RAM
1TB Samsung Spinpoint Hard Drive
Blu-Ray/HD-DVD drive
XFX GTX260 XXX Edition 896mb DDR3 3dfx card

Total Price: £703.12on Ebuyer. Incidentally, that's virtually the same system I've just built (bar the graphics card) and I can well recommend it.

It's really not worth spending the extra dosh on an Intel IMHO.

 

[propersplitbrainme]

NZXT Alpha Tower Case + EZ 600W PSU
AMD Phenom 9550 Quad Core
4gb Corsair RAM
1TB Samsung Spinpoint Hard Drive
Blu-Ray/HD-DVD drive
XFX GTX260 XXX Edition 896mb DDR3 3dfx card

Total Price: £703.12on Ebuyer. Incidentally, that's virtually the same system I've just built (bar the graphics card) and I can well recommend it.

It's really not worth spending the extra dosh on an Intel IMHO.

Did you buy that ready built, or get it as component parts and build it yourself?

The snag is, I also need an OS as my current XP OS is an OEM copy that is for my Compaq only; I don't have a flippin CD. I'm loathe to go for Vista and may hunt around for a legit copy of XP if anywhere still sells it; I've never found an **ahem** copy that actually works and updates properly.

 

[MontyPlumbs]

Did you buy that ready built, or get it as component parts and build it yourself?

The snag is, I also need an OS as my current XP OS is an OEM copy that is for my Compaq only; I don't have a flippin CD. I'm loathe to go for Vista and may hunt around for a legit copy of XP if anywhere still sells it; I've never found an **ahem** copy that actually works and updates properly.

Sorry mate, I included a OEM copy of Vista Home Premium in the price )

I built it myself (the only way to do it IMHO). Hunt around on Ebay for a copy of XP, I got a brand new copy (OEM) with COA for less than 50 sheets.

MP

 

[propersplitbrainme]

Sorry mate, I included a OEM copy of Vista Home Premium in the price )

I built it myself (the only way to do it IMHO). Hunt around on Ebay for a copy of XP, I got a brand new copy (OEM) with COA for less than 50 sheets.

MP

Thanks, that looks good.

Yeah I think I'll probably build it myself when I get around to doing it. Its like being a kid a Xmas having all those boxes with nice new kit in them ready to put together ::

 

[grumpyoldb]

AMD all the way for me, never had a problem with them.

The last one I wanted was £1599 ready built.
I stripped out one of my old cases and bought the bits £529.

It's well worth it.

You can get some good deals from here...................

www.novatech.co.uk

 

[welshjpc]

a good components site I tend to use / recommend:

www.eclipsecomputers.com

I would stress though, many people are still poo-pooing Vista but face it, it is the way the PC is going, clinging on to an ageing operating system just because you like it is just not practical. Using that mindset, we may as well all still be using Windows 3.1.

If you are buying good, modern components then why use an old OS which has to be heavily updated / patched to take advantage of technology created half a decade after the OS came out?

It's like fitting a vauxall Viva with an Aston Martin engine really.

 

[propersplitbrainme]

a good components site I tend to use / recommend:

www.eclipsecomputers.com

I would stress though, many people are still poo-pooing Vista but face it, it is the way the PC is going, clinging on to an ageing operating system just because you like it is just not practical. Using that mindset, we may as well all still be using Windows 3.1.

If you are buying good, modern components then why use an old OS which has to be heavily updated / patched to take advantage of technology created half a decade after the OS came out?

It's like fitting a vauxall Viva with an Aston Martin engine really.

Not necessarily poo-pooing Vista just wary of the fact that, historically, all new Microsoft OS's have taken a little time ot bed in and have themselves needed constant patching to fix the 'issues' that real world users uncover that the beta testers don't.

 

[TrenchardsLoveSock]

I built a system back in May. At the time, the Phenoms had just come out and were getting fairly lukewarm reviews. I was also sick of AMD changing the socket every five minutes while Intel are still going strong with socket 775, so after many years and upgrades, I switched to Intel. The fact that Intels overclock a lot better hlped too.

On the Intel chips, the bigger the number, the faster the processor. Core2Duos have 2 processors, and quads have 4.

After a bit of poking around, I managed to work out that quad cores are only really necessary if you are doing a lot of really heavy number crunching, like encoding videos. It's also handy if you multitask lots of fairly big programs.

For the average user/gamer you're better off with a faster dual core as you'll get more tangible benefit. Of course, if you've got money to burn, buy a quad of the same speed for that extra bit of future proofingDT_Xtremez_30:


As for GFX cards, take a look at the new ATI 47XX series. I haven't looked at prices seriously for a few weeks, but when they first came out, they were a bit of a shock as £ for £ they trashed the new nvidias. The nvidias did have a very slight edge on performance, but you could get 2 ATI cards and crossfire them for almost the same priceDT_Xtremez_35:

If I was building again, I'd stick with Intel, but changed allegiance on the GFX front to ATI.

Throw a bit in to pie, it's a very good board and memory he has, and you might net a bargain.

 

[grumpyoldb]

We have 4 pc's in the house and I have the full installation discs for them, not manufacturers recovery discs. I'm not going to buy new OS's for that lot. It would cost me a fortune.
I also have a reasonable knowledge about XP now, so if I get a problem, I can usually sort it out fairly quickly.
I guess it's a matter of staying with what you feel comfortable with.

 

[Ex-Bay]

Thanks, that looks good.

Yeah I think I'll probably build it myself when I get around to doing it. Its like being a kid a Xmas having all those boxes with nice new kit in them ready to put together ::

I can recommend an AMD processor & NVidia Graphics.

 

[grumpyoldb]

Thanks, that looks good.

Yeah I think I'll probably build it myself when I get around to doing it. Its like being a kid a Xmas having all those boxes with nice new kit in them ready to put together ::

I'm no computer whizz kid, but it actually took me longer to unpack everything and check that it was all correct, than it did to build the darn thing.

I think build time was less than 1 hour.
Then came the "fun" bit......................
Two weeks of installing software and progs.........yes, I have a lot of them.

Currently over 250Gbs installed on 5 HDD's, on one machine.

Would I do it again....................everytime without question.

 

[Malesu]

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.66 Ghz

Or this....

Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 3.33Ghz


.

If you want to overclock either go for the Q6600 (Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition ) or a E8400 (both around £100 ex vat), alot cheaper and can be overclocked to better than their bigger brothers. I have a Q6600 running at 3.6 Ghz on standard air/fan cooling and very stable. I'd also stick with Intel as the top of range AMD still cant match a Q6600

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-161-IN

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz (1333FSB) - Retail

Also, i'd look at an ATI 4850 512mb (£110 ex vat) and a custom cooler (£15 ex vat). Just got this setup for my old mans computer, and pretty impressed with the results (just below the performance of my ATI 3870x2 and alot cheaper)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?&groupid=701&catid=56&subid=938&sortby=priceAsc

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...ame=Akasa AK-VC03-BLUV Vortexx NEO VGA Cooler

 

[propersplitbrainme]

Thanks for all the replies guys, I've now got a much better idea of where I'm at than I was a few days ago and what my hard-earned will buy as and when I get round to parting with the readies. I tend to dither a bit over purchaces like this and I knew there would be allegencies and preferences towards either Intel or AMD chips, and NVidia and ATI graphics cards but I'm not exactly sure which way to go yet.

 

[grumpyoldb]

Choosing PC stuff is like choosing a car. It all comes down to what suits your needs, and your pocket.

What I need to do with a PC will probably not be what you need to do with it, so our choices will always differ.

Horses for courses, mate.