Intel Duo Quad 6600 v AMD AM2 6000

[999tigger]

Hi

Ok I was set to but an AMD 6000 AM2 as im upgrading/doing a new build from a 3200. I have always been loyal to AMD as offering the best value for money. The 6000 is about £85 at the moment.

It seems in the last few years Intel and those stupid blue men have come back into the frame and are now trouncing AMD. I was just about to by my nvidia motherboard when I see all you guys going on about 0 stepping and the Q6600 being the chip of choice.

The Core2 6600 is about £150 and supposedly clocks easily , but I'm not too bothered about that. My point is please explain why its worth it? The Mboards also look more expensive if I wnat to stay SLI(I already have 2 nvidia cards)

My normal strategy would eb to get the 6000 wait a year-18 months and then upgrade again. All advice on why i should go from an amd 3200 to a quad core welcome. I dont have to have uber speed, but if the 6600 is such a better steal and thats what you guys seem to be saying, then I am considering it. Must buy all my bits very soon.

Thanks

[Thorsson]

Really depends on what you use the comp for. I'm presuming from the SLI that's it's heavily gaming based. If it is then more and more games are going to make use of multiple cores. At the moment though, most current games are not CPU limited.

Also the current Intel chipsets do not support SLI, so that leaves you with the NVidia ones that are getting a bit long in the tooth, yet are still quite expensive.

TBH December isn't the best time to buy. Xmas demand often keeps prices high when normally they would be falling. Also there's a lot of new kit being released in the next couple of months - including AMD.

Looks like you're tight for money, in which case my advice would be to wait until the second half of January and then look again.

[moogle]

a month ago my 6000+ m2n-sli and 2gb cost me around £200, but a c2d setup equivalent would cost around the same. ( e6600, 2gb and a 965 mobo). Quad is just a default if you're building a new pc with some cash because £165 is around the price that normal cpu's have been. plus its future proof and the c2d quad g0 still clocks well.

I was loyal to AMD too but then I came across this quote - "Loyalty is a consumer disease, which leads us unthinkingly to just one company, rather than finding the best product."

And I realized after AMD's Phenom didn't perform better that I might as well go with Intel for the meantime until AMD releases another great performer. But seeing as their Phenom has just been released I don't see that happening any time soon. If you can't get quad you can get a dual core setup.

Still love AMD!

[Anubis386]

Well if you want to stay SLI then the only option for that and an Intel chip is a 680i board ... Quad CPUs work fine in them but don't overclock as well in them as in an X35/38 board .. but if your not worried about getting a mega clock then that shouldn't matter .. The 680i boards are quite expensive but their very good in my opinion, decent onboard sound and networking, plenty of SATA ports ..

A Q6600 is going to perform better then a 6000+ and even with stock volts and cooler you can boost your clock a few hundred mhz easily ..

[Lucio]

That's not entirely true, it is feasable to stick with a 650i chipset for all but the most powerful of cards, that's at least one way to keep the costs down.

[Anubis386]

O yeh, I forgot about the 7xxx/6xxx series cards .. Even then tho it would be better to get a 680i for the sake of future upgrade ability ..