New Build Phenom II or i7

[aidanjt]

I'm not saying every one is bad, but I see a lot of failures.

That's what RMAs are for. Faulty batches aren't anything new to the IT industry.

[sammorris]

and that's fair enough, but they didn't come together. I don't like products that go wrong often, and at various different times. A lot of it seems to be ICH related.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Perhaps not quite 50%, but above the baseline level (the idle power of the X2, the lowest measurement) in the techreport's charts, a Core 2 Quad uses an extra 55W above this. A Phenom II uses 80. Now this doesn't consider the extra level, but at this stage, 80/55 = 1.455, so that 50% isn't as wild as you think it is.

Nice attempt to massage the figures(I see what you are trying to do) but the fact is that the AMD Phenom II X4 940 based combo consumes 10% more as a platform than the Q9400 one.



However the Phenom II X4 940 is still slightly faster and is cheaper than the Q9400 though in Cinebench.

The chipset issue is from real experience from people I know having to send boards back for failures. What was so wrong about that paragraph exactly?

It is another blanket statement though. Motherboard issues can be due to either chipset design issues or poor hardware or BIOS implementations by a specific motherboard manufacturer. I have known people who have had issues with Intel chipsets on certain motherboards but it was due to the implementation as others did not have the same issues with other companies motherboards with the same chipset.

By the way, did you consider that the Core 2s don't have a good cooler because they don't need it? Intel's coolers get smaller and smaller every day, and unless you overclock them they don't seem to overheat with them. I think Intel are using their stock coolers as an example to show how efficient their chips are (and don't forget how far a Core 2 will overclock with no voltage and therefore negligible heat increase). AMD on the other hand produce these big brutes to keep their hot chips in check.

The Phenom II X4 920 and 940 have heatsinks which are a carry though from the earlier 65nm Phenom. If you look at the X3 720 for example it has a much smaller heatsink. Anyway it is nice to know that AMD supplies a decent stock cooler still for its more expensive processors still.

[sammorris]

If it were just the MA790GP-DS4H and UD4H I would have said so. Most of the failures were these, but most of the people I know with Phenom IIs have this board. However an M3A78 user has sent his back as well. The one success story is a DFI user. Again, I'm not saying there's a certain, or even a likely chance that you will have problems with a Phenom II build, but I see more go wrong than Intel boards (other than ones from crappy brands of course), put it that way.

Note that Cinebench is a multimedia direct benchmark, the test AMDs always fared best in. If this is your line of work, AMD (or i7 as they share the same advantages) every time, but elsewhere AMDs aren't so fast. It is the comparative higher performance that nullifies AMD's power consumption as it gets the job done quicker.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If it were just the MA790GP-DS4H and UD4H I would have said so. Most of the failures were these, but most of the people I know with Phenom IIs have this board. However an M3A78 user has sent his back as well. The one success story is a DFI user.

Gigabyte had loads of reliability issues with their Intel 965 chipset motherboards a few years ago too so I would not think that I could blame the chipset for this TBH.

Also people on this forum have used Asus 780G motherboards without any issues(as far as I know).

[sammorris]

I don't remember that, I know several people that had the 965P-DS3 specifically without incident. There have been a fair few problems for Gigabyte with the P45 though, the EP45-DS3Rs and UD3Rs don't seem to be faring too well.
It's so hard to find a decent motherboard these days.

[dangel]

At top end, there is a significant difference to be had from higher end processors in games, trust me. But for the medium-high user, A Core 2 Quad will get you by fine.

At high-res it's all GPU bound though.. There's no massive jump in framerates for me at 2048 x 1152 if i push my C2Q up by 700mhz from 3ghz.

[scaryjim]

Woo! I love fanboy wars

I happily admit that I was, am, and will probably always remain something of an AMD fanboy (I even say so in my user title, if you pay attention ). On the other hand, there's no denying that Intel currently have the performance market sewn up - nor is there any denying that, until Phenom II came out, Intel had everything except the budget market sewn up.

Now, here's the kicker: during that time (2006 - 2007) I had 2 types of requests from my clients (yes, I was self employed at the time) - workgroup servers / mid-range workstations, and basic office machines. So I did the *right* thing - I used AMD components in the office machines, and turned out well performing office computers with 1GB RAM, decent NVidia graphics cores (the 6100 integrated boards had just come out for AM2), 17" tft monitors, nice desktop cases, at < &#163;500 each, and I used Core 2 Duos in the servers / workstations. On a personal level I would much rather have used AMD throughout, but AMD simply weren't competing in the performance end of the market.

I guess if you came to computer building during that period you're likely to be an inherent Intel fanboy because Intel *were* so much better when Core 2 came out. But some of us remember when Athlons walked all over everything Intel could think up in the top range, and Durons ate Celerons for breakfast - and we remember when Pentium 2 and 3 were the only processors worth buying - and we remember when Pentium first came out and had horrendous floating point errors - and there are others on here who could go back even further. There have always been waves in ascendency between the major processor manufacturers. Right now, AMD are on an upswing and are competitive (whatever you may think as a fanboy) with the similarly priced Core 2 Quads.

As an aside, a lot of people on Hexus are actually going with the X3 720. It provides a brilliant balance of power, value, and multicore readiness - more flexible than a dual core, but cheaper than a quad. It beats a Q8200 in single-thread tests, and an E8400 in multi-thread tests. And, frankly, Intel just don't have a competitor to it.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

i stopped reading/taking interest in this thread as soon as all the fanboys of both sides came into play. seriously, grow up you lot and just buy whatever is best for you no matter what the brand is and dont buy something just because its made by a certain company ie being a childish fanboy.

You lot need to grow a pair

in a nutshell:

Buy a i7 if you want the fastes cpu:

Buy a core 2 quad if you want a cheap affordable pc

Buy a AMD p2 if your coming from an AMD machine.

Thats it. case closed

[aidanjt]

I'd have trouble justifying spending money on C2 atm, LGA775 is a dead platform, and AMD are doing pretty well in the mid-range space, especially if you're on a tighter budget. Even though I'm rather partial to Intel chipsets in terms of reliability, particularly for servers.

But otherwise, if you have a need for speed, i7 all the way.

[scaryjim]

And then AMD did this

[aidanjt]

And then AMD did this

Yeah, I have my eye on the 940BE myself though. DDR3 has come down to reasonable pricing levels, but I cba upgrading to it any time soon.

[sammorris]

Dangel: Depends on the game, in Crysis Warhead on Enthusiast, my Q6600 at 3.2Ghz limited me to 25-27fps in parts, where my Q9550 can manage 33-34.

Scarjim: Exactly as I predicted, the 955 does better, but falls behind the Q9550.

Regardless of whether you buy an AMD or Intel platform, I don't get why people call LGA775 'dead'. 775 CPUs outsell AM2s 2:1, and it offers an even wider range of CPUs than AM2 does. The only reason it is in any doubt is due to i7's release, and while DDR3 prices falling have helped a lot, i7 is still a reasonably small high-end sector of the market, and will be until i5 comes out. Notably, however, i5 only seems to be initially offering Dual cores. There are a lot of people out there who want a Quad core, but don't want to pay i7 prices, for them there's either a Phenom II, or the Core 2 Quad.

Performance wise, either will get the job done. However, there is no counter-argument to the fact that the Core 2s are, technologically the better product, whether or not people think they're better value.

[aidanjt]

I call LGA775 'dead', because that's precisely what it is. It's a platform with no future. The CPUs it supports holds it's own... for now. But that's irrelevant when your only 'upgrade' path is to ramp up voltage and frequency, and burn the CPU out, which will start dropping off the market about next year, so you wont even get a replacement without turning to fleabay.

Considering that the Core 2 micro-architecture takes up to a 20&#37; performance hit in native mode, it's something to consider when you're making an expensive purchase decision.

This is *not* to say that Core 2 is bad. In fact it's very good, and it got Intel back in the game. But at this point it is old, and it will start to show its age as applications become more complex.

[DanceswithUnix]

775 CPUs outsell AM2s 2:1

Never a good argument. If popularity is a benchmark then the Daily Mail is quality journalism, and Eastenders is quality drama.

All that matters is how many instructions the CPU can retire per second in your specific mix of work.

Me? I prefer to use a 49 quid 7750BE cpu and then spend the savings on beer until it seems fast

[dangel]

Dangel: Depends on the game, in Crysis Warhead on Enthusiast, my Q6600 at 3.2Ghz limited me to 25-27fps in parts, where my Q9550 can manage 33-34.

As a general rule, it's pretty true. If you've got SLI/Crossfire etc then you've more to feed, so it's a little different (not much from those numbers tho). Crysis is a bit of a oddity anyway though - as it doesn't scale well with multi gpu setups afaik (is that ALL you got with FOUR gpus?!)