Which set up would be better?

[kalniel]

For a mix of gaming and scientific apps, considering all other things equal (2gb ram etc)

A) AMD X2 3800+, Ati X800GTO, single hdd

B) Intel D 820, Ati X850XT, single hdd

C) Intel D 820, Ati X800XL, Matrix RAID 0+1

Thanks,

Kalniel

[Thorsson]

Gaming is mostly about the graphics card. Aside from that the AMD will kick Intel butt every time.

Scientific apps - getting more memory is probably your biggest single boost. Aside from that, probably AMD again - Intel is generally only better in some very specific areas. Gfx make no difference in most apps.

[Ramedge]

dude how much is that costing ? and is that an AGP setup or PCI-E?
btw if your looking for gaming id go for somthing AMD and Nvidia gpu
Cheers

[herulach]

IT all depends what you mean by scientific apps. Either will be good at a bit of matlab or something like that, but if youre doing serious simulation work Intel is the way to go. And with a proc that powerful youll still be able to game on it fine.

[icq3800846]

The D820 being dual core has a great advantage if you are using multithread applications, such as some video editing packages, or if you like having many programs running all at the same time.

The future IS with multi-core processors, but at this point in time there is little or no advantage to having dual or multicore processors.

One thing to look to in the near future is the introduction or nVidia 80 series drivers, which can apparently use dual core processors at a driver level, but this of course needs to be used with an nVidia graphics card, and the biggest benefit is going to be with systems that have very high end graphics cards running at very high resolution and detail.

In such systems the graphics card performance is limited by the processors' performance and the ability to utilise two processing cores can have potential benefits. I have read some articles that state up to 30% increase in graphics performance has been achieved.

As you are only going for a high end graphics card and not a bleeding edge card, for most instances I would recommend the fasted single core processor you can afford, but with a dual core one you are buying a lot of future proofing.

In nearly all tests the AMD x2 processor wins, and I would recommend going with that.

[Thorsson]

IT all depends what you mean by scientific apps. Either will be good at a bit of matlab or something like that, but if youre doing serious simulation work Intel is the way to go.

That's true with single core. In dual core AMD is much stronger than the current Intel offerings.

[herulach]

That's true with single core. In dual core AMD is much stronger than the current Intel offerings.

How? If 1 single core intel is faster than 1 single core amd, then 1 dual core will be better than the other too

[Thorsson]

I don't know how, I guess something in the architecture, but the benchmarks I've seen show that the AMD chips have a greater improvement over their single processor cousins than the Pentiums.

[Hans Voralberg]

There's big different in the two architecture and im not sure if AMD dual really is better in all means. It's just that Intel dual core is priced stupidly high and not much on the offer atm. So economically what do u choose ??

[herulach]

I don't know how, I guess something in the architecture, but the benchmarks I've seen show that the AMD chips have a greater improvement over their single processor cousins than the Pentiums.

Probably bandwidth limited tests then, since intel share a 800mhz (? dont know what there bus speeds are up to) bus that they need to talk to each other and the memory down, where as amd has hypertransport, so can talk core to core at clock speed

[Hans Voralberg]

Err, thought Intel up to 1200Mhz atm rite ??

[herulach]

Err, thought Intel up to 1200Mhz atm rite ??

still not as fast as hyper transport and inter core communication is much slower

[Ramedge]

if i had about £700 to spend id be buying a xfx7800gt - 4400 X2 and another 2gigs of RAM
or i would get one of these new asus mobo's that has dual 16x sli and get two 7800gts

[Hans Voralberg]

still not as fast as hyper transport and inter core communication is much slower

Intresting, can u show me more details Would be grateful

[cougarslam]

which asus mobo has dual 16x pci-e.

[Hans Voralberg]

The new one, is not out yet, ETA Nov i think