Core 2 or AM2 + Other Questions

[Xaneden]

Hey Guys,
As a person considering an upgrade, I'm in a bit of a dilemna as to whether I should go AM2 or Intel's LGA775 Core 2 route. If any of you could answer the following questions, it'd be much appreciated:

1) Which has a longer upgrade path. Is AM2 likely to last as long as 939 did? Also, I believe Intel's chipsets change every time a new line of processors come out; will this be the general case with Core 2?

2) Could you suggest a medium to high level motherboard to use for both routes; I know of the P5B, but I am unsure as to whether it competes with Gigabyte's offering.

3) Which is most likely to perform better for price? I.e. Which gives you the most for your money (or at least appears to from benchmarks so far). Also, if you would, could you suggest which processor from both parties give the best performance/price ratio.


Thanks for any help you can give.

[aidanjt]

1) I don't think there's any indication that AMD plans to release another socket type anytime soon. Nope, Intel only releases new chipsets when they have core technology to include into the overall system, the conroe makes quite a few changes to memory access and various bits n bobs, the Intel 965 and 975 chipsets are conroe compatiable with a supported BIOS, they only release a new socket design when they don't have enough pinouts or have totally changed the electrical interface (usually the former). There's talk of Intel changing their socket sometime next year but I havn't come across any substantial evidence regarding it.

2) Anything Asus (rough prices)
AM2 Hi-End: Asus M2N32-SLi-DLX nForce 590 SLi (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 £140
AM2 Mid-End: Asus M2N-E (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 £82
Core2 Hi-End: Asus P5W DH Deluxe WiFi (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 £174
Core2 Mid-End: Asus P5B (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 £115

3) Core2 by a long strech
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core FX62 2.80GHz (Socket AM2) £730
Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) £250
E6600s spanks Fx62s in the majority of benchies... nuff said.

[ExceededGoku]

well you can expect current conroe motherboards to support quad core but AM2 won't as far as AMDs plans have gone soo far... AM2 4 x 4 will have 2 CPU sockets for 2 dual cores so you could wait for that. At the moment the best upgradeable course is the intel Conroe and in terms of performance .

1) No and No
2) High End AM2: Asus M2N32-SLi-DLX nForce 590 SLi
Mid AM2: Asus M2N-E (Socket AM2) PCI-Express
High End LGA775: DFI Infinity 975X
Mid End LGA775: ?
3) Conroe

[Xaneden]

Thanks for the speedy replies guys.

So would you say that an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 + Asus P5W DH Deluxe and appropriate RAM and graphics card would be a PC that is both Vista ready, and can tackle even the most demanding of games available at the moment (and in the next year, for instance).

[ExceededGoku]

erm thats basically what I'm upgrading to when RD600 is released so I would say a big YES

[aidanjt]

I'd say that, 2GB of PC6400 (PC8500 if you want to crank up the hurtz), and 1 x1900XT (2 if you're feeling flush ) would kill anything released on the market in the next two years

[Xaneden]

That's what I like to hear.

Thanks again for your help guys.

[Xaneden]

Two quick-questions:

1) How much overall performance gain are we looking at by going up to the 1066mhz RAM, as opposed to using 800mhz RAM?

2) The latest Corsair RAM DIMMs have latencies of CAS 3-4-3-9. However, the 2x1GB combination I am looking at has the same specs but latencies of CAS 5-5-5-12. Would the latter provide significantly less performance than the former, and is it worth the almost doubled price-tag?


Thanks again for your help guys.

[aidanjt]

1) No idea, Intel have been keeping their chips kinda close to their chests, so I've no idea what kind of performance gain will be gained by overclocking, maybe David knows, but he can't spill all the beans just yet.. but with that said, they use sod all power, just 35W TDP at the top end of things, so very cool and very efficent, even a modest Zalman aero flower HSF should get a significant clock boost. Purely my opinion of course.
2) David did say latency isn't a big a deal with conroe/ddr2, i'd be inclined to agree with that and go with faster ram to give the NB as much memory bandwidth as possible. A double price tag would definatly not be worth it for slightly tighter timings imo.

[Xaneden]

Great, thanks for the reply Aidanjt.

Next question.... ... Any ideas on a graphics card which can be purchased for around 200 to 300 pounds, but supplies enough power to compliment the spec I laid out above? Ideally, I'm looking for something like the GTO2 was in its time: Not too expensive, but with hefty performance.

[aidanjt]

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 for £260 at overclockers (costs £300 at scan :/)?

I like Sapphire, never had a problem with the Sapphire 9600XT board I got some years ago, I got a HIS last year since it was a good deal cheaper (AGP, hard to get).

[Xaneden]

Sold me the Saphire there Aidanjt

Right, just a few more components to decide on:


Hard Drive
I am looking for quite a bit of storage space, as well as fast read/write times. I saw the following, and would probably stripe two of them:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=397203

Does anybody know of a better drive(s) which would provide around 600gb+ when mirrored, and which may be faster/cheaper for it?

In addition to this, I was considering a Raptor to boot from for Windows/game use; I could probably afford the 73gb one, but how do these compare to the newer ones which have faster access times?

Case
I have always personally found the Coolermaster Stacker appealing, but I'm not too sure on the new one they've brought out. Could anyone recommend a good, relatively spacious case? I particulary like the cuboid ones, and ideally one of those 'U2-UFO' Mountain Mod ones, but they are out of my price range and too costly to ship from the US. Again, any ideas?

PSU
No idea about the PSU market, but I would definitely like one of the fully-modular ones which allow all the cables to be removed from the connectors at the PSU itself. Ideally, I'd be looking for one around the 500/600w mark which is reliable, and if possible, quiet... Any suggestions?

Monitor
After using a 1920x1200 WUXGA resolution laptop for 2 years, I've grown quite used to the high resolution widescreen type display, and find 1024x768 etc quite hard to use. I'm therefore looking for effectively the cheapest WUXGA desktop display available, preferably with refresh times of around 16ms. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks again guys.

[ExceededGoku]

stacker, next one up is temjin tj07 (my next case - ordering in like a week)

[Fidley]

One word for psu's... seasonic, dunno if they a modular one but they're the mutts nuts!

[Xaneden]

Thanks for the suggestion Fidley, I'll have a look at their range.

Anyone else got any recommendations?

[FatalSaviour]

Great, thanks for the reply Aidanjt.

Next question.... ... Any ideas on a graphics card which can be purchased for around 200 to 300 pounds, but supplies enough power to compliment the spec I laid out above? Ideally, I'm looking for something like the GTO2 was in its time: Not too expensive, but with hefty performance.

Bear in mind that any graphics card that you buy now won't support DX10, which will be included with Vista, but depending on your upgrade plans, this may or may not be such a dealbreaker.