Building a New Machine

T

Torn

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 21, 2004
Messages
433
Alright, my AMD Athlon XP2500+(3200+OC) is starting to show its age. I need to build a new machine. Now, I've been an AMD man since the K6-2. It seems that Intel has really closed the price-to-performance gap. I've kept up on AMD, but not on Intel. Anyone know of a guide comparing the two as well as a primer on Intels current hardware? Any reasonable and well thought out opinions appreciated. :D

edit: I suppose I should point out I am a gamer. That comes before all else. Doesn't have to be the best, just the best for the money.
 
I'm not up on the hardware (chipsets, sockets) but there's no debating that the best cpu's out right now are Intel's Core 2 Duo's (quad core are out soon too, I believe).
 
Well, I'd like to keep it as far below $1k as possible. I'm just looking for something better than what I have now that I can upgrade in the future. Thanks for the guides. I'll give them a good read.
 
Intel Core 2 Duo - $183.50
Foxconn P9657AA-8KS2H Socket T (LGA 775) Intel P965 Express - $99.00
Patriot Signature 1GB DDR2 667 RAM - $103.99
eVGA GeForce 7600GT 256MB PCI-Express - $129.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 160GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s - $57.99
LITE-ON DVD Burner - $31.99
FSP Group (Fortron) 450W Power Supply - $53.99
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Total: $662.44 without tax and shipping.

Far below $1000 as you requested. But since you still have quite a bit of money left, you can still get a better video card and another stick of that 1GB Patriot RAM.
 
The foxconn is a nice budget board. It can also OC pretty well... Here's a review on it:
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/963/6/page_6_bios_and_overclocking_foxconn/index.html

Anandtech did some tests with some value ram kits. I'd go with these sticks:

$200 - CORSAIR ValueSelect 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-667 VS2GBKIT667D2
CPU Ratio // Memory Speed // Best Memory Timings // Voltage
4:3 // DDR2-400 // 3-2-2-5 // 1.9V ..... 1:1 // DDR2-533 // 3-2-2-7 // 2.1V
4:5 // DDR2-667 // 3-3-3-8 // 2.1V ..... 2:3 // DDR2-800 // 4-3-3-8 // 2.2V

They can reach DDR2-800 speed if you want to OC, and they're 1.8v so you shouldn't have any problems booting up for the first time.

Core2Duo's OC very easily (stock cooler, low voltage - sometimes stock). Anandtech was able to reach 2.59Ghz on an E6300 with only 1.35v (1.3 stock) and the stock intel HSF! (link)
 
Thanks a ton guys! Now the other question was what about comparing the current Intels with the current AMDs? How are they stacking up price to performance wise? Thanks again!
 
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