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Price sensitive Quad Core showdown?

G

GeminiCool

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 11, 2005
Messages
97
Cross post because the AMD Processor form is a ghost town...

I'm not really a fanboy for AMD I just hate paying higher prices. I remember the $350 Celeron 300a, I also remember the $85 3800X2 that OC'd to 2.7+Gig. I much prefer the cheap fast than the expensive fast. :)

That said my game pc now runs an E6750 @ 3.55G on a P35 MB. So, $180CPU and $130 MB... oh and lets not forget the $200 8800GT card. My second PC is a X2@2.93Gig (1Meg cache) on an AMD 690G chipset. So, $100CPU and $90 MB... The Intel rig runs about 20% faster but bumped my price some $120! With 4 kids, my days of being able to justify high priced hardware are long gone.

So enter today. I'm not shelling out $1k+ for a CPU. Given current pricing the CPU has to be under $300 (I like under $100) bucks to even be considered. I guess I see my current options as a 3 way CPU showdown:
E6750 or equivalent OC to 3.55
E6600 OC to 3.0
Phenom 9850 OC to 2.9

Seems to me these 3 CPUs are darn close in performance with the edge going to the 6750 when not using all 4 cores and the quads when all 4 are in use. The 6600 will likely perform faster than the 9850. So now motherboard price.... What the heck is going on here?? I remember "high end" boards coming close to $200 bucks but now, $400 bucks!!!

When I consider a platform, the picture blurs. So I guess here's my real question. If you build a PC with a P35 type motherboard for sub $150 and put the 6750 or 6600 on that MB how fast is that system compared to say a 790 chipset sub $150 MB with the 9850?

Can you build a "cheap" system that is mostly GPU limited in gaming using AMD or does every somewhat performance minded person need to go Intel?

Your thoughts..

Peter
 
To be honest, in that category, there's not a ton of difference overall. But I have to admit that I'm loving my QX9650. I'm not even taxing right now and I got 3.83 with just voltages and the multiplier and seems to running great if not super cool. Got a stable Prime 95 25 hour run. I think I'll get a Xigmatek S1264 and see if I can get to 4GHz.

With $200 you can get a E8400 and probably get to 4GHz or pretty close on air as well. That CPU at that speed will hold you a while. AMD just doesn't compete well in the enthusiast market at this time and will you can go cheaper with AMD, Intel just got way better value IMHO. 4GHz dual core for $200, that a good deal.
 
heatlesssun -

Thanks for the reply. I hadn't considered the E8400, I had read the Wolfdale doesn't seem to have as much headroom as the Conroe and was worried the additional voltage on a 45nm part would have a major negative effect on CPU life.

My history with overclocking is very average. That is, I rarely hit the high end overlocks with 100% stablity. I've also had a very "average" overclock fail. For example, I was pushing my 1.6A celeron @ 2.4Gig, great CPU for the price, well the stinken CPU gave up the ghost at the 28 month mark!

Now 28 months doesn't sound bad, but when you recycle parts for those who don't need cutting edge, kids/mom/dad, loosing a near 3 year old CPU is a REAL pain to replace.

Would you really give the nod to the new Wolfdale over the Canroe? My Canroe did boot and run @ 4Gig but to approach stablity the voltage bump would like cause major long term reliability issues.

- Peter.
 
hey peter, nice point.

I still think that an AMD 5000+ BE , that can be oc'd to 3 Ghz , on a 690g mobo , and a 8800gt with either 2 or 4 gigs of ram ... can be really good .. as in really really ...

but technology moves on.. and some might find it kinda odd to buy hardware that are old.. but oh well
 
Take a look around, people are easily overclocking the E8400 around 4GHz or higher. I think that its pretty obvious that Intel is underclocking it CPU's because they can. The thing about it is that you can overclock these things like nobody's business and STILL remain within electrical and thermal tolerances.

I too am not a fan of overclocking, but seeing people run their Q6600 faster than my QX9650 wasn't something I was going to let stand. At any rate, as I got into, its simply impressive how well they work. Even at stock voltage, you can oc a QX9650 10%. Just up the multiplier by .5. That's it. Rock solid.

With Penyrn CPU's there's simply no reason to not overclock at least a little. That's just how they roll.
 
heatlesssun said:
To be honest, in that category, there's not a ton of difference overall. But I have to admit that I'm loving my QX9650. I'm not even taxing right now and I got 3.83 with just voltages and the multiplier and seems to running great if not super cool. Got a stable Prime 95 25 hour run. I think I'll get a Xigmatek S1264 and see if I can get to 4GHz.

With $200 you can get a E8400 and probably get to 4GHz or pretty close on air as well. That CPU at that speed will hold you a while. AMD just doesn't compete well in the enthusiast market at this time and will you can go cheaper with AMD, Intel just got way better value IMHO. 4GHz dual core for $200, that a good deal.
Click to expand...

What board are you using the QX9650 with?

EDIT: Ah never mind saw your profile. How's everything running for you any issues?
 
I was a little nervous about the 790 Ultra, the scuttlebutt about the data corruption and the many posts on the Asus forums complaining of all sorts of problems, however the professional reviews were pretty glowing.


This hardware is awesome. The only real issue is getting voltages right. The AUTO voltage on the RAM is broken; system would even post at stock. Other than that, overlclocking has just been about upping the CPU, MCH and ICH voltages and the multiplier. I’ve not touched the FSB and probably won’t as I’m not going to get a lot more speed on air anyway. I need to get another heatsink (using a Zalman 9500 LED now) and apply the thermal paste better, its seems to get warm at 100% load under Prime 95 but according to Real Temp I top out at around 24C below TjMax and normal usage temps seem to fine.
 
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