Pulling the trigger.... AMD vs Intel

[Sniper_Merc]

Pulling the trigger.... AMD vs Intel

Came into a bit of $ today so im looking at upgrades

Priced out Upgrading from AMD to AMD, and AMD to Intel, purchasing will all be done from Newegg

Both systems will be using the Vantec Armor 8000 Series Black Aluminum case at $150, and the Vantec Stingray all in one water cooling kit $175, eventually I'll upgrade the single fan radiator to a tripple sized one, but it's not a necessity to start with.

Price of Intel system shipped is $1,090.05 , for the AMD it's $815.11.

Right now im having a hard time justifying the extra $275 it would take to upgrade to the Intel based system despite the fact it would likely beat the pants of the AMD one in CPU power.

Here's the differances.

AMD CPU: Athlon 64 x2 4200 Manchester core $183
Intel CPU: Core 2 Duo 6300: $180

AMD Ram: Adding in another 1 GB of Corsair XMS for 2 GB Total: $150
Intel Ram: Can only afford 1 GB of DDR 2 so 1 GB total: @188

AMD Motherboard: ASRock 939Dual-VSTA Socket 939, has AGP and PCI X16 slots, and a slot to upgrade to AM2 later on, only 3 Sata ports tho.
Intel Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 Socket T, newer tech, has more Sata ports.

AMD Video: Wouldn't need new vid card, but could afford one.
Intel Video: BFG Tech 7600 GT, somewhat higher performance than my 6800 GT

As far as overclocking, on water the Intel chip should be able to hit 3.5 GHz fairly easily, and the AMD chip, 2.7 to 2.9 GHz depending on the core.

Advatage goes to Intel in CPU power (more than likely when you include overclocking), I'm just not certain it's worth the extra $270 to get there, and I will have one major disadvantage if I do go with the Intel system, it will only have 1 GB of ram. These days it seems that the more ram you have, the better, especially for the newer games coming out, let alone Vista in a few months.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

One other thing of note on the AMD system, I could upgrade the Video card to the new 7900 GS that just came out at $199 price tag, that would be a significant boost to my aging 6800 GT.

Thoughts anybody?

 

[LstBrunnenG]

I've seen 2 GB of DDR2-800 for $200 after MIR from G.Skill.

 

[engiNURD]

It seems like you're comparing some budget parts with better quality parts. give us a list of components for each build. There's an asrock dual775 board as well, that runs half the cost of the ds3. That would be a better comparison. Whats your budget and what do you use the system for (which games, if you game), and what size monitor do you have?

 

[Sniper_Merc]

It seems like you're comparing some budget parts with better quality parts. give us a list of components for each build. There's an asrock dual775 board as well, that runs half the cost of the ds3. That would be a better comparison. Whats your budget and what do you use the system for (which games, if you game), and what size monitor do you have?

Actually, what I was trying to do was get a feeling that it was actually worth it for me to go with the higher cost Intel based system vs sticking with some of my current parts and go cheaper.

In the end, what I decided was on the AMD system, cause I felt it wasnt worth it to throw out the Corsair PC 4000 ram that I currently was using and get saddled with some cheap DDR2 and only 1 GB at that vs 2 GB on the AMD sys, and I could still use my 6800 GT as well.

Allthough, I actually did order a new vid card with the extra $ I had left over and wound up with a 7900 GS .

Overall, I spent just as much on the AMD system, but wound up with a lower cpu than the intel sys, higher vid card, and 1 GB more ram.

Next up, teh build.............

 

[engiNURD]

Well, you coulda lowered the cost of the conroe build by using the asrock board, but i'm not sure what else, since you didnt post everything. For $1000, you coulda built a nice conroe system if you wanted (E6300/2GB/7600gt/etc). Anyhow, good luck with the build.

 

[[LYL]Homer]

Another option on the Intel side is the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA board which is an end run around your video card and RAM budget issues. Newegg has it for $56.

AGP slot
PCIe slot

2x DDR slots
2x DDR2 slots

manuf site:
http://www.asrock.com/product/775Dual-VSTA.htm
pic:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowI...+VIA+PT880+PRO+ATX+Intel+Motherboard+-+Retail
newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813157092

Anandtech did a series on the board, parts 1-3:
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2810
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2813
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2814

Edit: oops, saw you ordered already. *cough* RMA *cough*

 

[Sniper_Merc]

Another option on the Intel side is the ASRock 775Dual-VSTA board which is an end run around your video card and RAM budget issues. Newegg has it for $56.

Shit, missed that board, though I would still be stuck with 1 GB of ram, though with the savings on the board, I probably could have afforded 2 GB of decent stuff.

Ohh well......

Edit: nope on the gig of DDR 2, however I wouldnt have had to buy it right away either. That put me at $856 shipped, with the 7900 GS, hrrrm and no DDR 2, could have gotten a 7900 GTX tho arrrrrgggghhhhh.

ReEdit: Ehh, nevermind it's a Via chipset limited to 4x PCI Express speed, forget that noise.

 

[ZodaEX]

LOL!

 

[Sniper_Merc]

LOL!

Board mighta been decent if it wasnt a lousy VIA chipset on it, old pt 880, only supports pci express x4 for the graphics lane, which does work but slower than even 8x AGP.

Think I would put my nuts in a grinder than use another board with a VIA chipset.

 

[engiNURD]

Shit, missed that board, though I would still be stuck with 1 GB of ram, though with the savings on the board, I probably could have afforded 2 GB of decent stuff.

Ohh well......

Edit: nope on the gig of DDR 2, however I wouldnt have had to buy it right away either. That put me at $856 shipped, with the 7900 GS, hrrrm and no DDR 2, could have gotten a 7900 GTX tho arrrrrgggghhhhh.

ReEdit: Ehh, nevermind it's a Via chipset limited to 4x PCI Express speed, forget that noise.

I mentioned the board in my post, but I guess you missed it:

...There's an asrock dual775 board as well, that runs half the cost of the ds3. ...

Also, if you read the anandtech reviews that Homer posted, you'll notice that the 4x pci-e doesnt really hurt the performance of pci-e vidcards as much as you think.

However, the performance of the PCI Express slot is not that bad with the worst penalty being around 5% with our video cards. (Pairing the motherboard with a top end GPU results in performance that can be up to 10% slower in certain applications than competing motherboards.) If you have either an AGP or midrange PCI Express card then this board will handle both in a more than acceptable manner with today's applications.

2GB prolly wasnt too far off from your budget. I'm not sure if this list is missing anything you needed or not... but you coulda kept your old vidcard for a while if you needed to save more money...
$180 - Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz
$150 - A-DATA Vitesta 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-533 ELJKD1A16K
$230 - XFX PV-T71G-UDF7 Geforce 7900GT 256MB ($260 - $30 MIR)
$56 - ASRock 775Dual-VSTA Socket T (LGA 775) VIA PT880 PRO
$150 - Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS Black Aluminum/Steel ATX Full Tower
$180 - Vantec Stingray STG-100 All-in-One Liquid Water Cooling System
=====================
$946 + tax and shipping

If you're wondering about that ram, anandtech tested it here. It can OC nicely for its price.

EDIT: I do agree with you about VIA chipsets, though, lol. They're a pain.

 

[Sniper_Merc]

$150 - A-DATA Vitesta 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2-533 ELJKD1A16K

Crap, wish I had known about that ram before hand, that's the cheapest that I've seen DDR2 and Anan got it going to 800 Mhz speed. Probably could have come up with a cheap but decent overclocking board beyond that, gone with 7900 GS for more savings over the GT you mentioned.

Just checked newegg, order was charged so no stopping it at this point lol, oh well, I can live with it.

Edit: Actually, going with the same gigabyte board i started out with, bfg tech 7600 GT that Vitesta ram would have worked nearly perfectly, comes out to within 2 bucks of what I just ordered for the AMD system.

Only 1 fault tho, the Vitesta isn't in stock and I want to build this machine this week.

 

[engiNURD]

Just checked newegg, order was charged so no stopping it at this point lol, oh well, I can live with it.

Only 1 fault tho, the Vitesta isn't in stock and I want to build this machine this week.

If it hasnt shipped, you can cancel it. The A-Data was in stock earlier today

 

[Sniper_Merc]

If it hasnt shipped, you can cancel it. The A-Data was in stock earlier today

At that price tho, I can understand why it went out of stock so fast, I looked around for the same stuff from other places and only one that had it was tiger direct for $259 bucks vs Egg at $150. Figure Egg musta missed jacking up the price on that ram from its lower price a few months ago or something.

Eh well, Se la Vie