What is up with AMD???

I said "AM2+" not AM2. A decent AM2+ motherboard can EASILY clock up a phenom. Just take a look at the AM2+ DFI 790FX motherboard. Also, there are no reasons for the 45nm chips and AM3 chips not to clock up high on the current AM2+ boards as they all have the same pin count/features besides a few architectures changes. I have also not seen any proof of the Intel boards below P35 clocking up Intel quad cores worth a damn.

I brought up AM2 boards as a counter to your argument that Intel boards before P35 aren't quad core compatible and there are a ton of AM2 Phenom compatible boards which isn't true. I disputed that and you added the "requirement" of decent quad core overclocking as a qualifier of your statement. The P965 boards don't overclock as well as P35 or X38 boards (or P45/X48 series chipsets do) however they still offer enough overclockability in the front side bus to allow for clocks that are most likely beyond what most chips can handle. In contrast no AM2+ board I've seen overclocks Phenom's via FSB adjustments worth a DAMN. Unless you classify a 50MHz FSB increase impressive. There are a few individuals out there that have achieved better results but they are extremely rare. If you want to overclock a Phenom you buy a Black Edition Phenom processor. This almost completely removes the board from the equation as you adjust their clock speed via multiplier adjustments almost exclusively. (At least if you want decent results.)

Since 45nm and AM3 processors aren't out yet you are only spouting conjecture and no hard facts. We don't know what a die shrink and DDR3 support will actually bring to the K10 architecture.
 
If you don't bother to look for it, then how will you find any proof? Granted, P965 doesn't clock as well as P35 with quads but its still capable of respectable overclocks.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=142430
There are plenty of 3GHz+ Q6600 / P965 overclocks in this thread, though I doubt you'll even bother to look - why take the time to reeducate yourself when you can just sprout the same BS with your narrow minded views?

3GHZ is a poor overclock regarding a Q6600, note how we said GOOD overclocking motherboards. Not crap overclocking boards, I am sorry but any boards below P35 such at clocking quads. Hell, even a lot of P35 boards suck at clocking quads so stop and learn to read.

I brought up AM2 boards as a counter to your argument that Intel boards before P35 aren't quad core compatible and there are a ton of AM2 Phenom compatible boards which isn't true. I disputed that and you added the "requirement" of decent quad core overclocking as a qualifier of your statement. The P965 boards don't overclock as well as P35 or X38 boards (or P45/X48 series chipsets do) however they still offer enough overclockability in the front side bus to allow for clocks that are most likely beyond what most chips can handle. In contrast no AM2+ board I've seen overclocks Phenom's via FSB adjustments worth a DAMN. Unless you classify a 50MHz FSB increase impressive. There are a few individuals out there that have achieved better results but they are extremely rare. If you want to overclock a Phenom you buy a Black Edition Phenom processor. This almost completely removes the board from the equation as you adjust their clock speed via multiplier adjustments almost exclusively. (At least if you want decent results.)

Since 45nm and AM3 processors aren't out yet you are only spouting conjecture and no hard facts. We don't know what a die shrink and DDR3 support will actually bring to the K10 architecture.

The thing is that AMD chip's are almost always limited by the chip when it comes to overclocking but Intel boards are limited by the motherboard unless you put out a lot of money for the motherboard. You just explained what I have been saying this entire time and why AMD is still the best for the money.

AMD's don't even use FSB so I don't know what you are talking about with the 25mhz FSB increase talk. Also, your AM2 counter is retarded because the top of the line AM2+ motherboards cost around the same as the low end Intel motherboards that you listed.
 
3GHZ is a poor overclock regarding a Q6600, note how we said GOOD overclocking motherboards. Not crap overclocking boards, I am sorry but any boards below P35 such at clocking quads. Hell, even a lot of P35 boards suck at clocking quads so stop and learn to read.



The thing is that AMD chip's are almost always limited by the chip when it comes to overclocking but Intel boards are limited by the motherboard unless you put out a lot of money for the motherboard. You just explained what I have been saying this entire time and why AMD is still the best for the money.

AMD's don't even use FSB so I don't know what you are talking about with the 25mhz FSB increase talk. Also, your AM2 counter is retarded because the top of the line AM2+ motherboards cost around the same as the low end Intel motherboards that you listed.

The "FSB" adjustments are the HTT adjustments on the motherboard. When not overclocking via multiplier the board is indeed the limiting factor. I found this out when I compared AMD 790FX boards to the NVIDIA 780a SLI chipset based boards. Between the two the NVIDIA boards are TWICE as good. Even then the increase doesn't reliably break 50MHz. It is a well known fact that Phenom's do not respond well to HTT frequency increases.

And again when it comes to cost I just can't agree with you. Nothing we've said here proves that AMD is better for the money. Their processors are slower per clock cycle, don't overclock for crap in comparison and many of the Phenom X4's are too close to the price of the Intel Core 2 Quad processors to really be worth considering in light of all the facts. There are plenty of excellent overclocking motherboards closer to the price of some of the better AM2+ boards.

Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition=$205

Core 2 Quad Q6600=$209

Sure there are some cheaper AMD and Intel processors, but Intel is very competitive on a price/performance ratio. Unless you are looking for the absolute bottom dollar I'd argue that Intel is generally the better value for the enthusiast.
 
3GHZ is a poor overclock regarding a Q6600, note how we said GOOD overclocking motherboards. Not crap overclocking boards, I am sorry but any boards below P35 such at clocking quads. Hell, even a lot of P35 boards suck at clocking quads so stop and learn to read.

Learn to read? I suggest you read the FIRST POST in that link, it clearly shows a few B3 Q6600s in the 3.2 - 3.4GHz range.

- davexl - 3.45ghz - 1.464v - P5B DLX - P95 Stable (B3)
- The Nemesis - 3.3ghz - 1.36v - DFI 965 - p95 Stable (B3)
- Highoctane - 3.2ghz 1.37v - P5B DLX - Orthos Stable (B3)

These are all very respectable overclocks for a B3 Q6600.

Why do you insist on commenting on Intel platforms when you have NFI what you're on about? All your claims thus far have been debunked, I'm interested in what FUD you'll come up with next.
 
3GHZ is a poor overclock regarding a Q6600, note how we said GOOD overclocking motherboards.

A 600Mhz increase over stock speeds is still better than what many Phenom X4 CPUs are capable of. And as Dan_D pointed out, a Q6600 will still be faster than a 3Ghz Phenom CPU clock for clock.

Hell, even a lot of P35 boards suck at clocking quads so stop and learn to read..

That's total BS. If you check out the The Official Core 2 OverClocking Database here on the forums, scroll down to the Q6600 and you'll see that there are many P35 motherboards that do OC the Q6600 very well (3.2Ghz+). And those P35 motherboards run entire price gamut from the $90 EP35-DS3L to the $180 Abit IP35 Pro.

For the enthusiast who likes to OC high, I would recommend Intel any day. But for those people who don't OC, are on a budget, and want the most performance for their dollar, I'll recommend an AMD CPU. Towards the lower price segment, below $100, many AMD CPUs will beat similarly priced under $100 Intel CPUs when both are at stock speeds. You can get a X2 4600+ for $58 these days and that will perform on par with the $70 E2180.

Stop bitching back and forth, this thread is gonna get locked.
Nah, this is still a valid discussion. No major name-calling just yet. :D
 
The "FSB" adjustments are the HTT adjustments on the motherboard. When not overclocking via multiplier the board is indeed the limiting factor. I found this out when I compared AMD 790FX boards to the NVIDIA 780a SLI chipset based boards. Between the two the NVIDIA boards are TWICE as good. Even then the increase doesn't reliably break 50MHz. It is a well known fact that Phenom's do not respond well to HTT frequency increases.

And again when it comes to cost I just can't agree with you. Nothing we've said here proves that AMD is better for the money. Their processors are slower per clock cycle, don't overclock for crap in comparison and many of the Phenom X4's are too close to the price of the Intel Core 2 Quad processors to really be worth considering in light of all the facts. There are plenty of excellent overclocking motherboards closer to the price of some of the better AM2+ boards.

Phenom X4 9850 Black Edition=$205

Core 2 Quad Q6600=$209

Sure there are some cheaper AMD and Intel processors, but Intel is very competitive on a price/performance ratio. Unless you are looking for the absolute bottom dollar I'd argue that Intel is generally the better value for the enthusiast.

The thing is that AMD's don't use FSB, they use HTT, FSB is outdated tech that Intel uses. Also, I don't know what you mean when you say that AMD's cant clock up the HTT much. My Opteron and many other AMD chips can easily go over 100+ on the HTT. When you say that cost wise Intel is neck and neck with AMD, well that might be true with the processors BUT like I said before, you can get a top of the line AMD motherboard with CrossfireX PCI-E 2.0 and the rest of the latest tech for only $100-150.

A $100-150 P35 motherboard would only have PCI-E 1.1, have no crossfire support, no firewire or extra peripherals, and will only be 4 phase so it will most likely die within a year if you are clocking a quad core with it. So Intel doesn't really compete with AMD much at all when you factor in the motherboard. I LOL'ed when you said that Nvidia boards are really good, I wouldn't touch an Nvidia chipset board with a stick nowadays.

A 600Mhz increase over stock speeds is still better than what many Phenom X4 CPUs are capable of. And as Dan_D pointed out, a Q6600 will still be faster than a 3Ghz Phenom CPU clock for clock.



That's total BS. If you check out the The Official Core 2 OverClocking Database here on the forums, scroll down to the Q6600 and you'll see that there are many P35 motherboards that do OC the Q6600 very well (3.2Ghz+). And those P35 motherboards run entire price gamut from the $90 EP35-DS3L to the $180 Abit IP35 Pro.

For the enthusiast who likes to OC high, I would recommend Intel any day. But for those people who don't OC, are on a budget, and want the most performance for their dollar, I'll recommend an AMD CPU. Towards the lower price segment, below $100, many AMD CPUs will beat similarly priced under $100 Intel CPUs when both are at stock speeds. You can get a X2 4600+ for $58 these days and that will perform on par with the $70 E2180.


Nah, this is still a valid discussion. No major name-calling just yet. :D

Note how I said, *SOME* P35 motherboards. The low end P35 motherboards are only 4 phase so they wont last very long with quad cores when overclocking, you will be motherboard limited when overclocking, have only one pci 1.1 slot, no firewire or any extra peripherals, and some of them only support certain RAM speeds. For the same price as one of those bad Intel boards you can get an amazing AMD board that does it all. So basically all of those boards they are clocking up quad cores with wont last very long, have pci 1.1 support, have no crossfire support, and no extra peripherals such as firewire or extra USB ports. Basically they are shit to what you would get with an AM2+ motherboard at the same price or less.

Learn to read? I suggest you read the FIRST POST in that link, it clearly shows a few B3 Q6600s in the 3.2 - 3.4GHz range.



These are all very respectable overclocks for a B3 Q6600.

Why do you insist on commenting on Intel platforms when you have NFI what you're on about? All your claims thus far have been debunked, I'm interested in what FUD you'll come up with next.

That board that they were talking about in that thread is actually pretty expensive so IDK what you are talking about. I checked it out on google and it was being advertised around $160. It is also a shit motherboard as it only has one pci-e 1.1 slot, not many usb port's, no extra peripherals, its also 4 phase I believe, and Q6600's will be motherboard limited with it. None of my claims have been debunked thus far. I know that I would rather have a $150 top of the line AMD motherboard with full CrossfireX support, all 16X PCI-E 2.0 slot, all the peripherals that I will ever need, I also wont be motherboard limited at all with it.
 
The thing is that AMD's don't use FSB, they use HTT, FSB is outdated tech that Intel uses. Also, I don't know what you mean when you say that AMD's cant clock up the HTT much. My Opteron and many other AMD chips can easily go over 100+ on the HTT. When you say that cost wise Intel is neck and neck with AMD, well that might be true with the processors BUT like I said before, you can get a top of the line AMD motherboard with CrossfireX PCI-E 2.0 and the rest of the latest tech for only $100-150.

But you don't own a Phenom. Phenoms cannot be overclocked much via HTT on any current mainboards. That's why it has been imperative for AMD to release BE processors with unlocked multipliers.

A $100-150 P35 motherboard would only have PCI-E 1.1, have no crossfire support, no firewire or extra peripherals, and will only be 4 phase so it will most likely die within a year if you are clocking a quad core with it. So Intel doesn't really compete with AMD much at all when you factor in the motherboard. I LOL'ed when you said that Nvidia boards are really good, I wouldn't touch an Nvidia chipset board with a stick nowadays.

He's talking about nvidia 780a vs 790fx in the specifics of HTT overclocking (they both suck), which you would know if you had read his message.
 
and will only be 4 phase so it will most likely die within a year if you are clocking a quad core with it.

sigh, someone with a IP35-E or Pro please debunk this myth. QuickS, please post your credentials in EE or solid state physics....:rolleyes:
 
Cost comparison:


DFI LP X38 + Q6600 OEM:
$380


DFI 790FX + 9950BE:
$370

Sorry QuickS, I can easily debunk all of your cost myths with one fell stroke. I can demolish the performance of the AMD platform for $10 more bucks and have all of the features.
 
Cost comparison:


DFI LP X38 + Q6600 OEM:
$380


DFI 790FX + 9950BE:
$370

Sorry QuickS, I can easily debunk all of your cost myths with one fell stroke. I can demolish the performance of the AMD platform for $10 more bucks and have all of the features.

DFI 790FX + 9600BE
$160 for 75% performance of the DFI LP X38 + Q6600 OEM:
makes it a little different. AMD need to wake and run more specials like this.
I am getting the 75% as a guess from mine @ 2.8 vs Q6600 @ 3.2. In certain areas that gap will be wider but I am thinking on an avg that should be pretty close.
 
DFI 790FX + 9600BE
$160 for 75% performance of the DFI LP X38 + Q6600 OEM:
makes it a little different. AMD need to wake and run more specials like this.
I am getting the 75% as a guess from mine @ 2.8 vs Q6600 @ 3.2. In certain areas that gap will be wider but I am thinking on an avg that should be pretty close.

Yeah pretty much this. I'm starting to get tired of the overclocking game, spending lots of extra money on high-end parts and coolers, running lots of fans louder, etc. I'd rather build and own two very capable systems at stock quietly and efficiently then one system thats clocked to the max that in all honesty really doesn't make my quality of life better. :p
 
Cost comparison:


DFI LP X38 + Q6600 OEM:
$380


DFI 790FX + 9950BE:
$370

Sorry QuickS, I can easily debunk all of your cost myths with one fell stroke. I can demolish the performance of the AMD platform for $10 more bucks and have all of the features.

Your joking right? The 9950BE is a joke, I would much rather have the 9850BE or 9600 for much less. Also, the DFI 790FX blows away the DFI LP X38 as the 790FX supports four PCI-E 2.0 X16 slots for CrossfireX while the X38 only supports dual crossfire.

So in reality it would be DFI 790FX + 9600BE = $160 VS DFI LP X38 + Q6600 = $400
 
You can't compare a clearnace deal on a closeout processor with an open box board to full retail prices, especially since the deal isn't even available any more.

Sure it was a sweet deal, but that comparison is not legit at all now. The 9600BE is back up to $180, so even with the open box board its $265 now and that board you're using the price from doesn't have 4 16x slots.
 
Your joking right? The 9950BE is a joke, I would much rather have the 9850BE or 9600 for much less. Also, the DFI 790FX blows away the DFI LP X38 as the 790FX supports four PCI-E 2.0 X16 slots for CrossfireX while the X38 only supports dual crossfire.

So in reality it would be DFI 790FX + 9600BE = $160 VS DFI LP X38 + Q6600 = $400

Show me where you can get a DFI 790FX motherboard and a Phenom X4 9600 Black Edition for $160 total and I'll buy 40 of them.

The lowest price I could find on the Phenom X4 9600 BE was $180 for the CPU alone. The DFI 790FX boards I've found were $134. So together you are talking about a combination that's $314.00 at the cheapest. The Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 is $209 and the DFI X38 board is $184.99. The total combination is $393.99. So you are talking about $314.00 vs. $393.99.

Just which DFI board is it that supports 4 PCI-Express slots? All the DFI 790FX boards I've seen only have three PCI-Express x16 slots. BTW you won't get three cards on them either. At least nothing high end. The ATI 4870 is a dual slot cooled video card. As a result you'll only be able to fit two of them on the board in most cases. The last slot is effectively single slot alone. Yes the DFI 790FX can handle three cards and the DFI X38 board can't. However the 4870 X2 will have two GPUs on a single PCB. Therefore you only need two PCI-Express x16 slots for Crossfire X using the 3870 X2 or the 4870 X2 on the DFI X38 board. Let's not forget that if the pricing lines up the way it should a single 4870 X2 will be cheaper than dual 4870's. So the dual 4870 X2 setup will be the way to go. Even if it doesn't end up being cheaper, two 4870 X2's will beat the snot out of three 4870's or at least it should.

Let's also not forget that SB600 pretty much sucks and the ICH9R out performs it in every way. The Intel chipset based board is the better way to go. Once you start overclocking there is no contest. The Phenom X4 9600 Black Edition will get raped by an overclocked Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0. The difference between them is about $80 so the difference isn't likely to be worth it to those who aren't interested in overclocking but anyone who is will very likely see the performance offered by the Intel setup as being worth the $80 difference. Not everyone will, but we are talking about enthusiasts here, not the general masses.
 
You can't compare a clearnace deal on a closeout processor with an open box board to full retail prices, especially since the deal isn't even available any more.

Sure it was a sweet deal, but that comparison is not legit at all now. The 9600BE is back up to $180, so even with the open box board its $265 now and that board you're using the price from doesn't have 4 16x slots.

If you start adding up closeout and discontinued items anyone can probably make their case either way when comparing the other side at full retail value.
 
Your joking right? The 9950BE is a joke, I would much rather have the 9850BE or 9600 for much less. Also, the DFI 790FX blows away the DFI LP X38 as the 790FX supports four PCI-E 2.0 X16 slots for CrossfireX while the X38 only supports dual crossfire.

So in reality it would be DFI 790FX + 9600BE = $160 VS DFI LP X38 + Q6600 = $400

The 9850 is 205 and the 9600 is 180. Not all that much less.

Otherwise, you're simply wrong. You can no longer get a 9600BE for any less than 180. IF we start doing these combo closeout deals, I'm sure I can bring up the Fry's Q6600+mobo for $170 to shut you up.

There is only one person in this thread who seems to be joking.... you.
 
Show me where you can get a DFI 790FX motherboard and a Phenom X4 9600 Black Edition for $160 total and I'll buy 40 of them.

The lowest price I could find on the Phenom X4 9600 BE was $180 for the CPU alone. The DFI 790FX boards I've found were $134. So together you are talking about a combination that's $314.00 at the cheapest. The Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 is $209 and the DFI X38 board is $184.99. The total combination is $393.99. So you are talking about $314.00 vs. $393.99.

Just which DFI board is it that supports 4 PCI-Express slots? All the DFI 790FX boards I've seen only have three PCI-Express x16 slots. BTW you won't get three cards on them either. At least nothing high end. The ATI 4870 is a dual slot cooled video card. As a result you'll only be able to fit two of them on the board in most cases. The last slot is effectively single slot alone. Yes the DFI 790FX can handle three cards and the DFI X38 board can't. However the 4870 X2 will have two GPUs on a single PCB. Therefore you only need two PCI-Express x16 slots for Crossfire X using the 3870 X2 or the 4870 X2 on the DFI X38 board. Let's not forget that if the pricing lines up the way it should a single 4870 X2 will be cheaper than dual 4870's. So the dual 4870 X2 setup will be the way to go. Even if it doesn't end up being cheaper, two 4870 X2's will beat the snot out of three 4870's or at least it should.

Let's also not forget that SB600 pretty much sucks and the ICH9R out performs it in every way. The Intel chipset based board is the better way to go. Once you start overclocking there is no contest. The Phenom X4 9600 Black Edition will get raped by an overclocked Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0. The difference between them is about $80 so the difference isn't likely to be worth it to those who aren't interested in overclocking but anyone who is will very likely see the performance offered by the Intel setup as being worth the $80 difference. Not everyone will, but we are talking about enthusiasts here, not the general masses.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136044
Supports QUAD crossfire, the X38 only supports dual crossfire. Also, you can fit four of them on the motherboard if you aren't using the stock cooler (who would use stock with four of them?). Your whole thing about the 4870X2 only needing two slots is useless as it isn't even out yet......
I have also yet to see any proof of ICH9R being better than SB600. Theres no way that I would touch a X38 board anyways as they suck for clocking up Q6600' for the most part. So for $70 less I would rather have the Phenom 9600BE and DFI 790FX.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136044
Supports QUAD crossfire, the X38 only supports dual crossfire. Also, you can fit four of them on the motherboard if you aren't using the stock cooler (who would use stock with four of them?). Your whole thing about the 4870X2 only needing two slots is useless as it isn't even out yet......
I have also yet to see any proof of ICH9R being better than SB600. Theres no way that I would touch a X38 board anyways as they suck for clocking up Q6600' for the most part. So for $70 less I would rather have the Phenom 9600BE and DFI 790FX.

That DFI motherboard does not have 4 PCI-Ex16 ports neccessary for a 4 card Quad-fire. The quad crossfire refers the fact that it can handle two HD3870X2 in Crossfire, essentially quad-crossfire. X38 motherboards can support quad-Crossfire if both cards were dual-GPU on a single PCB solutions like HD3870X2 or HD4870X2.

The HD4870X2 may not be out but it will need two slots nonetheless.

You have yet to provide proof that Intel motherboards with a 4 Phase design will not last long while overclocking Intel quad-core CPUs. In fact, you have have not provided proof that the X38 suck for overclocking the Q6600. In addition, having PCI-E 1.1 does not mean that the motherboard is automatically shit. It has yet to be proven by a reputable source that PCI-E 1.1 is now a major limitation.

And while some of your points against Intel P35 motherboards are valid (Yes they do indeed have PCI-E 1.1 and many under $150 models do not have Crossfire support), the Intel P35 chipset is now being phased out in favor of the P45 chipset. And that is a problem to your argument.

Many P45 motherboards under $150 do have Crossfire support and do have PCI-E 2.0 support. In addition many of them are just as feature rich as their AMD counterparts. Case in point: The Gigabyte GA-E45-DS3R Motherboard which can be had from zipzoomfly.com for $130. For $130 you get six SATA ports, RAID, firewire, two PCI-E x16 2.0 slots, optional eSATA, support for 16GB of RAM and high overclock capability. Meanwhile for $134 for that DFI motherboard you linked to, you get 4 SATA ports, three PCI-E x16 x2.0 slots, no firewire, max support fo 8GB of RAM, no optional eSATA, etc.
 
Yeah pretty much this. I'm starting to get tired of the overclocking game, spending lots of extra money on high-end parts and coolers, running lots of fans louder, etc. I'd rather build and own two very capable systems at stock quietly and efficiently then one system thats clocked to the max that in all honesty really doesn't make my quality of life better. :p

Agree.. I use to from my old pentium 233 and amd k6's and all since then up till a couple years ago. I really dont notice any difference and i seem to be keeping my rigs longer and longer so i want them to last and be cool and not spend the extra money on cooling crap. Any high end cpu is fast enough to play games or encode video. I do upgrade on my graphics card for games.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136044
Supports QUAD crossfire, the X38 only supports dual crossfire. Also, you can fit four of them on the motherboard if you aren't using the stock cooler (who would use stock with four of them?). Your whole thing about the 4870X2 only needing two slots is useless as it isn't even out yet......
I have also yet to see any proof of ICH9R being better than SB600. Theres no way that I would touch a X38 board anyways as they suck for clocking up Q6600' for the most part. So for $70 less I would rather have the Phenom 9600BE and DFI 790FX.


good god do not get that board. get a UT board over a DK board anyday
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136044
Supports QUAD crossfire, the X38 only supports dual crossfire. Also, you can fit four of them on the motherboard if you aren't using the stock cooler (who would use stock with four of them?).
Zomg you're right! I just have to be sure to saw off the right number of those useless extra PCIe contacts so that the fourth 4850 can fit in one of those PCI slots. The fourth card probably won't help much, being hampered just a bit by that bus and all, but it'll still be faster than someone who has *only two* 4850s!

AMD here I come!
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136044
Supports QUAD crossfire, the X38 only supports dual crossfire. Also, you can fit four of them on the motherboard if you aren't using the stock cooler (who would use stock with four of them?). Your whole thing about the 4870X2 only needing two slots is useless as it isn't even out yet......
I have also yet to see any proof of ICH9R being better than SB600. Theres no way that I would touch a X38 board anyways as they suck for clocking up Q6600' for the most part. So for $70 less I would rather have the Phenom 9600BE and DFI 790FX.

That board only has three PCI-Express x16 slots. You can not run four cards on that board. You can clearly see only three PCI-Express x16 slots from the board photos. The only way that board can handle four GPUs is by using two dual GPU cards. The same is true for the DFI X38 motherboard.

As for the X38 board not overclocking Q6600 chips worth a damn, your completely and totally wrong. Check out the results on the forums and around the internet in general. You can easily take a G0 stepping Q6600 to 3.2GHz-3.6GHz which is farther than you can take 99% of the Phenom processors out there. Just look around at the results people are getting online. Check out this forum, and others you'll find fairly consistent results. BTW you don't even need to clock the X38 chipset that high to get 3.6GHz out of a Q6600. You only need 400MHz FSB to do that. 400MHz is pretty easy to get out of X38 or X48 chipset based boards even with quad core CPUs.

If you don't know how much SB600 sucks compared to ICH9R you clearly haven't done enough reading on the subject. ATI's south bridges are more than a generation behind their competition. When SB600 came out ICH8R was new. SB600 barely matched ICH7R and since then ICH9R and ICH10R have been released.

That DFI motherboard does not have 4 PCI-Ex16 ports neccessary for a 4 card Quad-fire. The quad crossfire refers the fact that it can handle two HD3870X2 in Crossfire, essentially quad-crossfire. X38 motherboards can support quad-Crossfire if both cards were dual-GPU on a single PCB solutions like HD3870X2 or HD4870X2.

The HD4870X2 may not be out but it will need two slots nonetheless.

You have yet to provide proof that Intel motherboards with a 4 Phase design will not last long while overclocking Intel quad-core CPUs. In fact, you have have not provided proof that the X38 suck for overclocking the Q6600. In addition, having PCI-E 1.1 does not mean that the motherboard is automatically shit. It has yet to be proven by a reputable source that PCI-E 1.1 is now a major limitation.

And while some of your points against Intel P35 motherboards are valid (Yes they do indeed have PCI-E 1.1 and many under $150 models do not have Crossfire support), the Intel P35 chipset is now being phased out in favor of the P45 chipset. And that is a problem to your argument.

Many P45 motherboards under $150 do have Crossfire support and do have PCI-E 2.0 support. In addition many of them are just as feature rich as their AMD counterparts. Case in point: The Gigabyte GA-E45-DS3R Motherboard which can be had from zipzoomfly.com for $130. For $130 you get six SATA ports, RAID, firewire, two PCI-E x16 2.0 slots, optional eSATA, support for 16GB of RAM and high overclock capability. Meanwhile for $134 for that DFI motherboard you linked to, you get 4 SATA ports, three PCI-E x16 x2.0 slots, no firewire, max support fo 8GB of RAM, no optional eSATA, etc.

Most of the X38/X48 motherboards I've seen use an 8-phase power design. The only boards that didn't last long when overclocking quad cores were NVIDIA 600 series chipset based boards that used a 6-phase power design. (And a poor 6-phase design at that.)

As for the rest of your post, you make some good arguments and points.
 
Zomg you're right! I just have to be sure to saw off the right number of those useless extra PCIe contacts so that the fourth 4850 can fit in one of those PCI slots. The fourth card probably won't help much, being hampered just a bit by that bus and all, but it'll still be faster than someone who has *only two* 4850s!

AMD here I come!

IDK if you are being sarcastic or not but I would not go with AMD right now. I would wait until the 45nm chips are released along with AM3 before I made a move as Nehalem is right around the corner and the current core2 chips are going to be slow compared to the new chips being released.

That board only has three PCI-Express x16 slots. You can not run four cards on that board. You can clearly see only three PCI-Express x16 slots from the board photos. The only way that board can handle four GPUs is by using two dual GPU cards. The same is true for the DFI X38 motherboard.

As for the X38 board not overclocking Q6600 chips worth a damn, your completely and totally wrong. Check out the results on the forums and around the internet in general. You can easily take a G0 stepping Q6600 to 3.2GHz-3.6GHz which is farther than you can take 99% of the Phenom processors out there. Just look around at the results people are getting online. Check out this forum, and others you'll find fairly consistent results. BTW you don't even need to clock the X38 chipset that high to get 3.6GHz out of a Q6600. You only need 400MHz FSB to do that. 400MHz is pretty easy to get out of X38 or X48 chipset based boards even with quad core CPUs.

If you don't know how much SB600 sucks compared to ICH9R you clearly haven't done enough reading on the subject. ATI's south bridges are more than a generation behind their competition. When SB600 came out ICH8R was new. SB600 barely matched ICH7R and since then ICH9R and ICH10R have been released.



Most of the X38/X48 motherboards I've seen use an 8-phase power design. The only boards that didn't last long when overclocking quad cores were NVIDIA 600 series chipset based boards that used a 6-phase power design. (And a poor 6-phase design at that.)

As for the rest of your post, you make some good arguments and points.

You can run 4 cards on that board, note how it says 4 way crossfire. The 4th slot is the equiv to 8X PCI-E 1.1. I never said that X38/48 used 4 phase so IDK why you brought that up. The main reason why I said that X38's generally suck when overclocking the Q6600 is because I have seen a lot of people not able to go over 3.2GHz with them due to the motherboard being limited to higher FSB's. Nvidia chipset's are a joke so I wouldn't ever go near them. I have read a lot of horror story's about the new Nvidia chipset's when it comes to the Intel and AMD boards and I haven't heard of that many problems with the ATI chipsets.
 
IDK if you are being sarcastic or not...

It's pretty obvious that he is being sarcastic. There are only three PCI-E slots on the DFI LP DK 790FX motherboard you linked to. Hence his joke about putting the fourth card into a PCI (non-E) slot. If you really want quadfire with four actual graphics cards (not just two X2's, which you can do on Intel platforms just fine), there's really only a single motherboard even worth considering, the MSI K9A2 Platinum. The only other one with four PCI-E 16x slots is an ASUS, but that is laid out much worse and you have to use single-slot cards. The MSI's PCI-E slots are laid out such that you actually can put in four dual-slot cards, as long as you have a large enough case.

That said, IMHO it's not worth going AMD right now anyway on the high-end. In general, better to have normal two-card SLI/Crossfire and a great CPU rather than four-card Crossfire and a mediocre CPU. An easy 333MHz FSB overclock on a Q6600 will beat anything AMD has to offer on the CPU front, overclocked or not. On a non-overclocked low-end PC where only absolute price matters, or for a HTPC, where having a whole integrated "platform" might be advantageous, I could see AMD being a reasonable choice. Sadly AMD is far from its Althon64 glory days where it made sense in a high-end system.
 
If you really want quadfire with four actual graphics cards (not just two X2's, which you can do on Intel platforms just fine), there's really only a single motherboard even worth considering, the MSI K9A2 Platinum.
If the Phenoms had lower TDPs I'd own that motherboard right now instead of the X48. It's a beautiful board at a great price. I just can't justify a CPU that's hotter and slower.
 
You can run 4 cards on that board, note how it says 4 way crossfire. The 4th slot is the equiv to 8X PCI-E 1.1.

There is no 4th PCI-E slot though on the DFI LP DK 790FX motherboard you linked to, PCI-Ex16 or otherwise. Yes it says 4-way crossfire but that's referring to HD3870X2 or HD4870X2 Crossfire. None of which are the 4 card Crossfire capability that you insist that that motherboard has.

The main reason why I said that X38's generally suck when overclocking the Q6600 is because I have seen a lot of people not able to go over 3.2GHz with them due to the motherboard being limited to higher FSB's. Nvidia chipset's are a joke so I wouldn't ever go near them.s.

No, the reason why some people can't OC higher than 3.2GHz with the Q6600 is due to CPU limitations. Remember that with overclocking YMMV. Those people may have ended up with a particular Q6600 that could not OC past 3.2Ghz.

However, a 3.2GHz OC is still an good OC considering that many Phenom CPUs can't OC that high while the Q6600 can hit 3.2Ghz on average.

And yes Nvidia chipsets for Intel CPUs are pretty bad. However Nvidia chipsets for AMD motherboards are remarkably more stable and reliable than their chipsets for Intel CPUs as far as I can see.
 
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I suppose you can duct tape a 4th card to the bottom of your case and pray for the best
 
You'd get just as much use out of the 4th card duct taped in as if it actually supported 4 cards (and save on heat generation)
 
You can run 4 cards on that board, note how it says 4 way crossfire. The 4th slot is the equiv to 8X PCI-E 1.1. I never said that X38/48 used 4 phase so IDK why you brought that up. The main reason why I said that X38's generally suck when overclocking the Q6600 is because I have seen a lot of people not able to go over 3.2GHz with them due to the motherboard being limited to higher FSB's. Nvidia chipset's are a joke so I wouldn't ever go near them. I have read a lot of horror story's about the new Nvidia chipset's when it comes to the Intel and AMD boards and I haven't heard of that many problems with the ATI chipsets.

Crossfire X doesn't always mean four cards. It also means 4 GPUs which is how that board would have to support 4 GPUs considering it only has THREE slots. Look at the picture. The picture makes that clear.

The X38 doesn't suck at overclocking quad core processors. While it is true that you can't overclock quad cores as well as dual core CPUs, but that by no means makes X38 bad at quad core overclocking.

Finally I've dealt with a ton of boards with all the enthusiast chipsets out there. The 790FX chipset based boards are more finicky with memory configurations and overclocking than their Intel chipset based counterparts are.
 
using any more than 2 cards is if your looking for bleeding edge and i dont think you would be using amd and i dont think any more than 2 cards is practical but multicard solutions arent about bang for buck

the way i see it you might save 10$ on a motherboard by going amd look at the gigabyte g31-s2l or the g35-ds3l the 1st being a solid motherboard with moderate oc capabilities for a budget the second is a solid board with high oc capabilities

also it seems like amds cpus are allready pushed to their max within their stock voltages which means they do not have nearly as much overclocking capacity also amd and amd overclocking on stock cooling isnt nearly as viable overclocking on intel stock cooling heck even stock voltages is pretty damned good for quad cores ive read people getting beyond 3ghz on stock volts stock cooling i hear people are lucky to get 3 ghz at all on phenoms even then cooling increases cost and as far as performance goes with dual cores its kind of like whatever i got a decent cpu but with quad cores where not many apps support them the ghz really matter this is all from what ive interpreted reading thread after thread

if you want to argue bang for buck just look at what most of the F@H team have in their cases(if they decide to spend on a case) from what i have observed (gpus aside) the q6600 is king bang for buck cpu the a64x2 architecture has had a good run and id say most of the people who bought athlon x2s will be very pleased with its performance for id say at least another year it is still by all means satisfactory but idk it seems unfortunate for amd by the time the dual core was actually necessary theirs just got beat out by a new architecture
 
Show me where you can get a DFI 790FX motherboard and a Phenom X4 9600 Black Edition for $160 total and I'll buy 40 of them.

The lowest price I could find on the Phenom X4 9600 BE was $180 for the CPU alone. The DFI 790FX boards I've found were $134. So together you are talking about a combination that's $314.00 at the cheapest. The Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 is $209 and the DFI X38 board is $184.99. The total combination is $393.99. So you are talking about $314.00 vs. $393.99.

Just which DFI board is it that supports 4 PCI-Express slots? All the DFI 790FX boards I've seen only have three PCI-Express x16 slots. BTW you won't get three cards on them either. At least nothing high end. The ATI 4870 is a dual slot cooled video card. As a result you'll only be able to fit two of them on the board in most cases. The last slot is effectively single slot alone. Yes the DFI 790FX can handle three cards and the DFI X38 board can't. However the 4870 X2 will have two GPUs on a single PCB. Therefore you only need two PCI-Express x16 slots for Crossfire X using the 3870 X2 or the 4870 X2 on the DFI X38 board. Let's not forget that if the pricing lines up the way it should a single 4870 X2 will be cheaper than dual 4870's. So the dual 4870 X2 setup will be the way to go. Even if it doesn't end up being cheaper, two 4870 X2's will beat the snot out of three 4870's or at least it should.

Let's also not forget that SB600 pretty much sucks and the ICH9R out performs it in every way. The Intel chipset based board is the better way to go. Once you start overclocking there is no contest. The Phenom X4 9600 Black Edition will get raped by an overclocked Core 2 Quad Q6600 G0. The difference between them is about $80 so the difference isn't likely to be worth it to those who aren't interested in overclocking but anyone who is will very likely see the performance offered by the Intel setup as being worth the $80 difference. Not everyone will, but we are talking about enthusiasts here, not the general masses.

actually I just bought one. you should look before you leap. it was on special though, found it in the hot deal forum. I got 2gb of ddr 800 ram and a 9600 for 100 bucks after rebate. I bought an open box DFI board (it does have only 3 PCI e slots) for 85 dollars. I figure the cheapest I could get the ram with rebate was 25 dollars so 75 dollars for the cpu. that comes to 160 by my math. I got this from newegg. and they are currently running all kinds of combo deal that take 35 to 55 dollars off. not as good as what I got but still not bad for a quad core cpu. even with the none open box your still only talking 210 dollars

BTW this did not clock like intel ( I didn't expect it to) but it reached an EASY 2.8 at 1.3125. 75% of the performance for less then half the price is trade I will take most any day.
 
There is no 4th PCI-E slot though on the DFI LP DK 790FX motherboard you linked to, PCI-Ex16 or otherwise. Yes it says 4-way crossfire but that's referring to HD3870X2 or HD4870X2 Crossfire. None of which are the 4 card Crossfire capability that you insist that that motherboard has.



No, the reason why some people can't OC higher than 3.2GHz with the Q6600 is due to CPU limitations. Remember that with overclocking YMMV. Those people may have ended up with a particular Q6600 that could not OC past 3.2Ghz.

However, a 3.2GHz OC is still an good OC considering that many Phenom CPUs can't OC that high while the Q6600 can hit 3.2Ghz on average.

And yes Nvidia chipsets for Intel CPUs are pretty bad. However Nvidia chipsets for AMD motherboards are remarkably more stable and reliable than their chipsets for Intel CPUs as far as I can see.

I have seen A LOT of people that are motherboard limited when overclocking quad cores with the X38 series.
 
actually I just bought one. you should look before you leap. it was on special though, found it in the hot deal forum. I got 2gb of ddr 800 ram and a 9600 for 100 bucks after rebate. I bought an open box DFI board (it does have only 3 PCI e slots) for 85 dollars. I figure the cheapest I could get the ram with rebate was 25 dollars so 75 dollars for the cpu. that comes to 160 by my math. I got this from newegg. and they are currently running all kinds of combo deal that take 35 to 55 dollars off. not as good as what I got but still not bad for a quad core cpu. even with the none open box your still only talking 210 dollars

BTW this did not clock like intel ( I didn't expect it to) but it reached an EASY 2.8 at 1.3125. 75% of the performance for less then half the price is trade I will take most any day.

Deal is currently dead, though....

I'd agree if you could get this on a day to day basis.
 
People always harp on about "AMD is Doomed!" sort of thing, but in reality AMD's low end CPU's beat the living shit out of the Intel pentiums (Pentium e2160 anyone?) and are cheaper. They may be getting a hiding in the Midrange and top of the range, but lets not forget that the real money is in budget chips. Most people don't wan't to spend $200 on a CPU, they are content to spend $60 and get a cheap one. Us gamers and ethusiasts never look at the industry from the average computer users perspective, or bother to look at CPU's Price/Performance ratio instead of the latest benchmark results. You'd be surprised, AMD has some real bargains to be had in the budget range...
 
People always harp on about "AMD is Doomed!" sort of thing, but in reality AMD's low end CPU's beat the living shit out of the Intel pentiums (Pentium e2160 anyone?) and are cheaper. They may be getting a hiding in the Midrange and top of the range, but lets not forget that the real money is in budget chips. Most people don't wan't to spend $200 on a CPU, they are content to spend $60 and get a cheap one. Us gamers and ethusiasts never look at the industry from the average computer users perspective, or bother to look at CPU's Price/Performance ratio instead of the latest benchmark results. You'd be surprised, AMD has some real bargains to be had in the budget range...

Well I disagree with you on the budget chips being the bread and butter. The budget chips are certainly important but if you look at what's in the retail stores and in most of Dell's lineup for example you'll see that most of the pre-built machines use mid range to high end CPUs even when the box itself is fairly low end. This is done because Dell and the other OEM's know that many people think the processor and the amount of RAM installed are the end all of system performance so by throwing in a higher end CPU they can make the specs look good on paper. The average consumer will have no knowledge of the motherboard chipset used and frankly won't care. So on the Intel side I'd say the most popular chips are going to be E8400's and E8500's followed by Q9450's and Q9550 as those processors will be used in many lower end to midrange machines. In retail systems' you'll also no doubt see quite a few Extreme Edition processor based machines around the $2000+ segment.

Now these machines are built around crappy motherboards or they'll just lack decent video cards, and the hard drives will always be the bargain of the week from whatever manufacturer made the OEM the best deal, but I think you'll find that retail sales are still how most of the masses get their machines. If that's true and I suspect that it is the bulk of the procesors sold will be in the medium range. Sure there are probably going to be a ton of budget boxes sold with lower end CPUs as well. And your right in that AMD does kick ass in that market segment which is why they are doing better than they did last year despite the fact that Intel is selling the fastest CPUs.
 
The ASPs that Intel and AMD get do show that sales are heavily weighted towards the lower end models. These are the last Mercury Research ASP numbers I could find (MR Q1'08 figures should be available next month):

Q4'07
AMD
Server: $297
Desktop: $56
Mobile: $63
Overall: $66

Intel
Server: $415
Desktop: $96
Mobile: $109
Overall: $119

Both AMD and Intel claimed in their last respective Q1 results conference calls that ASPs were flat in Q1 from the prior quarter.

There are volume discounts, but what you see mostly in mass retailers and base business configurations are lower end models and the ASPs reflect that. Quad core is still a very small segment of each manufacturer's product mix.
 
The ASPs that Intel and AMD get do show that sales are heavily weighted towards the lower end models. These are the last Mercury Research ASP numbers I could find (MR Q1'08 figures should be available next month):

Q4'07
AMD
Server: $297
Desktop: $56
Mobile: $63
Overall: $66

Intel
Server: $415
Desktop: $96
Mobile: $109
Overall: $119

Both AMD and Intel claimed in their last respective Q1 results conference calls that ASPs were flat in Q1 from the prior quarter.

There are volume discounts, but what you see mostly in mass retailers and base business configurations are lower end models and the ASPs reflect that. Quad core is still a very small segment of each manufacturer's product mix.

Interesting. In retail stores I've seen a completely different picture. Most models are medium to high end processors. Even the sub-$1000 rigs usually have at least a $100-$200 processor in them.
 
Deal is currently dead, though....

I'd agree if you could get this on a day to day basis.

actually they have a newer one, its not as good though. I think it works out as only 35 to 55 dollars off a combo (from memory to 4850) not as good as what I got but still pretty good, even better if you can get a rebate with the card as well as the discount.
 
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