What type of CPU...?

S

StickClicks5

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 6, 2006
Messages
155
Sorry if this is a noob question, but what is better for gamming and meria. An Intel or AMD CPU??
 
If you are willing to Overclock, your best bet right now is an Intel Pentium4 930 or a Core Duo 2.16. If you aren't, go with an AMD X2 4800+ or the Opteron equivalent.
 
I really dont want to have to overclock. I am looking into building a computer (First time) my computers in the past have been AMD so i think I will go with them. Is there really any big gain by getting a Core duo RIght now? I mean the software has to be Core DUo compatable to run it at full potental. Is there alot of Duo enabled software out there that I dont know about ???
 
StickClicks5 said:
I really dont want to have to overclock. I am looking into building a computer (First time) my computers in the past have been AMD so i think I will go with them. Is there really any big gain by getting a Core duo RIght now? I mean the software has to be Core DUo compatable to run it at full potental. Is there alot of Duo enabled software out there that I dont know about ???
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Software doesn't have to be specially enabled to run better on a Core Duo anymore than it does for any other dual core chip. A dual core chip is definately worth it however. While it won't make most games run especially faster, it will tremendously speed up most media tasks - encoding movie files, photo apps, sound processing, etc. Also, the benefits for multitasking are worth it alone, you can run multiple CPU intensive applications all at the same time without a slowdown.
 
SOunds like a great investment :) SOrry for all the questions. I would just like to find out as much as I can before I really do this.
Here's another if you're interested..
I always thought that a 533 Stick of RAM was the norm for todays rigs. Most of the motherboreds I see however are 400's Am I mistaken or does 400 seem kind of low..?
 
StickClicks5 said:
SOunds like a great investment :) SOrry for all the questions. I would just like to find out as much as I can before I really do this.
Here's another if you're interested..
I always thought that a 533 Stick of RAM was the norm for todays rigs. Most of the motherboreds I see however are 400's Am I mistaken or does 400 seem kind of low..?
Click to expand...

Well, also, keep in mind the Core Duo isn't the only dual-core chip out there, AMD also has them in the X2 series and any Opteron chip with a number that is a multiple of 5. The Core Duo is faster clock for clock than the AMD offerings, but AMD has higher rated Mhz numbers, and a greater variety of motherboards (since the Core Duo was essentially designed as a mobile chip). However, the Core Duo is a great solution for SFF or near-silent PCs as it runs much, much, much cooler than either a P4 or an A64, so you can oftentimes use a passive heat sink or a very slow RPM fan heatsink to keep it going well.

As for RAM, I am a bit out of the loop. P4s use DDR2, I believe the Core Duo does as well, which is a bit faster and cheaper than the regular DDR AMD motherboards support right now, however, AMD does have a more efficient memory controller since it is integrated into the chip instead of having to go through the northbridge as on Intel systems, as for which gives better performance, it can be a tossup. AMD is releasing the AM2 socket soon, which supports DDR2, so you might want to wait a bit on that if you decide to go with an AMD solution.
 
StickClicks5 said:
Hmm, Thanks. You have given me a ton to think about. Have you ever built your own rig?
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Yes, I have built my last several. First one I build was a Pentium 133Mhz machine way back when, like 32 megs of RAM, 2 gig hard drive, video card with 4mb of ram and no 3D acceleration (it wasn't out yet) and it kicked ass at the time, then later on I built an AMD K6 machine, then a K6-2 at 450mhz that lasted me for a long time. Once I had the cash I built a Pentium 4 2.4Ghz box, which is what I am still running (512 Megs ram, Radeon 9500pro) and other than sticking in an extra hard drive when the first got almost out of space, I haven't done much upgrading, it does what I need it to do fine. However, I will admit it is getting a little long in tooth, and since Conroe is on the horizon, as well as Intel Powermacs that can dual-boot MacOS and WinXP (or Vista) I will probably see what comes up and upgrade then.

If you haven't done it before, its not that tough. Check around the message boards and other sites for potential compatibility issus between your components (certain motherboards just don't seem to like certain sound cards, video cards, raid controllers, etc, depending on how fancy you are going to get), and just do it step by step when you get the parts. Read a how-to if you have never done it just so you don't overlook an less-than-obvious step, like installing the mounting posts on your case so your mobo doesn't touch the bare metal. Build things up slowly, first boot, one stick of RAM, CPU, HD, and video card only. If that works, add your sound card, optical drives, etc. If it fails to post that time, pull the other stuff out and add them back one at a time till you find out what is causing the problem.

Things are a lot easier to do now than they were before, if you go with a motherboard with SATA support (which pretty much all have now) you don't have to deal with IDE Master/Slave relationships (which in my experience have been the biggest pain in the ass as far as getting things up and running the first time). Then again, as most optical drives are still regular parallel ATA (IDE) you will likely have to use at least one of your IDE channels, but if it is the only item on the chain, it shouldn't give you hangups.

Basically, just don't be worried, be safe (try not to rub balloons on your head or scrub your feet on the carpet or anything else likely to give you massive static buildup), and just make sure you plug everything in (fan headers, CPU heatsink fan, video card power lead if it needs one, etc). Once you get it up and running, look for any firmware or driver updates for your components before you install your applications, and you are good to go.

Also, its not a bad to partition your drive (if you are just using one) so you have one for the OS, and one for apps/data, some people even go to three, OS, apps, and data all on seperate partitions or drives.
 
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