all you need to know is that intel is a company just like AMD and that their pentium 4 design was a piece of crap so AMD was the only alternative. I practice what i say, I sold an AMD opteron system to upgrade to a c2d system(was a good system) overall performance boost in CPU intensive things is around 50%(from a 2.6Ghz opteron to a 3.2Ghz c2d) AMD's K8 microarchitecture is over 3 years old which is an eternity in the tech scene. It's an excellent architecture and it competes very well despite it's age. They tend to scale to about 3GHz or so before you get greatly diminishing results from voltage increases. AMD's greatest strength is in the server sector where it's mroe efficient bus system gives it an edge. Intel's Core architecture is based primarily off of the P6 architecture(use in the Pentium ---, Pentium 2 P3 and PM.) though it retains optimizations from netburst. It's an excellent design and it scales higher in clock speed than k8(3.6GHz on air is not unthinkable) and overall is more powerful/GHz. Inte's greatest strength is in the desktop division where systems are rarely 100% loaded and systems rarely have beyond 8 cores.(quadcore is still cutting edge here and is hardly even utilized) wikipedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_2 world record database(just take a look around) http://hwbot.org/ xbitlabs review http://xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/c...hootout_12.html
i beleve u xelink, heres the new build, is it good, is it better? is it vista upgradable? MotherBorad - EVGA 122-CK-NF63-TR LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813188019 $159.99 Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115003 $223.90 Video Card - PNY VCG88GTS32XPB GeForce 8800GTS 320MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814133193 $269.99 Power Supply - KINGWIN ABT-600MA1 ATX 12V Ver.2.2 600W Power Supply http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817121012 $114.99 Ram - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820231065 $149.99 Hard Drive - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 (Perpendicular Recording) ST3250820AS 250GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16822148142 $66.99 Case - NZXT LEXA-NP Black/ Silver Aluminum Construction Plastic Front Panel ATX Mid Tower http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811146018 $124.99 Dvd Drive - LITE-ON 16X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model LH-16W1P-364 - Retail http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16827106075 $27.99 Subtotal: $1,098.83 Shipping: $30.73 Grand Total: $1,129.56 Merged Post: PS need ur info on PSU plz, is it enough to power the 8800 and 6 fans?
600W is plenty for an 8800 and 6 fans, 500W is enough for a core 2 quad a volt modded 8800GTX and a ton of high performance fans. at your price range I'd be more likely to get a 520W corsair HX, very solid PSU manufactured by seasonic. Not enough for SLi, but neither is a 600W unit. If you're overclocking... is virtualization important to you? if it isn't, consider an e4300. It has a 10x multiplier, and is $100 cheaper than the e6600(which only has a 9x multiplier). It should overclock to comparable levels. Less l2 cache but the performance hit is minimal(atleast not $100 worth IMO) consider the e4300, or maybe even the e6420(8x multi but more l2 cache $40 cheaper than the 6600) as 680i boards OC very well. one more thing... the RAM is 110, not 150... check the 40$ instant rebate...
will look into the e6420, i picked the e6600 cuz it was a small step down from the e6700. im a noob when it comes down to psu i picked 600wcuz i am confused about the amps on the 12. the video card needs 30a on 12v, but the psu has 20a on each rail, does this mean i combine them and it = 40a together or what? btw i dont plan to overclock.
amps on the 12V rail certainely DO matter, so you're not a complete noob in that regard. things that also matter include voltage ripple and other factors such as ability to handle poor input current etc. basically it comes down to knowing which individual units are good and NOT looking at specs since these types of thigns aren't usualyl listed in specs. one more thing, I retract my previous RAM recommendation http://www.buy.com/prod/Crucial_Ballistix_...7662&adid=17662 the above kit is the same price and has higher binned micron d9 ICs.
why do people insisit on AMD processors, if anything a quadcore intel chip is the same price yet much better. x64 bit windows has so many more compatability problems then 32 bit... I would just get a decent intel chip and board and you'd be fine.
ya i was look at that same ram earlyer http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16820148076 i like the intel step up better (hate to say amd)
AMD's powernow/coolnquiet works better than speedstep and EIST FYI... but the kit of RAM i linked to was the 1GHz ddr2 kit and ti was 35$ less same brand and better binned chips(micron d9GKX vs. d9GHM) http://www.buy.com/prod/Crucial_Ballistix_...7662&adid=17662
There are a few downfalls. Same Graphics as me, just I got Asus. I was going to get the 640m but the shop was all out of stock for like another 2 weeks, and it saved me $200. Good graphics card, and it runs my 22" flat panel on max resolution [1680x1050] with no problems in frame rate, refresh rate etc. Works like a dream. Just one last word, and as I said; take it or leave it, but I would recommend looking at parts more towards the end of the year when: 1: The Christmas sales are on and; 2: All the new parts being released this year are avaliable. There will be a much larger range of parts, the quad core AMD should be out to rival the Q6800 Intel Quad Core processor, and maybe new RAM, bigger and faster HD's and maybe the next model of Nvidia Graphics cards to be released between now and christmas. So, plan and play around with systems for the year, but do some reading on whats good and whats not from some computer magazines and some forums to get both the ----- side and the consumer side of the story and check out what parts are being released this year and cash in on the christmas sales at the end of the year. Also, I forgot to say; I would not recommend buying Vista at the moment unless you feel like downloading 100 patches to get your games, browsers, anything that isnt microsoft working because it just isnt compatible with anything yet. Also, wait til they iron out the bugs in the system. I would give it a year or two before I buy it. Hope I was of help.
compare products not brands. I replaced an athlon(or rather an opteron but basically the same thing) capable of running at 3Ghz with a c2d. Intel has the better product. AMD is the better company(in terms of business practices and the like) but they don't have the better product at this time. AMD's strengths are in the server market and in the laptop market. also if I was buying a cheap work horse PC for a relative it'd likely have an AMD CPU. For a gaming system, well intel wins here and today. last gen, I'd have recommended WD's drives over seagates, but PRM is nice, almost as fast as my old 150GB raptor(still the fastest harddrive on the SATA interface) but at a fraction of the cost. WD's raptors are still the fastest though(just pricey) as for DVD burners, a DVD burner is a DVD burner. They're all about the same, they're now cheap to make and they aren't very differentiated. 20x might sound like it's 25% faster, but chances are it's only around 10-20% faster in the real world and to get that speed you'de need higher quality media(that stack of 50DVDs you bought for 20 bucks would probably give you coasters @ 20x)
