Considering scraping AMD

Ok so i'm ging to be getting an updated system next week, thats long overdue. Up until now Ii've been firmly in the AMD corner all the way, however looking at the specs for this system i'm a little concerned.

I was intending to get an Athlon 64 x2 6000+, but everytime I look it up, all I see are things about how its got massive power requirements, in addition to therby running hotter.
My alternative is either to go for a Core Duo E6420, but as it's intel the idea makes me feel dirty :P

Or I could save myself some cash and go for an Athlon 64 x2 5200+, which would only loose me a small amount of clockspeed but save masses of wattage.


Anyone had any experience of the three mentioned and able to offer advice?

I have a 64X2 5200+. It works.
I have no idea how much faster/slower an equivalently priced Intel chip would run.
It doesn't bother me.

If you like the idea of more power-efficient chips then make that your priority but if you're after performance, get the best Intel you can afford.

people went for amd because it gave more power for the money.
nowadays intel does it.
don't be loyal to brand, stick to philosophy :)

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Originally Posted by optimus_prime

people went for amd because it gave more power for the money.
nowadays intel does it.
don't be loyal to brand, stick to philosophy :)

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Well said.



-bd :happy:

Yeah thats a good point hense why i'm looking at the Core Duo E6420, just wondering if anyone has had any experience of it?

If you can hold off for a little while to upgrade, AMD will be releasing a quad core cpu shortly.
Appzaliens law says "One month after you buy something you don't really want, something you do want will be released" (or what you did buy will go on sale)

Holding off or spending more isn't really an option, one of the three cpu's mentioned at the start are my only real choices. I'm just trying to work out which one.

Of the three options, the Core2Duo is clearly the winner.

Even if waiting or spending more was a consideration, I'd still go Intel.

well everything really depends on what you need and prefer :)

dilemma is yours, cpu power vs heat vs saving money, nobody can answer you that, even hottest cpu can be chilled down with proper coolers, question is do you want to bother.

i personally don't need cpu power, i don't overclock, read "2% faster" benchmarks nor watch fps in games. i like cpu to be as cool as possible and stable as possible.

from those processors you mentioned i would take E6420. it can be overclocked nicely so it means it should be really stable on nominal frequency. E6750 should be newer and fall in the same price range tho.

We had several years of comparative calm in the socket scene, at least from AMD with Socket A. Now we seem to be back in the "new processor - new socket" arena, whether this is related to actual processor sockets, memory slots, graphics card slots etc.

Personally I'm glad I got my X2 4800 when I did, it will keep me going for a while yet. Hopefully one of the manufacturers will get to the stage of "this should cope with everything" and we can have another period of stability.

At the moment I can't say to anyone "this will be upgradable for a while", there doesn't seem to be a viable upgrade path for anything just now. The manufacturer who gets that right will get my vote, and probably the backing of many others, even if performance is slightly behind. Somehow I don't see Intel being the driving force here.

The potential savings through future compatibility far outweigh the costs of getting the next higher processor in the chain. In that situation stability is more important, unless you really have to have the ultimate processor/memory speed/graphics card. And if that's the case you've presumably got money to burn, so it isn't going to be a factor in your equation anyway.

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Originally Posted by lynx

...there doesn't seem to be a viable upgrade path for anything just now. The manufacturer who gets that right will get my vote, and probably the backing of many others, even if performance is slightly behind. Somehow I don't see Intel being the driving force here.

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Not sure I agree with you here, lynx.
Intel has been the only logical choice (IMO, naturally) ever since the debut of the Core2 series and given AMD's fab problems, may be the only option in the relatively near future.

Of course, Intel has no incentive to stabilize the socket architecture even if AMD goes belly up but lately it seems like the biggest incentive to upgrade has been chipset based, not processor.
The LGA 775 socket seems to be a safe bet for the near future even though it has the worst HS retention system in modern memory.

i would certainly wait for amd's next gen cpu line. their quad core shall crush all and amd shall rise to be the great lord of light and smite down the evil minion know as "intel"!

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Originally Posted by onlinetragedy

i would certainly wait for amd's next gen cpu line. their quad core shall crush all and amd shall rise to be the great lord of light and smite down the evil minion know as "intel"!

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Dream on.

You could always wait and eventually something will come out that will crush something or other. But RIGHT now, the Intel processor is where it's at..so to speak.

I just bought a E2160 for $80 for my son's system and overclocked it to 3.0ghz. Intel is definately more bang for the buck nowadays.