Page 1 of Processor question

If you had the choice which one would you buy?

Intel® Pentium® D 950 Dual Core

OR

AMD Athlon™ 64 Dual-Core FX-60

___________________________________________________________________________________

Name: Grey Raven
Secret Identity: mark anderson
Special Power: Flight
Transportation: Magnetic Jet
Weapon: Dimensional Grenade
Costume: Silk Cowl
Sidekick: Dirk Deadly
Nemesis: Arnold the Nasty
Tragic Flaw: Fear of clams
Favorite Food: Pie

Is that hypothetical? i.e. are curious in general? for your self? if money was no object?

I`d start off by looking at what Tom had to say.

The interactive chart means you can compare the 2, and choose which app you want use as a benchmark. Useful as if one is better at media encoding, the other at games, and you`ll mostly be playing games, it would probably make sense to get that one, unless it was really poo at the other thing, which it wouldn`t be, but you know what I mean.

then use kelkoo or pcindex to see prices.

Somewhere on Tom`s Hardware the usually have a "Bang for Buck" although maybe that`s just graphics cards where they work out frames per second, and frame per seocnd per dollar, which I guess is what most people are more interested in :)

I`ve got an Atholn X2 3800, cos it was a cheap dual core system. Seems to do everything I need to do OK!

Al

www.admars.co.uk

This item was edited on Saturday, 6th May 2006, 18:44

There`s no comparison. The FX60 dual core eats the Pentium D950 for breakfast. The FX series processors have improved clock speeds (an impressive 2.6 GHz) over the Athlon 64s and bigger cache. To be honest it isn`t fair to compare the FX 60 to The D950 as they are 2 different animals. A Pentium Extreme Edition dual core is more comparable with the FX 60 dual core.

Even Intel`s top end dual core processors (the Extreme Editions) still falls behind the FX 60 due to several design implementations. The 2 cores of the FX 60 communicate via an interface located on the CPU die. Intel uses the NorthBridge which is a slower route. AMD`s memory controller is also on die whereas once again Intel goes through the Northbridge agian resulting in latency.

Intel have heavily slashed the prices of their 900 series dual core processors as they were falling behind (with the 940s costing under £200 and the 950s at about £240) but this is to make way for the Conroe processors which have a claimed 40% speed increase and a huge decrease in power consumption. This is due to several new technologies although strangely they are not following AMDs lead of having the memory controlly on die, which really doesn`t make sense at all.

Thanks for the info guys, I guess there is only one real choice to make then

___________________________________________________________________________________

Name: Grey Raven
Secret Identity: mark anderson
Special Power: Flight
Transportation: Magnetic Jet
Weapon: Dimensional Grenade
Costume: Silk Cowl
Sidekick: Dirk Deadly
Nemesis: Arnold the Nasty
Tragic Flaw: Fear of clams
Favorite Food: Pie

Movie Buff, bear in mind the FX60 costs over £700. The D950 has been reduced from just under £500 down to around £220 but it may be worth waiting a couple of months for the Conroe processors by Intel. Early versions have shown it to totally outshine the current AMD x2s and possibly even the FX 60 at a lower price.

Looking for a processor myself at present when i came across this bad boy the other day...ouch!

Xeon

Just can`t fathom who`d spend so much on such a short shelf life product?

I appreciate reviews are somewhat mixed but with the right mobo (about £50 if you need one) and teh ability to over clock then this seems good value for money compared to what else is on offer at this price?

Intel Dual Core CPU

M.

This item was edited on Sunday, 7th May 2006, 18:51

Yep but those Xeons have huge amounts of cache memory. That`s what makes them expensive.

Hmm 8MB is somewhat excessive for the average user i`ll admit!

Was editing my above post whilst you replied MikeElliot, what your opinion on the Intel Dual Core Cheapo?

M.

8 MB cache is absolutely colossal and is for speed freaks really (and high end servers).

Which cheap Intel dual cores are you referring to? The 800 series dual core are very cheap and for power wannabes, ie. people who want to boast about the performance of their PCs but cannot afford the extra for 900 series, much akin to a BMW 316 driver who shows off as it`s a BMW even though it is low end model (well some of my friends do anyway). In reality, the 800 series dual core has 2MB cache shared between each core and they are slower than a single core Pentium 4 in single core mode.

The 900 series processors are extremely good value and are only slightly more than the equivalent single core Pentium 4s and with 2MB cache for EACH core they perform very well but as mentioned earlier AMD x2 range of processors outclasses them but are a lot more expensive as they havn`t reduced their prices, although I`m sure they will do soon as it is typical marketing.

Personally, I have decided to buy a D 940 dual core processor for about £170 and decided not to wait for Conroe as it requires a new motherboard - it won`t be Socket 775. This is the first time in 6 years I have switched to Intel but of course I could have waited for AMD`s price drop too but even if the price drop does materialise, the current Intel 900 series processors still offer good value even if AMD x2 owners will sneer!

It all boils down to what you require and your budget. If you require dual core at a budget then the Intel 900 series offers decent performance. If you really are on a tight budget and are looking at the 800 series then ask yourself the question "Would I prefer faster performance in single core mode?". And if money is no objective, then the AMD x2 processors provide much better performance due to a neater design.

Oh a dual core Intel processor requires a board with the correct chipset (Intel 945 or 955, nVidia nForce 4 or ATi 300). With AMD I believe it`s simply a BIOS upgrade on a socket 939 board.

This item was edited on Sunday, 7th May 2006, 19:21

I was referring to the 850 which is about half the price of the 940 that you were referring to. I was looking for a decent but cheap processor for a third PC (a bit like you 316i mates) that i`m gonna rebuild, it would be used mainly for gaming and surfing. I was gonna link it to my Plasma and go for win media centre OP but if it`s a case of spending too much i might just go the xbox 360 route as that seems to boast of triple core processing amongst other things. I don`t really want ot spend in excess of going the xbox route ut it`s all so confusing with so much choice... :/

M.