Hi all, I've been trying to build budget pc's for the family for Xmas, and its left me sitting with socket 775. I know its not ideal, as its outdated by soon-to-be 2 generations. I can get things built pretty cheaply with this socket, though it doesn't leave any room for upgrades with regard to the Motherboard and CPU. My problem (which has been bothering me for a long long time), is that i ALWAYS go for Intel. I never even give AMD a glance. Why? A couple years ago i heard that AMD chips are crap for overclocking, unreliable, etc etc - The basic Intel fanboy-flaming-the-other-team story. But i just can't let it go. So my question is this: For the same budget (very low in my case), which side do i choose, which will leave me with cheaper upgrade options? Ideally i don't want to be buying into a dead socket or architecture. How long does AM2 and AM3 have left? Help me squash my fear of AMD guys. Please. Thanks, Neal
Thats still double what 775 will cost for a dual core and mobo. Plus, its steering me further away from AMD lol. Are you avoiding the subject?
A couple of years ago AMD chips were crap at overclocking but thats not the case anymore, yeh they don't OC as well as Intel but some of the cheap chips are pretty good at over clocking. As for being unreliable I don't know where that has come from as I own all AMD systems and all the systems I have built for family and friends have been AMD bar one and all are running well, even the 8 year old ones. AMD is the best budget option as far as I'm concerned, people mention I3 and the G6950 which are great chips but I consider to be heading more to the mid range of things rather than budget. The G6950 is £68 compared to say £45 for a X2 240, what are your families gonna do with their pc's, if its just word processing, email and web surfing what gain are they gonna get from a G6950. Its like when I bought my AMD 955, the I7 was 50% faster but was 50% dearer so it made sense to buy the 955 cos thats what I could afford. P.S. before someone calls me a fanboy if I win the lottery tonight (please please please please) I will be promptly ordering an I7 setup, I have just chosen AMD constantly because it always seemed to make sense for the price/performance aspect at the time (well maybe not the 6000+ but bleh).
Of all the current sockets, AM3 is going to be the one that outlives the rest, although I can't really say for how long.
You are WRONG !! If you win the lottery tonight, you will ordering two i7, the first one for your personal rig. After that, you will find a bunch of AMD real fake fanboy lowbudjet and destroy the second i7 in them face. Because this is the way to go when you're Millionaire.
So should i be looking at AMD and Intel the same way i look at ATI and Nvidia, i.e. just two different companies with different offerings? No one being better than the other in all aspects? Intel seems to be giving us new architectures every year or 2. How often does AMD do this? Will an AM3 board be obsolete in 2 years if i buy one now? Temperature wise, can the AMD chips handle 95-100 degrees like the intel ones? Edit: @Blackswordsman- Thats just sadistic!! I like it
Intel seems to be hell bent on putting the entire chipset on the CPU die at the moment, which means every time they release a new type of CPU architecture, you'll need a new motherboard to go with it. Saying that in most cases the performance is second to none for home PC's. AMD on the other hand have been improving on the same basic Athlon64 arcitecture for years now which is great for consumers, in most cases they don't need to buy a new system every time they want to upgrade (I had to though because even though my MB was AM2+, EVGA didn't re-work the bios to support AM3 chips, so I opted for Intel this time round) My old Athlon64 x2 would shut itself off it it got too close to 70c, not sure how Phenom II's handle this, Intel on the other hand will just slow the chip down if overspeed protection is on. If you're looking for an AMD that will last you into the future with good gaming performance than get a Quad Phenom II with plenty of L3 cache.
Intel Fast. AMD Cheap. Never going to change. Economic conditions favour cheap among the non-hardcore which is the only reason the firm lived long enough to buy up ATi and get some consistent dosh coming in. If I was bothering with a full sized new build I'd stick with AMD just because I know there's only one chance they might change their socket in the next 2-3 quarters as opposed to the Intel approach of a new socket with every range and not just the Xeons. If AMD dumped Skt AM3 for Bulldozer that would be commercially stupid, they're losing enough sales to Intel already just by not confirming the packaging. To answer your question AM2/+ is dead and gone. Much as I love my K9A2 CF and folders love the K9A2 Platinum, avoid them, it's a courtesy that some of AMD's chips are backwards compatible so we don't have to bin our DDR2 RAM if we don't want to. Stick with AM3 if you go AMD. Every socket changes it's a matter of when and how many more chips will be released for it, AMD prefers a crossover as they're doing at the moment but you have to want to be bothered with a new CPU on an old board. Intel prefers the guillotine. You'd hope that there would be the same crossover if there was a new AMD socket between the new one and AM3. Plus if you're building at Christmas to beat the VAT rise that's added pressure, I'd go even further than BlackSwordsman and say just get these family members laptops if they're not games players, that would give you proper savings.
Pretty sure AMD's max temp is around 65c, yeh Intel chips can handle upto 100c but I don't see that as a plus point. I have had my 955 upto 3.87ghz and it loaded out at around 53c under a fenrir and slightly less under the sycthe mugen I have on there now. Surely lower temps are better.
Im pretty sure Overclocking was invented for AMD? The fact you could buy a cheap and cheerfull CPU on a Socket A like a Athlon 700 and clock it to 1000mhz.... However! Back then Intel had locked multiplyers, these days we can clock any CPU and you can even buy special Overclock CPUs from the manufacturer.... But the OP stated a budget CPU, rather than Overclocking, but I think AMD offers both: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition 3.4GHz Socket AM3 8MB L3 Cache 125W Retail Box Processor http://www.ebuyer.com/product/186428 Thats a budget bargain, powerfull and overclocks easy! Alex.
The AMD bargain cpu has to be a Black Edition Phenom x2 555. Couple with a core unlocking m/b from ASUS or Gigabyte et voila a Phenom x4 for £70-ish I used a Gigabyte 870A UD3 which has SATA 3 and USB 3 plus a 1TB Western Digital Caviar Blue SATA 3 drive which is very fast compared with the 640GB Caviar Black SATA 2 it replaces.
I can't imagine your family wanting to overclock much on a budget pc AMD are very reliable cpus i can't say much on overclocking but i hear you get your moneys worth out of them
Just Make sure it is at least Dual Core and try to get the highest cost of CPU to Motherboard ratio you can. I would stick with your fanboy state of mind for your own system because if you have the slighest interest in performance, reliability and quality then Intel is the way. What are the highest demanding applications that they will be using?
Thanks for all the replies guys! @glendronach: Damn fine price on the x2 555! But its not a certainty that it will unlock is it? @ DeadP1xels: No, but if i'm using something like an E2140/E2160, i'll overclock it as much as possible for the free performance gain. @alexdcd: They'll be running Excel/Word, Web browsing, and maybe some old source games like HL or CS. To be perfectly honest, with a budget of £300 MAXIMUM, i would go for AMD, as i see the Sempron 140 at scan for £25. Granted its only single core, but you have a chance at unlocking the second core. How does this single core compare to something like a P4?
I would have to say that even though I've got an i7 rig I love AMD stuff, CPU's mobo's for the simple reason I can't break it, yet I regularly fry intels finest. The rig I put together in project Heat Blast for my little one cost just over £100 for CPU, RAM and mobo, Ive added a graphics card but for basic stuff like web browsing the onboard GPU is just fine, I've overclocked it and the temps are dead low and it's totally stable. My media rig is overclocked to almost the limit and hit's low 40's on prime 95 and normally idles between 18 and 23 dergees depending on the weather. What I would love to see is some high end gear from AMD that would would go toe to toe with i7/Sandybrige because the i7 would be gone in a flash. Just as soon as I can afford to the media rig will have a 1090T dropped in it to replace the X4 620, whcih for what it costs is a blinding chip. I know I don't need the 1090T in a media rig, it's total over kill, but I dont care, doing it anyway..lol
Why go for the samperon, for £45 get the X2 240. In the right mobo it'll go to 3.8Ghz no trouble. I had 3.6 out of my old 2160, best overclocker ever.
I tried to go cheap with my lads pc, bought the 140 with high hopes of unlocking the second core but it wasn't having any of it, the 2nd core doesn't even show up in the acc section of his bios.
If you are a betting man then apparently it's odds on that it will unlock. In the beginning, x4 Phenoms were not easy to make. There were a lot of failed chips due to the silicon wafers not being A1 so they were downgraded to X2 and x3 . Nowadays yields are much, much better and there are so few poor bits of silicon and X4 failures are rare that many more x2 Phenoms are simply disabled cores not faulty ones. That means the % of unlockable x2 Phenoms is pretty high. There is no guarantee though.
