Is it worth building a budget AMD system now? It's still a couple months away (maybe - possible April releases for Llano chips?) for AMD's desktop APU's to be released however, current AMD chipsets will, with a BIOS update, support the Bulldozer chips. Would it be worth building a system now or wait? I'm thinking wait but I'm just checking.
You'll still be getting good value for money, especially with the low end tri-core parts. It's basically up to you, how badly do you need the PC? I'm in the same boat, and I decided to wait and see.
It's not desperate but I could do with a 2nd system. I think I will wait and see but I will be building another system and it will be AMD based as I've never built one before.
I'd personally buy Intel unless you are *really* strapped for cash. Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
AMD might not be the fastest, but they do generally represent value for money. All indications are that bulldozer will be a great chip so if you can buy when the AM3+ boards are out, that would be ideal. EDIT: just noticed the comment on BIOS updates allowing current chipsets to take bulldozer. I haven't heard that - where's your info from? I have only heard that AM3+ sockets will take older AM3 CPUs ...
Officially AMD still doesn't support it, but apparently Asus is gonna provide BIOs update for SOME of their boards (think 890 chipsets) to make the board able to take Bulldozer CPUs. But do bare in mind that would Bulldozer CPUs works on it, and would Bulldozer overclock on it are two different things.
Asus have given an indication of which motherboards will get a bios update to support bulldozer http://event.asus.com/2011/mb/AM3_PLUS_Ready/ Llano should be out within a couple of months, i'd wait and see what the options are then.
With the price and overclocking of lower i3's and i5's i dont think id bother. I swapped a hex core set up for whats in my sig and my frames went through the roof.
Not much of a gamer, I'm mostly video and photo editing along with the day to day tasks. I do the odd bit of CAD and coding too and I will be on a tight budget, hence the AMD choice
id have a AMD 955/965 over an i3 setup since its about the same price but quadcore cheesecake for AMD performance is around the same but the AMD pulls ahead for multithreaded programs
I'd be curious to know what the actual cost savings is over there. I know over here it's maybe $40 chip and mobo savings. not worth the downgraded performance/thermal-power short-comings...i do hope these new chips get them closer to being competitive...
If you're on a budget go down the quad core AMD route (like the 955/65 as adam said), because you will get better scores on multi threaded apps than the dual core w/ hyperthreading in the i3's. The i3s do over-clock very well, though. Use this to compare them then its your choice (thats a i3 540 and a x4 955): http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/143?vs=88
If you do lots of folding, I'd go Intel. Their chips for the same performance use a lot less power. I assume part of your budget is your electric bill. If so, then Intel is the way to go. I'd still wait another month or two as more low end Intel sandybridge chips are coming out. One of the Pentium or i3 chips might be the way to go, or if you need a quad core setup I'd go with one of the lower end i5s, like the i52300. Its going to stomp all over any of the AMD quad core parts, and not end up costing you much more than an AMD quad core setup would. Maybe $100 more, max (and maybe more like $30-60 depending on what AMD parts you had your eye on) unless you go high end board. If you are running the machine folding all the time that you aren't using it for other activities, your power bill will probably be $3-8 a month cheaper with the intel sandybridge chip than an AMD chip if running the processor at 100% 24/7 doing folding. Doesn't sound like much, but in a year its probably paid the price difference.
If your looking to do it on the cheap a hex core is the way to go, excellent value for money. I'm going down the very same route myself ATM. I'm not a big gamer but having six cores chugging away when I'm messing about with videos defiantly appeals to me. When it's all up and running I'm going to do some tests against my i7 940 rig just to see what the out come is.
Hex cores are only any good if the program makes 100% use of the 6 cores. Anything less and the i7 will rape it, clock for clock core for core the hex cores are slow sadly.
Agreed, running a hexacore rig at the moment and it makes a big difference in editing. Great in photoshop and I have given CAD a go on it- you couldn't go off!
I'd have the quad. But I do back up my dvds and my gf uses photoshop a lot. It's still oveclockable too... my 955 is happy at 3.6ghz with no extra voltage. Not much of a bump, but it makes a difference for conversions and a few extra fps in games too. Anandtech had their 955 at 3.8ghz with no extra voltage. I haven't tried on mine yet out of bone idleness.