Which Cpu Is Best ?

[fireblade77]

hi guys im gonna build a new pc for a friend and this is for gaming and ever since the intel core 2 duo cpu's came out ive never looked at athlon cpu's since but now with these new AMD Phenom 2 X4 Quad cpu's i think this might be better so should i build his pc around a intel Q6700 2.66ghz oem @ £139 + £15 for cpu cooler cos this is an oem so comes without cooler or should i put in the AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 940 Black Edition 3.0GHz (Socket AM2+) - Retail @ £132.99 ?
from the little info i can find it looks like the athlon is quicker and if so what mobo would u put with it cos i dont know anything about the athlon mobo's anymore and which chipset is best for them ? dont want to spend more than £80 on mobo.

 

[BarbaricSoul]

I'd get the Phenon II. It performs about the same as the q6700 at stock speeds, has more potential of obtaining a higher OC than the q6700, and has more options for upgrading in the future.

As for motherboard chipsets, I'd run it with a AMD 790FX or 790GX. Those chipsets yeild the best results with the Phenom II.

 

[JrRacinFan]

"Best" can be construed as to what you plan on doing with the machine. Alot of multitasking and less gaming? Not much multitasking and quite a bit of gaming? Photo or video editing? Basic net browsing and office?

All depends on what you expect out of the rig.

 

[MoonPig]

If it's just for gaming, i'd say pick up a second hand Core2duo. I believe theres an E8400 in the B/S/T for the UK.

Only get the Quad if you plan on mass-multi tasking or video editing.

Edit, here it is : http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=98863

 

[FreedomEclipse]

^ +1 find a cheaper Intel Dual Core Cpu & overclock the Jebus out of it. even if your on an extremely tight budget a E5200 for around £50 can yield great results - people are clocking them up to 3.7/3.8Ghz & even high depending on your hardware (4Ghz on rare occasions) but if you want a higer end chip then go for a E7xxx series chip. they will do 4.2Ghz easy so long as your hardware is upto it. E8xxx series is more expensive but its purely up to you.

A Dual Core chip clocked to 4.2Ghz will smoke a overclocked Quad Core at games since most games love faster clock speeds. the only areas where the performance will suffer a little is with multitasking, Video/Image/Audio Encoding/Editing.

but you'l still have a kick ass machine at the end of the day

 

[Darren]

hi guys im gonna build a new pc for a friend and this is for gaming and ever since the intel core 2 duo cpu's came out ive never looked at athlon cpu's since but now with these new AMD Phenom 2 X4 Quad cpu's i think this might be better so should i build his pc around a intel Q6700 2.66ghz oem @ £139 + £15 for cpu cooler cos this is an oem so comes without cooler or should i put in the AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 940 Black Edition 3.0GHz (Socket AM2+) - Retail @ £132.99 ?
from the little info i can find it looks like the athlon is quicker and if so what mobo would u put with it cos i dont know anything about the athlon mobo's anymore and which chipset is best for them ? dont want to spend more than £80 on mobo.

The Q6700 would be slightly slower than the Phenom II X4 810, the Phenom II X4 would be more on par with the Q9xxx. Really and truly I think you'd be better off spending another £10-15 on the Phenom II X4 955 for £146.89. It really comes down to the budget, a decent dual core would be enough for gaming these days, I'd only advise spending that much money on a quad if your mate is the type of person that doesn't want to upgrade his CPU for the next 2 or 3 years or he is doing tasks other than gaming.

If you tell us your mates budget and give us a bit more detail about his requirements we'll be able to help you further.

 

[fireblade77]

ok he told me a budget of £250 but i said that would only get a bit better than what he has now so i have got him upto about £380 so cant spend anymore than than this.
this is to buy new mobo - cpu - ram - graphics card.
this is what i told him to get
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/896M...2xDL-DVI-I-HDTV-plus-FarCry-2-plus-FREE-Vouch

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Inte...-266-GHz-1066MHz-8MB-Cache-10x-Multiplier-OEM

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=1018761

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Giga...E-20-(x16)-DDR2-1200-1066-800-667-SATA-II-ATX

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Arct...z-S775-Dual-Quad-Core-Ready-The-Favourite-One!
last link doesnt work sorry but its the artic freezer pro 7 for about £14.50
total cost £384 inc post.

he wants this pc for gaming now i know u say most games right now dont use 4 cores so i know a core 2 duo E8400 would be better for most games but the new games coming out and the new arma 2 run much better with 4 cores so this will be a taste of things to come so i dont want him coming back to me in 6 months to a years time saying i wish u put a quad core in.

im sure some of u will say u should buy an ati 4870 instead of that gtx260 and im not one of these people who hate ati cos ive had both top end cards from ati and nvidia and i like both but i went for this cos i think they run cooler and quieter than the ati ones and i have one myself right now and it does the job perfect.

 

[tzitzibp]

no argument about 2 or 4 cores, but why buy a 1066 fsb cpu instead of 1333 !?

anyway, I suggest...
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Intel-Core-2-Quad-Q8400-Yorkfield-Core-775-266-GHz-1333MHz-2MBx2-L2-Cache-95W-Retail 135£

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/DFI-Lanparty-DK-P45-T2RS-Plus-iP45-S-775-PCI-E-(x16)-DDR2-1066-1200-SATA-II-ATX 108£

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-(2x2GB)-Corsair-TwinX-DDR2-XMS2-PC2-8500-(1066)-240Pin-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-5-5-5-15-EPP 47£

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-XFX-ATI-Radeon-HD-4870-775M-DDR5-DUAL-DVI-XXX-EDITION 114£

I know it slightly higher than your budget, but I think is a more balanced rig....

 

[Darren]

fireblade77,

I've got a few queries/issues with the build, its too early for me to write a lot. Do not use scan because they are overpriced. Ebuyer.co.uk or Novatech.co.uk are cheaper and offer free delivery on big orders.

I have no issue with the GTX260 but considering that its the same speed as the 4870 I would get the cheapest of the two. You've got a £130.25 GTX260 in the basket which seems ridiculous considering the 4870 are less than £100. You can save more than £30 for the same performance and put the saving on a better processor or more ram etc.

PowerColor HD 4870 512MB £94.99

XFX 4870 512 MB £99.99


Do not waste your money with PC2-6400, you can buy PC2-8500 for the same price, ebuyer have OCZ PC2-8500 2x2 GB for £37 even the Corsair PC2-8500 2x2 GB is only £37.99. If your mate wants future proof I'd get 8 GBs of ram too.

Also the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 isn't the best choice, Like I said in my previous post the Phenom II X4 940 is the same price and is much faster. The Phenom II X4 955 is only £15 more, if you swapped the GTX260 for the 4870 it would be within budget.

This isn't a Intel vs AMD thing, but be careful with socket 775 builds, support for the socket is almost dead, socket 1366 or AM2/AM3 is the only option for new high end builds as you've actually got a supported upgrade path.

 

[fireblade77]

ok few questions.
1st off if i was togo with the newer intel quad cores they have less onboard cache L2 4mb and the q6700 has L2 8mb cache so are the newer ones better ? do they overclock as well as the q6700 ?
i like the idea of going to that amd one but if i went with the socket am3 wouldnt i have to spend more on a mobo and more on the ram ?
as for the graphics cards well powercolor is not a make i would want to buy, ive always stuck with either bfg, xfx, sapphire or HIS and like i said the 4870's i think r very loud and and run very hot so im a little put off by them and my friend has a 4870 512mb either sapphire or HIS cant remember which and every now and then it just spins the fan up full speed for a couple of seconds and back down again for no reason ? maybe a driver thing and if he updates his drivers it could be ok ?
guys i really dont think i can go over £400 and i know ebuyer r a good price but they didnt have the graphics card i wanted at that price and the cpu was more money i think to.
i always buy my stuff and i spend probably about £5000 - £6000 per year on building pc's for friends and myself and i always buy from either ebuyer - overclockers or scan and i always try ebuyer 1st for free post over £50 and novatech dont have what i want most of the time.
so if i go down the amd way could u list what would be the best one togo for and what mobo plz.

off to work now so cant read any reply until 23:30 tonight but thx for ur help

 

[Darren]

ok few questions.
1st off if i was togo with the newer intel quad cores they have less onboard cache L2 4mb and the q6700 has L2 8mb cache so are the newer ones better ? do they overclock as well as the q6700 ?

Its all theoretical, it might have more cache but it doesn't necessarily translate into Better performance, remember the Q6xxx are the first generation quad cores so they are old, they are the Kentfield version with 1066 MHz FSB. The newer Q8xxx/9xxx use the faster York field revision with a 1333 MHZ FSB.

i like the idea of going to that amd one but if i went with the socket am3 wouldnt i have to spend more on a mobo and more on the ram ??

No.

AM2/AM2+/AM3 motherboard sockets are all backwards compatible, this is there huge selling point. For example you can put a "AM3 Phenom II based processor" such as the Athlon II, Phenom II X2, Phenom II X3, Phenom II X4 810, 925, 945, 955, and the upcoming 6 core desktop opteron etc in a AM2/AM2+ or AM3 motherboard.

The advantage of having a Phenom II in a AM2/AM2+ motherboard is because AM2/AM2+ is the cheapest socket at the moment plus you can use the older DDR2 memory e.g. PC6400 or PC8500. Even some native AM3 motherboards support either DDR2 or DDR3.

ive always stuck with either bfg, xfx, sapphire or HIS and like i said the 4870's i think r very loud and run very hot so im a little put off by them and my friend has a 4870 512mb either sapphire or HIS cant remember which and every now and then it just spins the fan up full speed for a couple of seconds and back down again for no reason ? maybe a driver thing and if he updates his drivers it could be ok ? ??

You can stick a custom cooler on that 4870 for cheaper than that GTX260, there is no excuse for not getting the cheaper option for the same performance. As for the noise issue, manufacturers tend to use different coolers, so just because the HIS 4870 is loud the Sapphire 4870 might be quiet, they are different coolers. Likewise the HIS 4890 might be quiet yet the Sapphire 4890 might be loud. You can not compare stock coolers of different manufacturers and of different cards. For example my old XFX 9600 GT stock fan was louder than my current XFX 4830. Same manufacturer different card, different noise level.

Generally speaking, the fan is suppose to slow down during 2D activity i.e at the desktop, but it is suppose to speed up in 3D activities i.e. games as the temperature rises, so your mates issue is normal its not a driver issue. If noise is an issue for him he can put a £20 passive cooler on it like the Artic Cooling Accelero S1 Rev 2.

so if i go down the amd way could u list what would be the best one togo for and what mobo plz.

Sure.

 

[Mussels]

some information. to answer questions throughout the thread.

1. The lower cache of the cheap quad core 45nm models does hurt performance. get a chip with more cache - hell, a dual could do better (remember that in dual core supporting apps and games, the dual core with more cache would come out faster than these quads)

2. lower FSB = better. higher FSB's do jack shit for performance - and i mean NOTHING. having a lower stock FSB means you get a higher multiplier, which makes OCing easier - less FSB is required for the same clocks, so you get higher clocks.

3. ram: with intel, plan for 1:1 - if you only need 400 FSB for your clocks (400x9 on a Q6600 is 3.6Ghz), then 800MHz ram will do the job fine. On AMD, 1066MHz ram is barely supported - some CPU's wont run four sticks of ram at 1066.

 

[Darren]

Indeed, the difference between 1066 Mhz and 1333 Mhz FSB is a tiny, likewise the extra cache might help more than the increased FSB, not enough to make a massive difference in reality. Regardless the Q6700 is aging, the faster alternatives are the same price and cheaper, this should be the only real issue.

fireblade77, are you planning on overclocking your mates computer or does he want a fast CPU straight out of the box with no fiddling?




Edit:

1 x XFX HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card £99.99

1 x AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2 GHz Socket AM3 8MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor £146.89

2 x OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Gold Memory £75.97 (8 GB total)

1 x ASUS M3N-H/HDMI GeForce 8300 Socket AM2+ onboard graphics 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard £47.84

Total: £370.69, free super saver delivery

I wasn't too sure if your mate needs a new PSU and hard disk drive, if his computer is old he might have a IDE hard disk drive opposed to SATA and hence his loadings in games might be a little slow. I did not include the HD or PSU in the build because you left them out in your previous list of components.

As you can see I put in a total of 8 GBs of PC8500, you can drop that to 4 GBs to fit in the cost of the PSU if your mate needs one.

 

[BarbaricSoul]

here's my build suggestions

http://img.techpowerup.org/090713/Capture011223.jpg

 

[fireblade77]

i think it would be better to be fast right out of the box without overclocking but i think he might want to do a little overclocking or i will do it for him in time.
what would u change if he wanted to do some overclocking ?
i dont like the idea of buying a mobo with onboard graphics, i know u just turn it off but why have it ?
and
the 8gig of ram....
i have the intel i7 920 with 6 gig of 1600mhz and its a total waste of time having anymore than that so i will stick with 4gig for him.
he has sata hard drive and his psu is an antec 550w so i think that will be fine.

1 last thing as i said ive not been following amd for a while now so are u sure this cpu below will fit onto an am2/am2+ mobo ?
AMD Phenom II X4 955 BlackEdition, Sok AM3, 3.2GHz, 8MB Total Cache, 125W, Retail

 

[ASRockIQ]

^yes, mostly any Mobo that supports AM2/AM2+ will also support a AM3 CPU but it depends when the Mobo was created say late year of 2008. my Mobo which was created back in late 2008 supports the new AM3 CPUs. lot of Companies have applied BIOS updates to support the new AM3 CPUs.

 

[Darren]

what would u change if he wanted to do some overclocking ?
i dont like the idea of buying a mobo with onboard graphics, i know u just turn it off but why have it?

Overclocking will require a better motherboard e.g. 790 chipset is a well known motherboard for overclocking features, the motherboard I selected the "ASUS M3N-H/HDMI " uses the 8300 chipset which has pretty decent for overclocking features and is cheap.

1 last thing as i said ive not been following amd for a while now so are u sure this cpu below will fit onto an am2/am2+ mobo ?
AMD Phenom II X4 955 BlackEdition, Sok AM3, 3.2GHz, 8MB Total Cache, 125W, Retail

Indeed the Phenom II X4 955 will support AM2/AM2+ and AM3 with either DDR2 or DDR3.

Read this http://www.techpowerup.com/?35434 and this http://www.pureoverclock.com/story1283.html


I checked on ASUS' website and the ASUS M3N-H/HDMI supports the Phenom IIs.

 

[fireblade77]

thx guys for ur help, so i think this is what i will go for so if anyone can see a problem with this setup plz tell me
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/164047
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2 GHz Socket AM3 8MB Cache Retail

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160931
ASUS M4A78-E 790GX Socket AM2+ VGA DVI HDMI 8 Channel Audio ATX

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/155497
XFX HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/149202
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Gold Memory

total cos £371.85

one last thing
so how much better would this be than a pc built around the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.66GHz Socket 775 1066MHz 8MB or
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 2.66GHz Socket 775 1333FSB 4MB L2 Cache Retail
am i right in thinking that the amd would be better for games and the intel better for video editing and mp3 ?

 

[Darren]

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/164047
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2 GHz Socket AM3 8MB Cache Retail

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160931
ASUS M4A78-E 790GX Socket AM2+ VGA DVI HDMI 8 Channel Audio ATX

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/155497
XFX HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/149202
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Gold Memory

total cos £371.85

The system looks good I can not fault it, but remember the "ASUS M4A78-E 790GX" is a good motherboard chipset and if you're not serious about overclocking it serves little purpose its also expensive considering its £86.98, you can buy a actual AM3 motherboard for around the same price. The entire point of AMD builds is that its suppose to be cheap you'd be better off buy a nforce 8300 or 780 chipset for around £45-55 and divert the money towards something else such as a better video card.

If you can find a Nforce 8200/8300 or 780 chipset you'd save around £30-40 which you can put into a better video card such as the ASUS ATI 4890 1 GB GDDR5 and hence gaming performance would be better overall.

[
so how much better would this be than a pc built around the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.66GHz Socket 775 1066MHz 8MB or
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 2.66GHz Socket 775 1333FSB 4MB L2 Cache Retail
am i right in thinking that the amd would be better for games and the intel better for video editing and mp3 ?

I can tell you are not really happy with this AMD build, because you keep bringing up this Q6700. The Phenom II 955 would be faster than in video encoding and gaming, its the better CPU overall. The only advantage the Q6700/Q8400 have is that they can overclock well, but to be fair the Phenom II 955 overclocks well too. But overclocking aside the Phenom II 955 is the better CPU situated between the Q9550 and Q9650 performance wise.

Gaming review from Anantech here

Video encoding review here

I can not find any MP3 encoding reviews, but video encoding review should be suffice.

 

[fireblade77]

i only ask cos like i said ive not had amd since my athlon 4000+ cos the core 2 duo has been so much better but ive seen a few reviews now of this cpu and its not that far away in some games tests as my i7 920 so i now know its a good cpu
but i did read some reviews of the cpu fitting on am2+ mobo's and they dont always like it and peoeple r having trouble getting any kind of good overclock (something to do with the way the memory) works but this was when they 1st came out so maybe problems solved now.
do u know of any good cpu cooler like the artic freezer pro which is so cheap for what it does that will work well with one of these cpu's ?

 

[Darren]

do u know of any good cpu cooler like the artic freezer pro which is so cheap for what it does that will work well with one of these cpu's ?

I wouldn't be really worried about heat, the Phenom IIs are pretty cool even with stock heatsink, the 955 is clocked at 3.2 GHz default, you'd probably only get it to around 3.7 GHz - 3.9 GHz maximum regardless whether you use a stock or custom heatsink. You'd need around £30-45 to buy a decent custom cooler, the Scythe Ninja II for £36.47 is one of the best ones. But you have to ask yourself for £36.47 extra could you buy a better video card opposed to squeezing out an extra 100-150 MHz that will have a negligible impact in gaming performance?

Edit:

Also the Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme Socket is £26.09

 

[zOaib]

some nice mentions in this post however i would go for a quad core just because they are overall more useful and can flex to your various usages if its in your budget ofcourse or you can go bid on my qx9650 which is listed on ebay i will not post the link here since i am not advertising but you can search and fidn it yourself it comes with an asus x38 mobo + 8gb dominator corsair ddr2. =P

 

[zOaib]

thx guys for ur help, so i think this is what i will go for so if anyone can see a problem with this setup plz tell me
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/164047
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition 3.2 GHz Socket AM3 8MB Cache Retail

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/160931
ASUS M4A78-E 790GX Socket AM2+ VGA DVI HDMI 8 Channel Audio ATX

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/155497
XFX HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/149202
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Gold Memory

total cos £371.85

one last thing
so how much better would this be than a pc built around the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.66GHz Socket 775 1066MHz 8MB or
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 2.66GHz Socket 775 1333FSB 4MB L2 Cache Retail
am i right in thinking that the amd would be better for games and the intel better for video editing and mp3 ?

I Like that setup you buy like me =P