Processor and Motherboard
Thread Response
by: je.saist
| What follows is a write I did on computer componets. It
has been
edited from the original format for several reasons. For those
wishing
to locate the original article, it is aviable here
in pdf format. Part 1: Processor Theory Part 2: Hardware Part 3: Thread Response This section focus's on the responses made after the original articles were posted. The original post made was this:
Lets go over these pretty much one at a time. I understand if you do not support some of these manufacturers but: For CPU, could you please list the Intel 3.8GhZ processor. Nope. It gets trashed too easily by Athlon64. Intel is not reccomended at all unless you intend to build a Centrino system For
graphics card, could you please list the Nvidia Geforce 6800 (both high
performance material)
This was responded to more in depth in the Rig Reccomendations Graphics, but there are no Nvidia Cards are up for consideration. When talking AGP, the 9800 Pro offers better image quality, less heat, better drivers, better overclocking, lower price and equal performance when compared to Nvidia's 6600 GT. When talking PCI Express there is no question that in the market the Geforce 6800 plays in that Radeon's X800 offers better performance. This also does not touch upon CrossFire or SLI where ATi's multi-GPU solution is a much more dominating solution. For
RAM, I believe that HyperX PC-4200 RAM is a lot higher quality than the
competing brands and I think it costs a lot more.
At the time of the post, I had not dealt with system ram. Unlike Central Processors, Video Cards, or Hard-drives, RAM is fairly static. You can shell out extra money for RAM that has better overclocking potential, but this is something I haven't fully answered yet. Just
an add because I havent come to trust Radeon from some of their older
cards, and when it comes to AMD and Athlon processors, I do not know
enough about that to evaluate the speed of the processor in comparison
to Intel's high end processors.
Got news for those reading this. ATi's Radeon is the better architecture you can buy right now, end of story. It is pointless to reffer to the Rage128 hardware and driver problems as those issues are not carried over into the current Radeon Family. While there is some justification in looking towards driver issues with the original Radeon, then Radeon 7x00 families, many of those issues were done away with after ATi purchsed ArtX, which was founded and directed by many former employees of SGI. Those infused into ATi from ArtX decided to cut off graphics support at the Radeon 8500 family and junk everything previous. Keep this in mind, SGI created the OpenGL rendering system and is one of the pioneers in graphics software. The driver and hardware problems referenced haven't been issues since at least 2000. Alright, if you have $700 to plunk down on a GPU though you can get the Geforce 7800. I'm presuming that most of us aren't spending that much. ATi's Multiple GPU solution is also not as restrictive as Nvidia's SLI. Also, with ATi's R520 based series nearing release, it is probably best to keep with the current industry leader. When talking about processors, keep in mind that AMD moved to a processor model number systems years ago with AthlonXp. The reason why is that their processors were much more powerful than the competitors processors at the same speed. Ever since then Intel's been at a price/performance disadvantage. To put this in perspective, The Intel 3.8ghz 32bit
costs $590
The Intel 3.6ghz 64bit also costs $590 The socket 754 Athlon64 3700+ that outruns them both costs $254 To keep putting this into perspective, consider this: The Low End Athlon64 X2 that you can use on most existing 939 boards While it is true that you can pick up the dual core 2.8ghz Intel 820 for about $250 Keep in mind that it's matched by the Athlon64 2800 which costs $115 And outran by the Athlon64 3200+ in most benchmarks which weighs in at $145 ( The best Dual Core Intel processor you could buy right now would be this monster You'll also need to shell out for a hefty heatsink and have at minimum a 600watt power supply. Otherwise, forget running that processor. However, with a 400watt power supply and any stock Socket 939 board you could pick up the AMD AX2 4800 which decimates the 3.2ghz Extreme edition without a problem. Actually, even the afformentioned AthlonX2 3800+ puts a major dent against the Intel 840 Extreme Edition, at less than half the cost. Another unmentioned item is that the X2 processors run cooler than their Single Cored counterparts, while the Intel Dual Cores run a little bit hotter. Going back to your original post, the Intel Pentium 3.8ghz isn't even in the running, much less the same race. For the most part, if you are even looking at computers, the Intel Pentium price/performance/heat ratio... well... Quite frankly, I really feel sorry for you if you purchased an Intel system when Athlon64 is available.  |