Technology Recommended Desktop PC specs for Windows 7 (64 Bit)

Rukas

Capo Dei Capi
Staff member
#21
Last I heard the AMD chips "lose hands down" to the i7 950.

For the record, Intel says the new 1366 motherboards are here to stay. Next year they will release their 6 core beast, which will no doubt lead the market in performance again, and it will run on 1366.
 

masta247

Well-Known Member
Staff member
#22
Wrong thread :p
Last I heard was that Intel chips "lost hands down". It goes back and forth.
Even if this Intel's platform is here to stay peep this comparison:
Phenom II vs Core i7: Gaming Value Comparison

Especially this:

What you see above is how much it would cost you per framerate (increase) with a Core i7 system over a Phenom II system. The higher the number above, the worse it is because the more you will be paying for performance increase. What is being shown, for example in Left 4 Dead, is that it will cost you $26.88 extra per frame to buy a Core i7 system for gaming.

So if you get 5 fps higher in Left 4 Dead, that just cost you almost $135. Would you pay $135 for 5 fps? Can you see the difference between 114 and 119 fps? And where the two systems are even more closely matched, the case becomes worse for the Intel setup. Since the results for Crysis: Warhead are tied in single GPU configuration, this means you are paying $215 for absolutely no gaming performance increase whatsoever. That is probably very sobering for the Intel fanboys in the house right about now.

Now consider this: for a current difference of $215, you can purchase a second Radeon 4890 to go with a Crossfire setup in a Phenom II system. From a gaming perspective, the Core i7 system simply cannot compete with this.
 

Rukas

Capo Dei Capi
Staff member
#23
Ooops I'm such a newb. Someone move these to the right thread I'm on my phone.

Masta, I don't play games so I could give a fuck about framerates. I have a 360 and a ps3 (only for bluray) for that type of stuff.

Game wise, maybe its close, but when it comes to running a DAW right now the i7 950 shits on anything else.

Hell, I'm not even installing a video card, staying purely on the board for display.
 

Rukas

Capo Dei Capi
Staff member
#24
And even your post says that the i7 is more powerful. We're not discussing price per frame. The point is the i7 is more powerful than anything on the market right now.

Ill stick with it for the next three years, and when I want to upgrade I'll probably want to ditch the current motherboard regardless when all the new stuff comes out, that faster sata and stuff like that. Why keep an old motherboard? The concept is beyond me.

Its like sure now I could keep my current mobo and put in a top of the line core2quad and overclock it but I'm still bottle necked by DDR2 ram.

I could go AMD and get a phenom 2 and use DDR2 ram but why? I want DDR3 ram. So either way I need a new mobo cpu and ram. I suspect that in three to four years I will be in the same situation so I am buying for the now and near future (6 core intel next year that ill prob get two years down the line if ever).

i7 > Anything else. Price is not an issue, performance is.
 

masta247

Well-Known Member
Staff member
#25
DDR2 with AMD boards works almost as good as DDR3 - the difference is small. Then AM3 works on DDR3.
If it comes to performance it's true that i7 is the fastest right now but by a very small margin. Is the marginal difference really worth that much money? If it's a "yes" for you then go for it.
However personally if I went for performance I'd buy a cheaper, also great processor with decent performance/price ratio that wouldn't get much cheaper with time, save the rest of my money and use it to exchange every 6-10 months selling the old one and getting a new superior one to have a top notch computer all the time.
The difference in performance between I7 and Phenom 2 might be around 0 to 10 % depending on what would you like to do. However even the difference between this year's average processors and last year's fast ones is bigger (meaning that this year's average is better than last year's fast). In 3 years i7 will be probably on par with low ends or even worse. Its price will deteriorate really fast because it's simply not worth its performance compared to only slightly slower and much cheaper processors coming out.
Also a smart thing to do would be to wait - if AMD sells its processors much cheaper Intel will probably lower its prices. But then something better might come out..

Also, buy yourself any video card. It's not wise to use the integrated one if only for the fact that it will steal other of your resources including memory and processing power. Buy yourself anything with its own memory and even an average gpu - even a 50$ geforce. It's really worth it even if you don't play at all.
 

Rukas

Capo Dei Capi
Staff member
#26
Its a bit more than a marginal difference.

Even the i5 750 is better than the phenom 2 and only like 10 bucks more expensive here.
 

Rukas

Capo Dei Capi
Staff member
#27
If I'm wrong please let me know coz a friend is building an i5 too might give him a better option but everything I have read online suggests i5 750 > amd
 

Cooper

Well-Known Member
#29
Its a bit more than a marginal difference.

Even the i5 750 is better than the phenom 2 and only like 10 bucks more expensive here.
A phenom 965 BE is faster than an i5 750. Not sure about the price difference tho. A 955 is the about the same.

The i7's are slightly faster (a couple of %) but pretty shitty value.
 

masta247

Well-Known Member
Staff member
#31
With I5 we're talking about really marginal differences. I5 is not a bad idea but it's not only about processors' price. Other hardware like motherboards for intel are more expensive. Then Intel likes fast ram. AMD can work great with a slower one while Intel will choke on it - it usually means a much slower system. That was the case since Amd on ddr 400mhz worked way better than Intels on ddr2 667mhz. They just needed 800mhz. With every generation they need the fastest ram.
If you build a good I5 rig and a Phenom 2 rig the latter will be definitely way cheaper than the performance difference which will be minimal.

Also, bare in mind that we're talking about unbelievable performance and a difference between a good i5, Phenom 2 and even i7 probably won't be noticeable.
 

Cooper

Well-Known Member
#32
Core i5 vs. Phenom II X4 CPU Review | Hardware Secrets

Core i5-750, Phenom II X4 955 and Phenom II X4 965 achieved the same overall score on PCMark Vantage.

On the TV and Movies benchmark Core i5-750 and Phenom II X4 955 achieved the same performance level, with Phenom II X4 965 being 5.50% faster than Core i5-750 here.

On the Gaming set Core i5-750 was 22.89% faster than Phenom II X4 955 and 25.41% faster than Phenom II X4 965.

On the Music benchmark Core i5-750 achieved the same performance level as Phenom II X4 955, with Phenom II X4 965 being 3.85% faster than Core i5-750.

On the Communications tests Phenom II X4 955 was 11.14% faster than Core i5-750 and Phenom II X4 965 was 15.72% faster than Core i5-750

And finally on the Productivity benchmark Phenom II X4 955 and Phenom II X4 965 were 3.40% faster than Core i5-750.
It depends where you look...in reality the differences are negligible and it comes down to personal preference.

The i7 is clearly faster, but over here the price for a Phenom is 140 and the i7 is 220....pretty simple choice! (The i5 is 160 if that matters for anything)

If money's no object then the i7 with DDR3 RAM is fucking awesome, but in the real world, I'll stick with AMD.
 

Rukas

Capo Dei Capi
Staff member
#33
^^ Why so quick to stick with AMD?

Why didnt you get the i5 750? Is it a biased against Intel? Real question. They are priced the same and seem to be the same on every test except the Gaming test where the i5 750 woops the AMD by 22+% according to your own source. So that in my opinion makes the i5 superior to the Phenom 2.

Plus the auto Turbo Mode thing rocks.

So really, i5 750 > Phenom 2.... So why stick with AMD? Is it loyalty etc etc? Im not trying to knock you, just seriously curious.
 

Rukas

Capo Dei Capi
Staff member
#34
With I5 we're talking about really marginal differences. I5 is not a bad idea but it's not only about processors' price. Other hardware like motherboards for intel are more expensive. Then Intel likes fast ram. AMD can work great with a slower one while Intel will choke on it - it usually means a much slower system. That was the case since Amd on ddr 400mhz worked way better than Intels on ddr2 667mhz. They just needed 800mhz. With every generation they need the fastest ram.
If you build a good I5 rig and a Phenom 2 rig the latter will be definitely way cheaper than the performance difference which will be minimal.

Also, bare in mind that we're talking about unbelievable performance and a difference between a good i5, Phenom 2 and even i7 probably won't be noticeable.

While the difference in performance for the AMD and i5 may be "marginal," it isnt between the i7 which is noticeably faster.

In reality, the i5 is noticeably faster than the AMD when running DAWs too. But that doesnt impact most people so I dont go into it.

As for price...
4GB of DDR2 ram is AU$109. 4GB of DDR3 ram is AU$129. Both Kingston. The performance boost from DDR2 to DDR3 is worth the AU$20.

The i5 750 is $10 more expensive than the Phenom 2.

And the barebones motherboards are priced EXACTLY the same.

So really, a i5 750 system is $30 bucks more expensive than a Phenom 2 system, has a faster CPU AAAAANNNNDDDD DDR3 (which is a big deal).
 

masta247

Well-Known Member
Staff member
#35
Phenom 2 on AM3 also works on ddr3. It's AM2/AM2+ that used ddr2.

Well then, if i5 is faster for what you need and priced almost the same then go for it.
Here the price difference between a i5 and a corresponding Phenom2 system is much bigger while the difference between their motherboards are unbelievably high.
You can get a Phenom 2 955 + a decent MSI board for 750zl (about 220$) while a i5 750 with a corresponding MSI motherboard costs 1499zl (almost 400$). The cheapest I7 goes for 1800zl. Sure you can get an i5 with a motherboard for as low as 300$ and a phenom2 for 150$ but I wouldn't recommend getting a shitty one.

That's why I'm biased towards AMD at the moment - because they are much cheaper here and almost as efficient. Also, they turned out to be more reliable for me.
It's not like I don't use Intel processors when the price is fair though. I have Intel in my laptop and in my older computer and it was my processor of choice. I wouldn't buy an AMD for a laptop.
 

THEV1LL4N

Well-Known Member
#36
i think the amd athlon 64+ was great on my desktop pc and i think it was very reliable.

ive beenbeen going with my uncle's advice on getting an intel cpu and motherboard, but since ive considered upgrading to windows 7 64 bit, i reconsidered about what would be the best processor and therefore a different motherboard too.

now im undecided about which way to go. ive googled the i5, i7 and amd phenom 2 (AMD Phenom II X2 3.1 GHz Processor @ AMD Black Edition - AMD Phenom II X2 3.1 GHz Processor) and (AMD Phenom II X3 425 Triple Core Processor 2.7GHz 1.5MB L2 Cache @ Buy AMD Phenom II X3 425 2.7 GHz Socket AM3 L2 Cache 1.5 MB ADX425WFGIBOX-Dclstore.co.uk)

and the i5 and i7 seem far too expensive. im looking for excellent all round performance on a budget. Again, need it for multimedia and software purposes, so want it to be very speedy - no lagging. would like to get a hd widescreen monitor, so it would be worth getting a hdmi ready graphics card.


also, since i prefer the ps2 GTA games, im going to get gta 3 and vice city from my cousin and get san andreas and the others myself. have them on ps2 but if i back the ISOs up to an online file storage account i'll have these games for life as opposed the phased out ps2-ps3 backwards compatibility support or a game disc getting damaged.
 

THEV1LL4N

Well-Known Member
#37
12 August 2009 at 23:17

Check out the benchmarks, the Intel chips are creaming AMD at the moment - I wouldn't really buy AMD at the moment. Plus at that price range, you'd get an old 65nm AMD which run hotter (noisier as fan needs to spin faster) for lower performance. The E5200 is fabbed at 45nm and runs cooler and delivers better performance.
Plus the Intel route is more future proof as the mother board will take a Core 2 Quad 9750 when it drops in price if you wanted to. An AMD board at that price won't run the AMD chip at full pelt and won't run the latest AMD chips at full speed either (Hypertransport 2 not 3).
i know AMD are on the up again and able to compete with intel again since they wont the case and received a huge payment from intel. competition will be good, but i want value for money, superb performance, reliability and cost-effectiveness (down the years), low energy consumption/less heat produced if possible.
 

Cooper

Well-Known Member
#38
^^ Why so quick to stick with AMD?

Why didnt you get the i5 750? Is it a biased against Intel? Real question. They are priced the same and seem to be the same on every test except the Gaming test where the i5 750 woops the AMD by 22+% according to your own source. So that in my opinion makes the i5 superior to the Phenom 2.

Plus the auto Turbo Mode thing rocks.

So really, i5 750 > Phenom 2.... So why stick with AMD? Is it loyalty etc etc? Im not trying to knock you, just seriously curious.
Probably cos the price difference is so large (once you factor in the motherboard) for basically the same performance. I have nothing against Intel (the i7 is great) but I think AMD offers greater value at the upper midrange level. (at the moment), as well as a certain amount of futureproofing.
 

Latest posts

Donate

Any donations will be used to help pay for the site costs, and anything donated above will be donated to C-Dub's son on behalf of this community.

Members online

No members online now.
Top