Quick question: Building a new PC, AMD or Intel?

[Atheist]

redrumloa wrote:

AMD or Intel? Which CPU and MB do you recommend?

Hi redrumloa,

You have to get a quad core Intel, as they are making 16 core CPUs at the end of next year, it would probably be a mistake to get only 2 cores now. Use the power that is available NOW.

Intel Q9xxx line, however, they are $250 and up.

Here's a cheapo AMD quad core and a full blown cheapest Intel quad core CPU. Should be really powerful, though.

redrumloa wrote:

Video card suggestion under ~$250? Dual head prefered.

I have a Nvidia Ti4600 card in my computer from when I got it in 2002 and am happy with it.

However, Nvidia seems to be falling apart at the moment so I think the best card you can get for that price is the ATI 4850. It has 800 registers!

They have a 4870 now, but it's more than what you want to spend for a graphics card, and I don't know it's specifics.

I would definitely get the 4850 if I was buying a computer today (or, the 4870, if it's much better (at least 35% as it costs considerably more)).

[Atheist]

Hi Karlos,

But, you can get a 4850 for $189, and a GTX280 is a whopping $389, including a $30 mail in rebate. Is the GTX280 twice as fast as the 4850? I don't think it is. (I don't know.)

The 4870 is $269.99, including $20 rebate.

This is from newegg.com.

The cards might be even cheaper, if you look around.

[Atheist]

wrote redrumloa:

ASUS P5Q3 Deluxe (Intel P45 Dual DDR3 2000, SATA 3Gb/s, RAID, CrossFireX Ready, PCI-E 2.0)
Intel Core 2 Quad 2.66GHz
Patriot Viper 4GB (2 x DIMM-PVS34G1333LLKN 2GB 240-Pin DDR3 Dual Channel)
CoolMax 700W ATX PSU (20+4 pin, Supports SATA, SLI and Cross-Fire)
1TB HD (Perpendicular Recording, SATA 3Gb/s NCQ, 7200 RPM, 32MB Cache, Model: ST31000340AS)
Diamond HD4870 (512MB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 Video Card.)

Hi redrumloa,

Okay, I see that you have made an alternate purchase, but I'd like to comment on your choice:

Since you have RAID, you may want to buy 2 drives (maybe 2 500GBs, or 750 GBs), and go in striped mode. Reading, writing, booting should all be faster. (Be aware, if one drive dies, you're screwed. I've been using striped for 6 years now, no problems. 2*40GBs.)

I am surprised that you went with the 4870, when it's so much more than an ATI 4850 which I believe to be the best bang for buck video card right now.

I really think that going Quad is the right thing to do, it's current, and there are low cost options for it now and SW is only going to take more and more advantage of that feature.

This you can probably use until it literally falls apart as I think computers MUST be just now plateauing in raw CPU power needs, at least for common desktop usage.


It's no Amiga (or NatAmi) but it'll do what you need it to.

[Atheist]

Don't buy a used or 6 month old system you don't know the history of.

It seems like you might be spending about $1200, then expect this to last 8 years because it's very, very fast, so, that'd be $150 per year.

That seems reasonable for such a reliable system.

[Atheist]

So Redrumloa,

How's she handling? Must be dreamy, having such a speed demon system!

Just ONE of your 4 cores is faster than my single core 2.26 GHz P4 with 400 MHz FSB.

I have 1 Gig of DDR1 ram.

And your video card is probably 15 times faster than my 128 MB Ti4600!

I know that it's waaaaayyyy to early to tell, but could you come back later with how long you think it would be comfortable using such a powerhouse?


I'm wondering if CPU power need is nearing a plateau yet?