help on choosing a base CPU.

[ellachen]

Okay, I'm about to buy a new PC, but I'm on a tight budget. Right now I have a choice between the vanila P4 3.0 Ghz, the Pentium D 2.8ghz DC, and AMD's comparable DC offering(I haven't researched what it is yet, as my primary target was Intel)

I have several concerns, though. First is price, which meant no Core 2 Duo, which was way beyond my budget. The 3 choices I have are within the same range, with the vanilla P4 being the cheapest, AMD I imagine would follow closely, with the Pentium D being the most expensive. But the difference is only a few hundred pesos or so so I could go either way.

Next is cooling. I live in a tropical country and it's summer now, add the fact that we're currently besieged by a stupid heat wave, and also that thing about me not being able to afford air conditioning. Fortunately, I don't overclock. But I'm aware that heat could be an issue. I heard Intel's got that neat feature that prevents the processor itself from burning out by throttling its speed automatically while AMD will just let your cpu go to hell by itself. I need some clarification on this. Obviously if it's true I would prefer Intel. As I don't want to have to worry about burning out my PC if I leave it on and a fan suddenly fails.

Also, I don't have the budget nor the interest to dabble with third party cooling systems.

Finally, power consumption. I leave the PC on almost 24/7, as I have a roomate who shares the internet connection and my ISP's IPDSLAM shit won't work with a router unless I give my roomate the isp's password(which I won't. fuck her.) and I download stuff all the time. I heard that dual cores are significantly more powerhungry and would rape my electricity bill. Is the increase in consumption so significant that my bill would increase by more than 30%? or is it neglible?

[eion]

Okay, I'm about to buy a new PC, but I'm on a tight budget. Right now I have a choice between the vanila P4 3.2 Ghz, the Pentium D 2.8ghz DC, and AMD's comparable AM2 offering(I haven't researched what it is yet, as my primary target was Intel)

I have several concerns, though. First is price, which meant no Core 2 Duo, which was way beyond my budget. The 3 choices I have are within the same range, with the vanilla P4 being the cheapest, AMD I imagine would follow closely, with the Pentium D being the most expensive. But the difference is only a few hundred pesos or so so I could go either way.

Next is cooling. I live in a tropical country and it's summer now, add the fact that we're currently besieged by a stupid heat wave, and also that thing about me not being able to afford air conditioning. Fortunately, I don't overclock. But I'm aware that heat could be an issue. I heard Intel's got that neat feature that prevents the processor itself from burning out by throttling its speed automatically while AMD will just let your cpu go to hell by itself. I need some clarification on this. Obviously if it's true I would prefer Intel. As I don't want to have to worry about burning out my PC if I leave it on and a fan suddenly fails.

Also, I don't have the budget nor the interest to dabble with third party cooling systems.

Finally, power consumption. I leave the PC on almost 24/7, as I have a roomate who shares the internet connection and my ISP's IPDSLAM shit won't work with a router unless I give my roomate the isp's password(which I won't. fuck her.) and I download stuff all the time. I heard that dual cores are significantly more powerhungry and would rape my electricity bill. Is the increase in consumption so significant that my bill would increase by more than 30%? or is it neglible?

The vanilla P4 3.2 will almost certainly run hot, and I think it likes power a lot (I know my vanilla P4 does, although it's an overclocked 2.8). The same goes for the P4 2.8 dual-core.

The thing about AMD CPUs not shutting down and instead burning out if a fan failed was true several years ago, but I'm sure it's not true now.

I'm going on US CPU prices (from Newegg), but for the same price as a 2.8 dual-core Pentium 4, or even a bit less, you can get an Athlon 64 X2 (dual-core) 3800+. The Athlon 64 X2 is rated at 65W - almost definitely less power than a P4, and it should run less hot than a P4 too. For the money that's what I'd choose.

[ellachen]

damn, I forgot about performance. How about that part?

[eion]

damn, I forgot about performance. How about that part?

Depends on what you're doing, but it's worth bearing in mind that for a given clockspeed, Athlon 64s are significantly faster than Pentium 4s.

Based on benchmarks I've found with google...
- for stuff that can only use a single core, the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (which is two 2.0GHz cores) is between a little bit slower and quite a bit faster than a single-core 3.2GHz Pentium 4, and is pretty much always faster than the dual-core 2.8GHz Pentium 4.
- for stuff that can use multiple cores effectively, the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ smokes the single-core 3.2GHz Pentium 4, and the Athlon is almost always either as fast or faster than the dual-core 2.8GHz Pentium 4 (in the few cases where it wasn't as fast, there wasn't much in it).

I'm hardly an AMD fanboy (both of the computers I have with me here have Intel chips - a Pentium 4 2.8E at 3.0ish and a Pentium M 1.7). I just buy what's best at the time (except for the Pentium 4, but there wasn't a decent Athlon 64-compatible Shuttle machine at the time).

There really is no contest between the Athlon 64 X2 and the Pentium 4.

(Obviously the Core 2 Duo walks all over anything AMD currently has to offer, but at a significantly higher price).

[Sheriff Fatman]

AMD have a little app you can grab, called Cool n Quiet. It sets your CPU load to as low as is needed to do whatever you are doing from one moment to the next. I use it on my X2 4400 and during general use my core temp very rarely gets above 20 degrees C, that's with stock cooling in a Shuttle. Naturally, this helps with power consumption as well.

[eion]

I use it on my X2 4400 and during general use my core temp very rarely gets above 20 degrees C, that's with stock cooling in a Shuttle.

To put this into perspective, my Pentium 4 2.8E at 3.0, also with stock cooling in a Shuttle, idles somewhere around 60°C and under load is closer to 75°C (un-overclocked, idle is about 55°C). After I've been playing Oblivion for a couple of hours, the backplate of my machine is almost too hot to touch.
And I have my air-conditioning set to "arctic".

[Sheriff Fatman]

To put this into perspective, my Pentium 4 2.8E at 3.0, also with stock cooling in a Shuttle, idles somewhere around 60°C and under load is closer to 75°C (un-overclocked, idle is about 55°C). After I've been playing Oblivion for a couple of hours, the backplate of my machine is almost too hot to touch.
And I have my air-conditioning set to "arctic".

To put this into perspective however (STALKER for example), under loads my temps are around 55-60C. I guess that does show how good Cool n Quiet is though

[ellachen]

Wow. AMD it is, then. I still have a week to mull over it though.

I'm not an intel fanboy, but back when I was 17 and about to buy my own PC, I bought a K6-2 500 instead of a Pentium 2 450. The AMD was cheaper and I thought higher clockspeed automatically meant faster. A few days later I had a chance to fiddle with a friend's Pentium 2 clocked at 350 mhz and found out it kicked my system's arse. I got burned. I've been leery of AMD ever since. Maybe, if I buy an AMD system now, I can learn to trust it again. And I imagine the makeup sex is going to be awesome.

[deject]

From those options, I'd definitely get the AMD, but have you looked at the Core 2 Duo E4300? They're £82.50 from ebuyer. It'll be better than pretty much any other CPU for the same price. If you could spare an extra tenner you could get the E6300 instead.

[eion]

From those options, I'd definitely get the AMD, but have you looked at the Core 2 Duo E4300? They're £82.50 from ebuyer.

That's twice what an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ costs, in fairness.

edit: from Newegg, that is.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

What Eion said basically.


Certainly for a mid range upgrade I'd go for an amd, they're dirt cheap, run pretty cool and are fairly fast. (as deject said, a core2 will be faster, but they aren't cheap, nor are decent motherboards and memory to go with)

[ellachen]

Hey who voted for Pentium D?!

[Dr. kitteny berk]

http://tomshardware.co.uk/cpu/charts.ht ... &chart=195

may be handy.

[FatherJack]

If money's tight, which it sounds like it is if the 10-20 extra notes for a C2D is too much, what are you doing for a motherboard? If it's one you already own, you'll have to get the same manufacturer's CPU, and if you're buying one, there may be cost savings there which will offset the price of a better processor.

[buzzmong]

I'd go amd (infact, I have done, quite often).

I'll concede the C2D is much faster, but, AMD are releasing the first proper quad core end of 07/ early 08, and that'll piss over it. Intel afaik have nothing else like it in the pipeline for release atm.

[fabyak]

aside from the Intel Quad cores?

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/store/Processors-&-Cooling/

[buzzmong]

aside from the Intel Quad cores?

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/store/Processors-&-Cooling/

BASTARDO.

I wasn't paying attention.

[Hehulk]

Haha, Buzz you fail

Arn't all the current intel quad cores just dual cores with virtualisation?

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I'd go amd (infact, I have done, quite often).

I'll concede the C2D is much faster, but, AMD are releasing the first proper quad core end of 07/ early 08, and that'll piss over it. Intel afaik have nothing else like it in the pipeline for release atm.

aside from the intel quad thing. I doubt that, the core2s are not only really fast, but very efficient and remarkably low power usage. (also, overclock like bastards)

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Haha, Buzz you fail

Arn't all the current intel quad cores just dual cores with virtualisation?

not afaik

they're more like 2 core2duos slapped onto one chip. dirty, but it works.