[themisiek1]

Alright will in late August as some of you might remember I had build a new computer. It is great except over time I had done more research and learned more about computers. I' am kind of dissapointed with a couple choices I had made for example:

Intel Core 2 Dou E6850 3.0Ghz
When I should of got
Intel Core 2 Dou Q6600 2.4Ghz and Overclocked

Actually to be honest that is the only thing I don't like. I was annoyed with the low speed 8 GB 800Mhz ram at 6-6-6-18 but I turned it to 1200Mhz at 4-4-4-12. Anyway this Christmas I' am getting a lot of money from grandparents and work bonus'. So I was planning on rebuilding my old Alienware whose current specifications are:

Intel Pentium 4 3.4Ghz HT
Crucial Ballistics 2GB 667 Mhz
EVGA 7950GT 512MB Superclocked
850Watt SilverStone PowerSupply

I want to put a new 45nm CPU in there. Intel is releasing consumer level 45nm processors Q1 of 2008 so at the moment I' am hoping to get a Core 2 Quad with 45nm and overclock the living **** out of it. Also I will be putting the new 8900s into SLi in this build which are back on schedule according to Nvidia and will be released Q1 2008 as well. Right now I' am looking at these motherboards for this rebuild.

ASUS P5E LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131219

GIGABYTE GA-X38-DQ6 LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Ultra Durable 2, Ultra Cooling Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128066

I really like the Asus one more than the Gigabyte one (based on looks) but I think that the Gigabyte is the better one. One of the Asus reviews state that the board does not support SLi due to the lack of drivers at the moment.

 

[Ghosted]

1st, that 3.0GHz C2D aint too bad (actually pretty good), and the second processor is a C2Q (quad) not duo...

dont rush quad core unless you know the things you do will specifically be capable of using it, most things barely utilize dual core let alone quad

 

[themisiek1]

Yes, sorry typo, Quad. All these new games coming out are eating my Dou's 2 Cores up like crazy. Plus my friends and I are building this to see how close we can get to 26,000 in 3DMark06. Also we are going to bring this computer into our computer science class and kill the everything in the room with it, lol.

 

[TheMatt]

For an X38 board I would personally go with the P5E WS Pro. But right now the AMD Phenom is a better choice than the Q6600 (although I haven't heard how good an overclocker it is).

I would personally go with the Phenom 9500+ or 9600+ and the Gigabyte MA790FX-DS5 over an Intel build if you want a quad core processor.

 

[Ghosted]

For an X38 board I would personally go with the P5E WS Pro. But right now the AMD Phenom is a better choice than the Q6600 (although I haven't heard how good an overclocker it is).

I would personally go with the Phenom 9500+ or 9600+ and the Gigabyte MA790FX-DS5 over an Intel build if you want a quad core processor.

typical to Core 2's its a good overclocker (even on air, just remember to look at the core types and steppings), and as for the Phenoms, i would wait till they fix them to buy them myself (they had a few problems and therefore couldnt release them at as high clock speeds as they wanted)

im an amd fanboy at heart xD

 

[TheMatt]

The overclocking ability of a Core 2 Quad largely depends on the motherboard; some can't really go that high. Right now the Phenom 9500+ is about equal to a QX6700 which is why I am leaning toward AMD for quad cores. AMD's multicore architecture is much more efficient which is why they caught up with the Phenom.

Future apps that utilize SSE4 and are multi-threaded will run much faster on the Phenom than the Core 2 Quad Kentsfield, although I haven't seen any benchmarks on the Yorksfield yet.

 

[themisiek1]

The current world record is being held by an Yorksfield with 2800XTs in crossfire. However everything here is still a maybe. I have 1 month to research and find the best. I heard some bad things about the Phenoms on some sites like TomsHardware. They all say the Q6600 is better then the Phenom. However I would NEVER buy a Q6600 without overclocking it to at least 3.4Ghz, lol. It has massive overclocking potential.

 

[TheMatt]

The benchmarks on the Phenom 9500+ versus the Core 2 Quad QX6700 put the Core 2 Quad ahead of the Phenom in multimedia and SSE2 benchmarks but put the Phenom ahead of the Core 2 Quad in integer ALU and memory bandwidth benchmarks. Again, the overclocking potential mostly depends on the board you get because that will be the overclocking bottleneck.

 

[Ghosted]

...but put the Phenom ahead of the Core 2 Quad in integer ALU and memory bandwidth benchmarks..

amd has pretty much always won with memory bandwith...

and yeh you're right to say it largely depends on the motherboard can't believe i didn't mention it lol

i would suggest hunt around for a few examples of extreme overclocks of the processor you decide on, then see what mobo they got it really stable with if you can't afford it try and get a lower model that's similar ... thats always worked for my friends :laugh:

 

[themisiek1]

That is why I have my 680i with my Intel Core 2 Dou E6850 3.0Ghz at 4.2Ghz with air cooling.:grin:

 

[teutoniswolf]

you have that thing to 4.2!? that will knock out quad cores for a lil while until software is better able to utilize the quad core tech

 

[WaXeD]

you mentioned you wanted to use the new penryns out in january in your first post? perhaps you should wait until then for a mobo as well... (of course going with the idea that you will want to use DDR3) as the X48 should be coming out ~ the same time and will support the 45nm as well as DDR3.. or if you only want 2 DDR3 slots, go with one of those X38s or a P35 model.. as both support the upcoming penryns. also the X48 should support 1600 FSB.

also, what reason do you have for SLi? and what video cards will you be SLi'ing ? 8800 GT works quite well, I've never been much of a fan of SLi.

 

[Kalim]

Penryn Yorkfield are delayed. They have the same problem AMD Phenom has and was and is delayed further for.

Wolfdale I don't think are delayed though.

Phenom 9500 will do only around 2.7GHz stable from 2.2GHz on average using stock HSF. Max is 2.92GHz stable on air that I've seen.
9600 does about 100MHz more (higher multiplier).
Core 2 Quad will do about 3-3.2GHz stock HSF air. Temps will start to be a problem at those speeds though, maybe even at 3GHz.

With Intel Core 2/Penryn, like with Pentium 4, the better the cooling, the higher MHz you will go, all the way to 6.2GHz.
With AMD Phenom, like with Athlon 64, it's very limited to near 3.6GHz top even with subzero cooling.

 

[floydfan]

wow matt, sorry, but a 9500 is nowhere near a q6700... not a single benchmark (gaming, office, encoding, editing) would put a 9500 anywhere near a q6700. hell, the q6600 will have quite a lead over it. even without the tlb bug bios fix, k10 is 10% slower clock for clock. and op, you cannot get an intel chipset and run sli, if you want sli you will have to get the new nvidia 780i chipset.

 

[Kalim]

hell, the q6600 will have quite a lead over it. even without the tlb bug bios fix, k10 is 10% slower clock for clock.

There's too much misinformation and confusion around about AMd and it's products.

Firstly, you don't need no BIOS fix for retail B2 step Phenom 9500/9600 unless you experience a lockup issue, which you won't. The 9500 and 9600 on the market now are simply downclocked versions of the original planned release 9700 2.4GHz and 9900 2.6GHz CPU's. They were downlocked to levels where they definitely do not experience any issues. This is why you didn't have those released now.

So no performance loss.

Secondly, Phenom retail is quicker in benchmarks than the few reviews online I've seen. No idea why but motherboard support was very very patchy when the reviews surfaced, heck it still is right now. Day by day the BIOS issues getting sorted are giving it better performance/higher overclock. For instance, wPrime 32M was 19s stock 2.2GHz with the early BIOSes and right now it's 16s.

Thirdly, to say Q6600 has quite a lead over Phenom 9500/9600 clock for clock is much too definitive... do you have a Phenom and a Q6600 that you've compared to say this?

We have many at work and I've compared them and that's not true. In some applications Q6600 will win but in others it won't. 3DMark06 for instance is won by Phenom clock for clock especially in Vista and in 64bit environments. Something like Cinebench 10 goes to Q6600.

Lastly, if you do use that BIOS fix around for Phenom TLB errata the performance loss is not 10%. You're talking 10% minimum and more like 60% on average. It's like running at 1.1GHz.