AMD A6-3650 vs. AMD Athlon II X4 640

[AnitaPeterson]

Here's a strange one, folks... As I contemplate building a dedicated PC for video editing and transcoding (and yes, some gaming, why not?), I've come to a crossroads... the CPU architecture.

Basically, I'm wondering which of the two CPUs listed above would be better, in terms of computing power.

And since the CPUs themselves only tell half the story, here's what they'd be paired with:

For the A6-3650, I'm looking at the following motherboard: http://canadacomputers.com/product_i...item_id=039821
For the Athlon II X4 640, the motherboard would be this: http://canadacomputers.com/product_i...item_id=030936
The videocard in the system would be this: http://canadacomputers.com/product_i...item_id=040635

Any thoughts?

 

[AtenRa]

I would get the motherboard in the link in order to be able to upgrade to Bulldozer in the future plus it has the latest chipsets.

http://www.canadacomputers.com/produ...item_id=039838

 

[Arkaign]

Oof, that's a hard one. I think you're better off with an AM3+ build personally, though the mobo price will be a little more expensive than regular AM3 mobos. It gives you tons of options, and given you mention both gaming and encoding, I think the added capability is a win for you even if you don't immediately have the $$ for a BD upgrade when it hits, or a better GPU. You also might score a used PhII X6 when the BD comes out as AMD top-enders dump their old setups for the new, and an X6 is no slouch for encoding or gaming.

 

[dawp]

unless you were planning on using the on-board video of the A6-3650, I'd go with an AM3+ board like the one AtenRa linked to and get a cheap AM3 Phenom X4 until BD is released.

With a dedicated video card, you don't really need the A6-3650.

I would also consider a Phenom 955 X4 BE, larger cache and unlock multipliers, and for not much more than the 960.
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=4_64&item_id=027383

even if you never OC, the added cache will help, 4 time as much as the 960.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

unless you were planning on using the on-board video of the A6-3650, I'd go with an AM3+ board like the one AtenRa linked to and get a cheap AM3 Phenom X4 until BD is released.

With a dedicated video card, you don't really need the A6-3650.

I would also consider a Phenom 955 X4 BE, larger cache and unlock multipliers, and for not much more than the 960.
http://www.canadacomputers.com/produ...item_id=027383

even if you never OC, the added cache will help, 4 time as much as the 960.

Wow, really? I was looking at that CPU until I saw a few benchmarks at Tom's hardware which said that there's less than 10% difference between it and the 640....

 

[dawp]

well, the benches here at anand is pretty much the same, some have a wider spread than others:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/188?vs=88

there wasn't a 640 here so i settled for a 645, should be pretty close to what you would expect for either cpu.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

Well the A6 has a gpu in it. I would imagine if you were going to put in it that is faster than the one in the A6 then overall the system with the X4 640 would be faster.

 

[dma0991]

As your workload can make full use of more cores, Llano should not be your choice. I would suggest something like a Core i5 2500K, Core i7 2600K or the 6/8 core Bulldozer. I would usually reserve Llano recommendations for users with less demanding workloads.