Intel vs AMD dual core

[trueimage]

Just wondering what are rough performance equivalents in Intel and AMD dual core.

I went from a P4 with HT to an Athlon 64 and I can't stand the lag. I don't play tons of games, smoothness on the desktop while running lots of apps incl photoshop cs2, newsbin, winrar, about 50 firefox tabs, along with all the basic stuff running like mirc, msn, etc in the bg.

I am going to upgrade my HDs to sata2 perhaps in raid. but I have some sata disks now so they shouldnt be that horrible. The lag is very noticable. Takes like 10 seconds to bring up the MSN window??

Anyway, I am thinking dual core is the way to go. And this amd experience has not softened me on them, perhaps the opposite.

AMD chips seem to be more expensive, but will work with my current mobo, ram etc.

Intel chips are less expensive, but would require selling/traing all my current gear and getting different stuff.

Just looking for a rough comparison, and do any Intel dual core chips have hyperthreading yet? or is it not needed? I'm looking to get back that silky smooth desktop like I had with the P4 HT

Thanks

 

[RichUK]

Any Intel's with HT

The only Dual Core Intel?s with HT enabled is the EE chips, and they are too expensive for what they are worth.

 

[swtethan]

wait for conroe chip coming out from intel in a few months

 

[stevty2889]

Either dual core will be better than a P4 with HT. HT is ~15-20% boost over a single core without HT, while dual core is 80% better than a single core, depending on the programs. If you are buying at this very moment, I would go with an AMD dual core. My X2 is faster than either of my pentium-D's, while running a lot cooler. If you can wait a little while for Conroe, then thats what I would do. However if you are geting a lot of lag with your single core A64, there is probably something else wrong, because I can't really even notice a differance in most cases between my P4's with HT and my other single cores.

Also as already mentioned, there are some extreme edition dual cores that have hyperthreading, but of course they cost ~$1000, and can actualy be slower in many applications, because windows doesn't know the differance between the real cores and the logical cores when it does it's scheduling, so it might use a real core, and logical instead of 2 real cores, which you can see happening in many of the benchmarks out there.

 

[trueimage]

thanks for all the info, especially stevty2889

I am looking to stay sub 300, hopefully getting something for my 3200+.

So, I should probably go with a used X2 or Opteron, but they seem to be running around $320+ even used. What is a realistic low price for dual core amd, and is the price equivalent Intel any slower?

Also, what is the price expected on this Conroe chip?

Thanks,

 

[stevty2889]

The 3800+ X2 is generly around $320. It's the best price/performance dual core. The pentium-d 920 usualy costs around $270 but doesn't perform nearly as well as the 3800+ X2. The equivilently priced Pentium-D is slower at everything, even the slighly higher priced Pentium-D's don't outperform it in most things. Conroe should be pretty reasonably priced when it comes out. The 805 only costs ~$135 and can get to around 3.6ghz with good air cooling, so if you are overclocking, then it may be your best choice. They do run warm though so you will need good cooling. Also, most Intel motherboards use DDR-2 now, so you would have to replace your memory as well. There are some intel boards that use DDR, but they use AGP..so then you would have to replace your video card. Bascily the best choice would be to just get the 3800+ X2 sinc eyou can use it on your current motherboard.

 

[DrMrLordX]

$320? Newegg has the X2-3800+ for $295. Granted, there's shipping but . . .

 

[Markfw]

X2 3800, and OC that puppy ! Also, with as much as you do, you might think about 2 gig memory. Whats the max mem usage size you have seen ? If its even a bit over 1 gig, that alone will kill performance.

 

[trueimage]

yeah i am considering an x2, 3800+ is the lowest model right?

What about Opteron 165, is the L2 cache worth it?

I have two more matching 512 sticks in the mail so I will have 2GB soon, hopefully... I hate canada post right now.

 

[3chordcharlie]

For simplicity, you should probably get the X2. By the time you part out your system and buy new, you wouldn't save much even going to an 805 based system, and you 'll get better performance from a 3800+ even if both were OC'd.

 

[trueimage]

what about x2 vs opteron?

 

[Geomagick]

Opteron dual core always has 2x1MB cache.

Athlon X2 has 2x512k on 3800, 4200, 4600 and 2x1MB on 4400, 4800 and FX60.

These are the only differences really, unless you are into some serious overclocking.

I had the same issue when I went from a P4 with HT to the Athlon 64. In games it was great however in normal use it didn't feel quite as fast.
I went from a 4000 to a 4400 and the improvement was huge, games run just as well but there is none of that slowdown that I got the the single core.