Okay, I'll admit it... I'm a hardcore Intel fan. Current rig is a 1.9 Willamette (that runs pretty hot... 48C idle, mid-60s at full load maybe?), i850 (boxed Intel board, too) with RDRAM. Not exactly the most popular thing around 4 years ago, but it has generally served me well and can stay up for weeks until Windows eventually eats itself from within.
That being said, though it can run AoE3 (newest game I bought) nicely enough, it feels somewhat sluggish compared to my newish P-M 750 laptop, so starting to think about upgrading. Trying not to spend too much money, and hoping whatever I buy can last me a good three years or so...
In general, system is used mostly for desktop-type apps, possibly quite heavy multitasking, light gaming on the side... No overclocking, and in my "old age" I just want things to run without dealing with buggy drivers, compatibility this and that, frequent reboots (ideally rebooting every 3-4 weeks would be good), and whatnot. So I'm thinking I want dual core, probably the 820. Maybe an Intel mobo, though Abit i945P boards are going for dirt cheap and look very tempting. (BTW, is DDR2/533 good enough for an 800FSB non-overclocked system?)
But then I come here, and start seeing all these horror stories about the P-D and how much better the X2 is. People claim the AMD chipset issues are mostly gone, but then you read about how the SB X-Fi (something I'd want to get, given my love for my original generation Audigy...) doesn't play nice with NF4 boards, and I start to get nervous again.
Given that I've been well-served for almost 4 years by one of Intel's biggest screwups, should I really be worried about the P-D?
Or is it really worth biting the bullet, spending the extra $150 (CAD) on the 3800+ (and the extra $80-100 on RAM/mobo compared to that Abit deal), and not looking back?
Or should I wait for the 9xx Intel chips? I'm not really planning on building until late Dec./early January anyways, and I've been seeing different things about when those will be out...
That being said, though it can run AoE3 (newest game I bought) nicely enough, it feels somewhat sluggish compared to my newish P-M 750 laptop, so starting to think about upgrading. Trying not to spend too much money, and hoping whatever I buy can last me a good three years or so...
In general, system is used mostly for desktop-type apps, possibly quite heavy multitasking, light gaming on the side... No overclocking, and in my "old age" I just want things to run without dealing with buggy drivers, compatibility this and that, frequent reboots (ideally rebooting every 3-4 weeks would be good), and whatnot. So I'm thinking I want dual core, probably the 820. Maybe an Intel mobo, though Abit i945P boards are going for dirt cheap and look very tempting. (BTW, is DDR2/533 good enough for an 800FSB non-overclocked system?)
But then I come here, and start seeing all these horror stories about the P-D and how much better the X2 is. People claim the AMD chipset issues are mostly gone, but then you read about how the SB X-Fi (something I'd want to get, given my love for my original generation Audigy...) doesn't play nice with NF4 boards, and I start to get nervous again.
Given that I've been well-served for almost 4 years by one of Intel's biggest screwups, should I really be worried about the P-D?
Or is it really worth biting the bullet, spending the extra $150 (CAD) on the 3800+ (and the extra $80-100 on RAM/mobo compared to that Abit deal), and not looking back?
Or should I wait for the 9xx Intel chips? I'm not really planning on building until late Dec./early January anyways, and I've been seeing different things about when those will be out...
But you could probably find those items on the For Sale & Trade forum for good prices if it appeals to you.
Facebook
Twitter