Q6600 or Phenom?

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Can somebody fill me in as to why there is any reason to buy a Phenom, when you have to start from scratch ? Intel is less money, and faster, and overclocks better, and uses less power and runs cooler, so what am I missing here ?

If someone is a DIY AMD builder but has next to no experience (or confidence) in building Intel systems then they will likely be better off building a Phenom system if they are not the type of person who is going to invest the time in doing their homework so as to become adequately knowledgable in building a decently performing Intel rig.

For example, if they build a Q6600 system but stick with the stock cooler and really don't know how to get all four of those damned push-pins to properly lock then they are going to be pissed, irritated, and underwhelmed with their Intel build.

If they are not going to OC, that alone is a valid reason to consider AMD, but the is an overclocking forum, and most here do. The point I bolded above is also valid. This is exactly why I posted. Valid reasons to consider AMD. I just couldn't think of any.

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: BTRY B 529th FA BN
If I didn't buy my 9300 already, i'd be lookin at a 9950...

Youd go from a 3.4ghz 45nm to a "Phenom"

 

[lamere]

Originally posted by: Hugh HNot at the price of me having a lesser rig just so that they can live...

wow, that is some seriously messed up and selfish thinking:disgust:

 

[OCGuy]

Originally posted by: lamere

Originally posted by: Hugh HNot at the price of me having a lesser rig just so that they can live...

wow, that is some seriously messed up and selfish thinking:disgust:

I hope that was sarcasm? People should spend thier hard earned money on a charity case?

AMD should EARN people's CPU money, just like they are in the GPU market. If you want to throw money at their CPU department, that is your business..but recommending it to other people to "help them stay alive" is ludicrous.

Survival of the fittest...if AMD cant get thier ledgers balanced, they need to either be bought out or fold...thats how our society works. (Unless you are an airline or bank and can get bailed out by the tax-payer, but I dont see that happening. )


Edit: Obviously when we are talking CPU quality, we are talking more in the enthusiast market, as a Phenom will do anything a QXXX will just fine. But when the enthusiasts love a product, guess who they refer thier friends/family to.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

What is ludicrous is 650 for a video card. And here is the kicker. What are the prices now for a GTX 260 or 280 and why is that?

 

[Hugh H]

Originally posted by: lamere

Originally posted by: Hugh HNot at the price of me having a lesser rig just so that they can live...

wow, that is some seriously messed up and selfish thinking:disgust:

Well OCguy said it better but basically, AMD has to earn my money. If they come with a better performing product than Intel then I wouldn't have any problems supporting them.

I would love to see AMD being competitive in the CPU front; in the GPU front the tough competition between ATI vs. Nvidia is working wonders for us consumers, with prices falling down and hopefully increased focus on price/peformance.

In the meantime, I will spend my hard-earned money on the company that offers me the best products at the best price... if AMD wants that then they gotta work for it.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo

Originally posted by: aigomorla
kentsfield vs phenom.

LOL... this is gonna get very messy.

But Kentsfield would spank phenom in every benchmark you threw at it.

And if you overclock the kentsfield, well.. lets just say, you'd hate yourself if you didn't get it.

Mainconcept H.264 Encoder
24 sec HDTV 1920x1080 mpeg2 (mpeg2 to H.264)

Phenom 9700 = 63 sec
Phenom 9600 = 65 sec
Phenom 9500 = 68 sec
q6600 = 69 sec

From Tom's CPU Chart

Okey i take that statement back. However, lets look at one step up the Q6700.

and how much price is kentsfield vs those other chips?

http://www.google.com/products...ult&resnum=3&ct=result

vs the Q6600
http://www.google.com/products...id=2391169439419405657

vs for the Q6700
http://www.google.com/products...id=2156881785282352008

Why dont we bump it to the Q6700 and see where that mark goes. :T


If i had to play good mod and give out good recomendations, its still Intel. And no im looking at straight numbers still. :T

Originally posted by: LiquidIce1337
I want to get as fast as possible without breaking my bank

Now where does AMD fit in that definition vs. an OVERCLOCKED kentsfield???

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: LiquidIce1337

Originally posted by: hotdogchef
I just got a Q6600 ($189), mushkin 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) ($124) and a ASUS P5Q Pro ($149) from Newegg and it has worked and overclocked great. The mediocre AMD CPU reviews scared me away from them after being a lifelong AMD CPU buyer.

Ok you can get way way lower than that.

$189 Q6600
$108 - GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DS3L
$63 - OCZ Reaper HPC Edition CL 4-4-4-15 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
$27 - XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 By the way DDR2 1066 at CL5 will not outperform DDR2 800 at CL4 (except WinRAR).

The board can do 400FSB STOCK, that would place your Q6600 at 3.6ghz (about as good as you can get on air cooling). This ram is CL4 at 800mhz - so it's about as good as it'll get for this price. There is 0 reason to get Phenom!

About the only suggestion would be to get a CF mobo if you ever want that option.

As a point of reference I've been running on an older P35 chipset at 3.4ghz with a Tuniq Tower for almost a year now. Chances are those Q6600s today are slightly better than mine, that board is probably better too and the cooler is also slightly better. So 3.6ghz is not unfeasible (all you'd need to do is crank the Voltage to 1.38-1.40 on the cpu, FSB to 400 in BIOS and THATS IT!)

 

[LiquidIce1337]

I was thinking of getting

Either the GA-EP45DS3L
Or the Asus P5Q

I am leaning more towards the P5Q, any thoughts? good/bad choice over the DS3?

Also for cooling

I currently have a Thermalright XP-90 but I am looking to ditch that for a Tuniq Tower and face the fan to blow the heat out towards the blowhole in the back of my Antec Solo. I hear great reviews about the Thermalright Extreme 120 but it blows down or pulls up on the cpu (like my xp-90) which isn't really what I am looking for. Any suggestions? I hear about the the scythe ninja, but the Tuniq Tower takes the cake for temps

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: LiquidIce1337
I was thinking of getting

Either the GA-EP45DS3L
Or the Asus P5Q

I am leaning more towards the P5Q, any thoughts? good/bad choice over the DS3?

Also for cooling

I currently have a Thermalright XP-90 but I am looking to ditch that for a Tuniq Tower and face the fan to blow the heat out towards the blowhole in the back of my Antec Solo. I hear great reviews about the Thermalright Extreme 120 but it blows down or pulls up on the cpu (like my xp-90) which isn't really what I am looking for. Any suggestions? I hear about the the scythe ninja, but the Tuniq Tower takes the cake for temps

My systems use DS3L's and Tuniq's with Q6600's. It's a great combo for the price.

The xigmatech though should be looked into, they are superior to the Tuniq with their direct-contact heatpipes.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
SlowSpyder, I have read many of your posts. You never try to tell people its better than Intel, and admit to possibly being a fanboy, thats a fine opinion to have, and I respect that. Exactly my point however, thats the only reason to get one.

And remember, 18 months ago or so, I had 14 AMD CPU's in this house, now I have 1 AMD and 9 Intel, so I sure am not a fanboy on either side....And Intel was the dark side for me from My K6-166 all the way to X2 4800.

I don't so much consider myself a fanboy as I do a repeat customer who went back to AMD again because of my satisfaction with their products that I've used over the years. I guess the best analogy I can come up with is, if your last 10 cars have been Fords, and you've always been extremely happy with their vehicles, when searching for your 11th car you might buy a Ford again even though the new Toyota is getting rave reviews.

I know that the Core 2 parts are better overall. No denying that. My only real gripe with what I read on these forums is that the Phenom is, in my opinion, much better then it gets credit for. It'll do what 99% of users need. That other 1% probably won't be satisfied with Intel's offerings either.

It is a shame AMD doesn't do more to promote their product, but seeing their financial results it's easy to understand that their budget for such things is probably rather limited.

I think their performance in general is 'good enough' but they really need to get their power useage under control for the performance you do get. Again, I hope that for their sake 45nm will help them with that. Just my $.02.

 

[sliderule]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: lamere

Originally posted by: Hugh HNot at the price of me having a lesser rig just so that they can live...

wow, that is some seriously messed up and selfish thinking:disgust:

I hope that was sarcasm? People should spend thier hard earned money on a charity case?

AMD should EARN people's CPU money, just like they are in the GPU market. If you want to throw money at their CPU department, that is your business..

Yeah I don't have much love for AMD. I still remember getting raped by them when they had the performance crown a few years back. Those x2's were damn expensive. Hell even the athlon64 before them were high.

That said I will easily go back with them if they release a better product than Intel, and not over charge for it. I don't have a blind allegiance to either company. I'm loving the AMD gpu division at the moment.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo

Originally posted by: aigomorla
kentsfield vs phenom.

LOL... this is gonna get very messy.

But Kentsfield would spank phenom in every benchmark you threw at it.

And if you overclock the kentsfield, well.. lets just say, you'd hate yourself if you didn't get it.

Mainconcept H.264 Encoder
24 sec HDTV 1920x1080 mpeg2 (mpeg2 to H.264)

Phenom 9700 = 63 sec
Phenom 9600 = 65 sec
Phenom 9500 = 68 sec
q6600 = 69 sec

From Tom's CPU Chart

Toms hardware is crap, especially recently... they were trying to write about SSD battery performance, and everyone commented their methology was wrong (varying workloads).
So they retested, in the restest the showed the OCZ SSD dominating in performance AND cost a fraction of memoright's overpriced SSD... and then what do they do today? write a review comparing obsolete 74GB 15k RPM drives IO / read / write performance to those same memoright drivers. And try to use that to make bs conclusions about where the market will go.

And if they don't end in a 50 then the phenom processor is bugged with the TLB.

Also from every encoding / multi gpu test out there, the x264 is the one where phenom does the best. Significantly better then any gaming or any other encoding test...

Here is a CREDIBLE test comparing phenom encoding speed:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...owdoc.aspx?i=3272&p=10

AutoMKV x264 encoding test (the WORST intel quad core score compared to the best AMD quad core, way to go picking a test out):
Q9300 (270$ @ egg): 219 seconds
phenom 9850 (205 @ egg): 230 seconds
Q6600 (210 @ egg): 237 seconds
phenom 9750 (210 @ egg): 240 seconds

So at STOCK SPEEDS. the Q6600 is between the 9750 and the 9850 at the test at which it is SLOWEST compared to phenom, and yet takes less power (and costs less to operate), runs cooler, etc etc etc.

Notice the egg has a good deal on the 9850 right now, but if you shop around... but anyways, this is at the WORST test for intel... every other test the Q6600 owns the fastest phenom out there at stock speeds. The intel also OCs. The intel ALSO takes less electricity (cheaper to operate), etc etc etc.

And that person saying that electricity cost is nothing knows nothing. I calculate electricity costs all the time, they are significant. It also very much depends on where you live.

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Can somebody fill me in as to why there is any reason to buy a Phenom, when you have to start from scratch ? Intel is less money, and faster, and overclocks better, and uses less power and runs cooler, so what am I missing here ?

Aside from being a fanboy.....

There isn't. Either you are a fanboy, or you buy intel for a new build. Same as during the P4 days, either you were an intel fanboy, or you bought an AMD.

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: taltamir
There isn't. Either you are a fanboy, or you buy intel for a new build. Same as during the P4 days, either you were an intel fanboy, or you bought an AMD.

Thats going a bit far. If you don't overclock, Phenom is pretty competitive in price/performance. I also owned a P4 Northwood and I don't think I'm an Intel fanboy either... :/

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: taltamir
And that person saying that electricity cost is nothing knows nothing. I calculate electricity costs all the time, they are significant. It also very much depends on where you live.

Pray tell us then what the electricity cost difference is for a system powered by a 140W TDP chip versus a system powered by a 125W TDP chip.

Naturally a good TCO analysis would entail a handful of usage pattern scenarios. Say (1) fully loaded 24/7, (2) loaded 6hrs/day, left on but idle (CnQ enable) the remainder, and (3) loaded 2hrs/day, idles another 4hr/day, shutoff for the remainder.

Further a proper TCO for usage patterns (2) and (3) would scale the loaded times appropriately to account for the reduced time it takes to complete the tasks at hand for the higher clocked (higher TDP) system.

So if the 2.5GHz system requires 6hrs/day fully loaded to complete the task of interest then we can rightly assume it takes the 2.6GHz system ~5.8hrs (so more time is spent idling, less time at full load).

As the OP noted that it was the incremental increase in electricity cost in going from 125W TDP to 140W TDP that was the concern, we are only interested in your calculated electricity costs insofar as the incremental cost of the 140W TDP powered system over that of the 125W powered system.

For typical systems we tend to see 350-400W power consumption numbers reported in reviews. So a 15W delta on a 350W base suggests we should see no more than a 15/350 = 4.2% increase in electricity costs for the higher TDP system.

But let's not rush to conclusions just yet, let's see your numbers before we make any conclusions.

 

[LiquidIce1337]

Thanks for all the helpful responses guys! Much appreciated

**bust's out the popcorn**

 

[taltamir]

See, that is exactly my point "meh, it is 15 watts at most, 15 watts is nothing".. it is only nothing if you do not do the math.

a 15W delta is huge when taken over a whole year.
@ 15 cents per kwh (texas price, after hidden costs), 1 watt on a 24/7 machine comes out to 1.314$/year.
15watts would thus cost 19.71$ a year.

That is not even taking into account increase in AC costs and reduction in heating costs (typically those amount to tripling the yearly electric cost).

I always use scenarios though, 24/7 is only useful to convince people to STOP using their machine 24/7, once that has been achieved, varying usage scenarios come into play, typically reducing the cost to 1/3 that of the 24/7 operation. But still, it is nothing to scoff at (especially when you DO consider increasing AC costs bring it back up, by, ironically, about a factor of 3).

An in depth electric value calculation can take some hours, and there is really no point of doing it here since there is only ONE benchmark in which the phenom surpasses (BARELY) its intel counterpart, and that is the x264. And the intel gets much better power consumption at 95watt TDP (although TDP is not the best measurement either). the 2.5ghz black edition phenom that is the only phenom to beat the Q6600 in the most phenom biased test... has a TDP of 50 watt more... If it really consumes a whole 50 watt more then it would be 65.7$ more a year in electricity to operate! (plus more for AC, minus some due to turning it off, realistically they balance off, and I am not doing a full calculation tonight, if you feel up to it, then get to it).

A better question is weather the power savings make the enery efficient models cost effective, and how much money can the q9300 save compared to the Q6600 (while it will not even come close to negating their price difference, it does mitigate it)

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: taltamir
See, that is exactly my point "meh, it is 15 watts at most, 15 watts is nothing".. it is only nothing if you do not do the math.

a 15W delta is huge when taken over a whole year.
@ 15 cents per kwh (texas price, after hidden costs), 1 watt on a 24/7 machine comes out to 1.314$/year.
15watts would thus cost 19.71$ a year.

That is not even taking into account increase in AC costs and reduction in heating costs (typically those amount to tripling the yearly electric cost).

Who said 15W is nothing?

If spending $20 over the course of an entire year on something like electricity is a deal breaker then you probably shouldn't own a quad-core computer of any kind let alone an AC unit.

 

[taltamir]

it is not a deal breaker, it is a price ADJUSTER!

The cost of electricity for the processor over the year will be well over 100$. I am just saying that for processor A it might be 100$ and for processor B it is 115$. Which should be taken into account when comparing their price / performance ratio. Processor B might seem like a better deal before you apply this... except this is not the case here.

If 20$ is nothing then get a q9300 instead and call it a day, much faster then everything else tested in every possible test.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Originally posted by: taltamir
it is not a deal breaker, it is a price ADJUSTER!

The cost of electricity for the processor over the year will be well over 100$. I am just saying that for processor A it might be 100$ and for processor B it is 115$. Which should be taken into account when comparing their price / performance ratio. Processor B might seem like a better deal before you apply this... except this is not the case here.

If 20$ is nothing then get a q9300 instead and call it a day, much faster then everything else tested in every possible test.

The thing is, your assumptions are that the processor will be used at 100% utilization on all cores 24/7/365. I just don't believe that's the 'norm' so to speak. I'm not saying there are not people out there that may come close to this, but they are minority by far I'm sure. I know my PC sees a few hours of useage a day, and that is typically web/Office/gaming. The hardest taxing of what I do is gaming, and I'm willing to bet I've yet to use a game that pegs all 4 cores. From a CPU standpoint, I think torture testing my OC is the only time I max out the resources.

But also as Idontcare mentioned, depending on the task you have to take into account the job finishing faster on the CPU that is using more power and is running faster. Some things like folding this obviously doesn't apply to.

Now, if you are someone who folds (or similar work) 24/7, then I can see how taking into account the processors power useage can play into your purchasing decision. If you are an average user, even a 'power' user I don't think it matters one bit for the most part.

 

[taltamir]

The thing is, your assumptions are that the processor will be used at 100% utilization on all cores 24/7/365

Wrong, go and reread what I said without skimming this time.

Or I could copy paste a quote of myself:

I always use scenarios though, 24/7 is only useful to convince people to STOP using their machine 24/7, once that has been achieved, varying usage scenarios come into play, typically reducing the cost to 1/3 that of the 24/7 operation. But still, it is nothing to scoff at (especially when you DO consider increasing AC costs bring it back up, by, ironically, about a factor of 3).

The reason I am just estimating those increases and decreases (based on prior experience) instead of doing exact calculations as I have done in the past, is that the phenom is both more power hungry AND slower. If power consumption was IDENTICAL I would have said to get the intel. So why do I need to know by how much more that gap is widened by power consumption?

check the power difference between the Q9300 and the Q6600 though.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...owdoc.aspx?i=3272&p=13

makes the Q9300 a relatively less expensive purchase.