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Quick question on amd vs. intel cost

N

Nab

Senior member
I'm going to be getting a computer soon (approximately 1 month for research) and I'm going to have around a 600 dollar budget. I was wondering which way is the best way to go regarding price, amd or intel? If I can afford the right parts, I will overclock. Any feedback will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 
The AMD XP line is very good price/performance, and the M chips are very good at overclocking. I would definitely go with AMD on that budget.
 
Assuming you want a gaming rig:

-mobile athlon xp 2500+ $88
-abit nf7-s $75
-512mb stick of PC3200 ram $80
-ati radeon 9800pro $200
-maxtor 160gb hard drive $113
-case $30
-enermax 350watt PSU $40
-keyboard/mouse $20
__________________________
TOTAL: $646

Sorry, I went a little over budget and neglected to include a heatsink. You should go with a thermalright copper heatsink, should be $30 or so. If you must meet your budget, get a 120GB hard drive and a slower graphics card.
 
Originally posted by: SickBeast
Assuming you want a gaming rig:

-mobile athlon xp 2500+ $88
-abit nf7-s $75
-512mb stick of PC3200 ram $80
-ati radeon 9800pro $200
-maxtor 160gb hard drive $113
-case $30
-enermax 350watt PSU $40
-keyboard/mouse $20
__________________________
TOTAL: $646

Sorry, I went a little over budget and neglected to include a heatsink. You should go with a thermalright copper heatsink, should be $30 or so. If you must meet your budget, get a 120GB hard drive and a slower graphics card.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Remember you can o/c these really easily.
 
to save a little more on the price, considering buying the 35w mobile xp-m 2200+ from newegg for $77. Gettin mine in a day or two but I hear these overclock VERY well easily. Depending on how much you plan to store you can get away with an 80 gig hd as well. If graphics aren't a big issue you can easily get away with a previous generation card like a radeon 9000 or the nvidia equivalent. Won't make you a killer gaming rig but you can find one of these cards for 1/4 of the price of the 9800. I would say a good price for a fast NON-gaming machine would be: $77 (cpu) + $75 (mobo) + $80 (ram) + $60 (vid card) + $60 (80 gig hd) + $30 (case) + $40 (psu) + $20 (key/mouse) = $442. If you want gaming then just bump up to the radeon 9800 pro which should still keep you under budget.
 
Agree with the others. A Athlon XP would be a good choice considering the price constraints. Thats the way id go if in your shoes.
 
Originally posted by: SickBeast
Assuming you want a gaming rig:

-mobile athlon xp 2500+ $88
-abit nf7-s $75
-512mb stick of PC3200 ram $80
-ati radeon 9800pro $200
-maxtor 160gb hard drive $113
-case $30
-enermax 350watt PSU $40
-keyboard/mouse $20
__________________________
TOTAL: $646

Sorry, I went a little over budget and neglected to include a heatsink. You should go with a thermalright copper heatsink, should be $30 or so. If you must meet your budget, get a 120GB hard drive and a slower graphics card.
Click to expand...

They have a 160GB Samsung at Newegg for $100 IIRC, that would save $13
 
Nah, just buy a hard drive locally when there's a sale. I got my Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB for $31 after coupon and rebate, and 160's are usually at $80 or less. Same goes for ram: officemax is selling a Kingston valueram 512MB 2700 for $60. Buy, fill out $20 rebate, and that's an awesome value, especially when you clock it to 3200.
 
Originally posted by: SickBeast
Assuming you want a gaming rig:

-mobile athlon xp 2200+ $77
-abit nf7-s $75
-512mb stick of PC3200 ram $80
-ati radeon 9800pro $200
-samsung 160gb hard drive $100
-case $30
-enermax 350watt PSU $40
-keyboard/mouse $20
__________________________
TOTAL: $622

Sorry, I went a little over budget and neglected to include a heatsink. You should go with a thermalright copper heatsink, should be $30 or so. If you must meet your budget, get a 120GB hard drive and a slower graphics card.
Click to expand...

I just edited this to include what others are suggesting...it shaved a little off the price. Still $22 over budget though, it irritates me greatly.
 
Now to shave more, look through forums like Hot Deals or flip through your local flyers. You can sometimes pick up free after rebate keyboards and mice etc. And go to officemax.com and find the Kingston 512 2700 ram etc. If you decide to get the case and PSU in one go, you can save a bit of money. Some $50 or less cases do come with good power supplies. I believe this one Athenatech (IIRC?) case on Newegg came with a 300W Sparkle.

You're also short an optical drive, so you may be a tad farther than you think. And aside from a heatsink such as the SLK-947U from SVC, you still need a fan with it. So yea, to really save $, you have to combine shopping online with shopping locally.

I just went by OfficeMax's site and it looks like the Kingston 512 ram suddenly disappeared...😕

But here is a link to a good heatsink value. Alternatively, there's another deal from another site where you can get the SLK-948U with a 92mm fan and some AS5 thermal compound for $30.
 
Originally posted by: Marble
Alright, I am open to reason, if I was to go with AMD and stick with the same budget (or less, I'll save money if I can), what would I need to change? of course a new processor and mobo, what new things would you suggest?
Click to expand...

nforce3 250 for $92

Athlon64 for $187

THE ONLY CHIPSET YOU SHOULD GET WITH THE ATHLON64 is the NFORCE 3 250, its the only chipset that features a AGP/PCI lock for sure and you can overclock the sh!t out of it. The athlon64 will be just as stable as any intel chip and will run MUCH cooler than the prescott flamethrower
 
Are you suggesting he could assemble an entire A64 computer for less than $600? I struggled to do it with an Athlon XP rig. Good luck. You must know something that I obviously don't.
 
hey guys sorry for the lagged responses, I was out of town for a day and didn't have access to a computer. Letsee now, AMD for sure over INTEL, i know that now.


This computer is for college (gatech 😀 :beer😉 so I most probably will be gaming.


SickBeast (thank you very much for this) wrote:

-mobile athlon xp 2200+ $77
-abit nf7-s $75
-512mb stick of PC3200 ram $80
-ati radeon 9800pro $200
-samsung 160gb hard drive $100
-case $30
-enermax 350watt PSU $40
-keyboard/mouse $20
__________________________
TOTAL: $622


I don't mind going a little over. I already have a keyboard and mouse, so that saves $20. That makes the price around 600. So its good 😎


Do you guys think I should try and save a little more money and get a A64? I think I may do that since I'm not going to college until August (so i want to start ordering stuff when I get good deals). Tell me what you guys think and thanks a lot, Its much appreciated. Sorry again for the late response.
 
The A64 will probably cost $100-$200 more depending on the configuration, and will be maybe 15-25% faster (that's just a rough estimate). You will be hard pressed to find a better value than the Athlon XP Mobile lineup ATM.

YW for the suggestions. :beer:
 
Originally posted by: SickBeast
The A64 will probably cost $100-$200 more depending on the configuration, and will be maybe 15-25% faster (that's just a rough estimate). You will be hard pressed to find a better value than the Athlon XP Mobile lineup ATM.

YW for the suggestions. :beer:
Click to expand...


I'm getting confused a little bit....

Athlon XP Mobile lineup ATM.....what other types of AMD processors are there? I'm used to Intel stuff and don't know anything about AMD. (sorry for the noobness). 😱
 
well there is duron, which is low end, athlon xp which is middle, athlon 64 which is high to extreme, and opteron which is server /workstation.. and in those classes they have certain hand-picked low voltage cpu's designed for laptops, and that is what the xp mobiles are. they overclock like crazy.
 
Here's what I just built for my uncle about 3 weeks ago:

Antec Solution Series Beige SLK1600 w/300 watt psu
Lite-On 52X CD-ROM
2 Enermax Adjustable 80mm fans UC-8FAB-B (I HIGHLY recommend those)
Thermaltake TR2TT HSF (adjustable)
Sony 3.5" floppy
WD400JB 7200 RPM 8MB cache hard drive
Asus A7N8X-X mobo
AthlonXP 2000+
Sapphire Radeon 9200SE (Do NOT use the included catalyst drivers, go for newer version)
2 sticks 256MB Kingston ValueRAM PC3200

It's rock solid (so far) and is as silent as a brand new Dell (I outdid myself this time)

Sorry, I didn't save any benchmarks to show & tell, but I'll say, it's absolutely NO DOG.

Grand total was about $480 including delivery.

Hope that helps you. It turned out to be a spitting image of what Anandtech recommended in the last budget guide
 
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