Would You Buy A Core 2 Duo System Today?

[twile]

And I still find it funny that Intel bothered to put out a new 32 bit processor... why bother? Funnier still that Apple snatched that up when they're all about having the latest, greatest, and most feature-rich stuff.

 

[fatcat]

I am not upgarding for a while since I bought my system febuary of this year. Even if I have a tendancy to support the under dog, I generally buy the best deal of the moment when I am due to upgrade. So my next machine might be intel or not. Anyways, like many have said previously, anyone who has a late model AMD or Intel shouldn't have a real need for upgrades. In the near future, I might see what I can get when AMD lowers it's price, it's not like I need to upgrade my CPU but If I can get my hands on a 4800 for real cheap I might be tempted to do so, beside my wife need a new computer so she might end up with my 4200.

On a side note, I have checked the price of conroe chips around my corner of the wood and they are not so cheap. It might be that the store I have checked in wants to do a bit of extra cash when they are released but usually that shop have excellent prices. 6800 is at 1300.00, 6700 750.00 and the 6600 is 500.00+ in CDN $$..

 

[SuperFly03]

The only thing from me really dropping the cash for conroe is this freakin DDR2 bs lol. I have a S939 and some nice DDR500 memory but now I have to get new DDR800+ ram ( i OC like a madman heh). For the past rig or two I've just been able to transfer ram and save $300 or so but no longer. I checked out DDR1000 (or 1066 i can't remember) 2x1Gb kits ran $450 for low latency ones, good grief. Plus I need to do some reading before I upgrade, new DDR2 and some other crap I want to understand before I go OC a E6600.

4Ghz anyone? I bet I can do it (hey confidence is 1/2 the battle!! )

 

[aminel1358]

AMD was the leader for price/performance/wattage for several past years and none of your tomy guys had shown "the red card" for Intel . Where were you those days? :!: I think you are somehow intel fan a bit!!!!
Anyhow I am an extremely AMD fan and there is noway for me to go for
intel.
I have allready a 3200+ Athlon64 and OC'ed it to 2.4 GHz and it do everything perfectly and I have never seen any instability that some intel fans say (I think they do not know how they should work with a good system!!!!!!!!)
It was predictable that after so many years of being behind and after so many years that AMD told "the frequency of CPU is not everything"
and in that days none of you guys did not like to beleive, now intel is well informed to do the right way (AMD were a good teacher for intel in these years and you never mentioned it)
At the end I want to say that I do not want to destroy the Intel's present victory, but I think and I beleive that it will not last for a long time , because I believe that AMD has a great potential of being well as it shows for the past years. :idea:

 

[Synergy6]

Actually, everybody from the Sun to the Times use "attention grabbing" headlines once in a while, when something worth grabbing your attention happens. Personally, I'd say that the release of a $200-300 CPU which layeth the smackdown on a chip from another company at $1000 is pretty big news.

All this "CPU $350, MB $250, might as well get FX62" bull, try actually looking at motherboards. They're available for under 1/2 that price.

"AMD shows great potential" stuff. Personally, I don't give two cents about the potential, or the "underdog" nature of the companies I buy from. I care about performance/£, and that has nothing to do with whether they might bring out their mythical dual FX boards. IF AMD want me to buy their CPU, all they have to do is bring out a CPU which has better performance/£ and performance/W in the next 6 months and I'll quite happily get it. If not, no chance.

Synergy6

 

[lcdguy]

i am sticking with AMD until the company goes bankrupt or i die which ever comes first .

my reasoning ?

i have had 5 amd comptuers and one intel computer. All 5 amd machines were rock solid, the intel one was uber crappy, constantly crashing left right and center. (this includes my work pc).

considering my current machine is still very powerful i don't think i would ever upgrade as by the time that comes amd and intel will probably be offering 64 core chips and hologrpahic storage

 

[cliffro69]

I've been a bit of an AMD fanboy for sometime now, mainly because Intel was always way more expensive, and thats the biggest factor for me "Price/Performance"
I started with the XP 1600+, moved to the 2400+ jump to 64 3000+.
Believe it or not i saw a difference in all those upgrades even just doing crap with explorer and other non gaming things

Well the 3000+ seems to be showing its age and im about to upgrade by the end of summer, and its looking like I'm crossing over to the Dark Side. yeah they called and said they have cookies so i had to go.


so the foundation of my next rig will be the E6600
im also going to hold off on getting anything over $300 for graphics, with DX10 coming soon a 7900GT will work for now.

Does anyone know when motherboards will be announced for them? or where to get a 975X that works with it or whatever, i want a good board that still has IDE for my optical drives and i heard 965 will not support it.

 

[rykerabel]

I voted for "No. I''ll stick with AMD" not because I love AMD or anything like that, but because now i can upgrade my Athlon 64 3000+ to the top of the line socket 939 chip for very cheap and not have to buy new MBoard/Memory also. Other than that, I really don't have a need for more CPU power than that yet. When I do, then it will be a matter of who has the best price for the amount of power i need at that time.

If i did need a significantly more powerful CPU today, then yes, i would definitely go with Conroe.

 

[nilepez]

For my part I sure ain't gonna forgive that easy about Intel's crapy products for the last couple of years. And now the bastards are slicing their own throats by lowering the prices, just to hurt AMD.

I love AMD, but this is kinda silly. If you're buying a computer, you buy based on price/performance and possibly performance/watt. For the desktop, all indicators point to Intel having the best product. I'm not getting one, but I'm not buying a new system either.

If this was AMD selling faster processors for less than intel (which was the case for YEARS), would you complain? Of course not.

AMD will survive this. My guess is they'll even manage to make money for now, but they clearly need to have something competitive in 2007. And quad processors probably isn't the answer for the desktop.

 

[nilepez]

AMD lost its leadership. Should we all dump our Athlon 64 systems? Here is a summary of opinions across our forums.

Speak out in the Toms's Hardware reader survey!

I bought an Athlon 64 3000 in Q1 of 05. I'm not changing platforms anytime soon. I may upgrade my CPU to a x2 3800+ or perhaps one or 2 up from there, but that's it. I'll probably be on this 939 MB for another 2 or 3 years.

 

[Amdkillsintel]

I would move to Conroe if prices drop, but I also might wait to see what AMD comes out with next year.

 

[PeterGower]

No, I was highly dissapointed when allmighty p4 came out, that shit was so hot (where I live temperature is an issue) also I´ve read that the 6800 works in some cases at 70ºC, so, let´s wait for time tells it´s true. I don´t believe intel´s marketing

 

[dt]

its not that intel won... well it is but its more like the amd fx-60 and fx-62 has been selling for 1000 bucks. if anyone should be happy about this would be the damn amd fanboys. without the core 2 duo comming out fx would still be in the 1000+ dollars.

do you think we gonna see amd beat intel and make prices of there processors like that? i dont think so because with there ast expirence people says o amd owns but who do you know buying a processor that high costing ( besides a couple of gaming heads).



but of course im a fanboy of best prices/ proformance.
then it comes down to who has the best prices/proformance processors?


but now lets just think if intel actually priced there new processors up at the same prices amd did it with there x2 and fx. and if they would do that they could have easily made the processor much better then all of there processors but i think intel didnt want to wipe them out yet lol.

intel has the power but only uses it when they need it.



o yeah and one more thing could anyone tell me what is k8 or whatever?

 

[dt]

my conclusion to this would be that since its going to be amd's turn to shine you could go with the am2 and get a good dual core processor from them that fits your budget since am2 is there new socket . plus when you think about it when they upgrade there processors the fx stuff will drop even more

or

you can go with intel and get a low core 2 duo processor and upgrade when amd comes out with there next processors and upgrade to a better core 2 duo or even just wait til intel releases processors next year ( if they do)

either way both of them are good choices because they are both good prices and since im here with a amd athlon 3000+ xp socket 754. now im probably going to go with amd since the prices will drop soon plus when they come out with there new line of processors you can upgrade to an fx60 or to there new processors. if your building a computer this month or next month go with amd but if you are going to upgrade with intel and get a low level core 2 duo then upgrade when amd processors come out.


a little words from the wise . any votes for this post?

 

[Smiley]

Ever since that article on overclocking an Intel Pentium 805-D, I felt TG was clearly favoring Intel. Now, I don't claim to have read everything on this site but I always found OCed AMD and Intel processors in benchmarks on articles / reviews that I read (and that is a good thing). There are many other sites touting 805-D's overclocking ability but none compared (not that I searched very hard) AMD and Intel's overclocking ability vs. performance, power consumption, and other benchmarks when overclocked. I think that would have been much more interesting (think: the cost of overclocking vs. absolute limit of performance).

As for Core 2 and AMD Athlon64... I think it would be interesting to see how extremely overclocked Athlon 64s do against (low-end stock) Core 2. Sure I am excited about Core 2 and all its improvements but I am even more curious to see how far Intel has improved over AMD architecturally.

I think I can wait at least a year or so before my next upgrade so I have plenty of time to see if I'll go AMD or Intel next. As it stands, I'll buy Intel next but who knows what'll it be like when I actually make the choice?

 

[dt]

smiley... can you find a processor that can oc up to 4ghz that is not intel..

if so please let me know and then add on to that a processor that can clock up to 4ghz while being a dual core processor. then you got me.

 

[gudodayn]

Ok here is the cheap of the cheapo upgrades for me. I am running an Athlon 64 3200+ in my ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 Socket 939 ULi M1695 ATX AMD Motherboard. This has full a speed agp and pci express slot. No SLI but I don't care. Now for upgrades. With a bios flash and a $30.00 adapter for the board I can run any X2 chip with DDR2 memory. not bad for a $67.00 board. As for video cards I can continue to use my AGP X800GTO until I upgrade to a decent pci video card. I love this board and chipset. I hope that AsusRock continues to make products for cheap geeks like myself. Hey and it has SATA too:!: Watch out AMD and Intel a company called ChaoLogix is working on the Chaos chip. The company is looking to put out a working chip some time in January 2007. Sounds pretty cool :!: Could be the next big thing :!: If this chip works the way it is supposed to you will no longer need separate chips for the CPU, memory, video ram, graphics accelerators, or arithmetric processing units etc. One chip will do it all.

one chip that does it all??..........thats quite a bit of load on a single chip!!!
Anyway, sounds interesting though........will look out for it!!

 

[yyrkoon]

All this "CPU $350, MB $250, might as well get FX62" bull, try actually looking at motherboards. They're available for under 1/2 that price.

If you're going to quote something someone else says, how about actually reading what they are talking about, before jumping to conclusions about what they are saying. No where, I repeat NO WHERE, did I say "might as well buy a FX-62", and I WAS talking about getting performance / value for parts. Not everyone is willing to spend unlimited amounts of money on this, or that part just because it has the best cost / performance ratio. Some of us have to justify costs over a set amount, and if its too much, then its pretty much a moot point.

Now, how about YOU try looking at motherboards . . . Alot of us dont skimp on cheap parts so we can spend more on a CPU, or whatever. I think you'll find those '1/2 priced' motherboards, ARE cheap, probably not even made by a tier 1 manufactuer, and are missing features that I personally must have on a motherboard. I dont care what brand motherboard YOU buy, but spending sub 100 on any board, and you're going to be missing something, whether its stability, needed features, whatever.

On a side note, I would be highly interrested in how well Conroe CPUs OC'd on air, not nessisarily stock HSF. Using watercooling IMO price wise isnt an option. I mean $400 for a good cooling system, you may as well buy a better CPU, and leave it stock ( approx. $100 for a CPU that OC's very well + $400 for a water cooling system that will perform well, for a long period of time != my idea of budget parts . . .).

 

[yyrkoon]

i am sticking with AMD until the company goes bankrupt or i die which ever comes first .

my reasoning ?

i have had 5 amd comptuers and one intel computer. All 5 amd machines were rock solid, the intel one was uber crappy, constantly crashing left right and center. (this includes my work pc).

considering my current machine is still very powerful i don't think i would ever upgrade as by the time that comes amd and intel will probably be offering 64 core chips and hologrpahic storage

I think you'll find that the CPU probably isnt the factor in the constant crashing. Its most likely a cheap PSU, bad motherboard, bad memory, or something misconfigured on your behalf (ie memory voltage, AGP bus settings, or something). On the offchance that you did get a bad CPU, the question 'why didnt you RMA the CPU' remains . . .

 

[yyrkoon]

For my part I sure ain't gonna forgive that easy about Intel's crapy products for the last couple of years. And now the bastards are slicing their own throats by lowering the prices, just to hurt AMD.

I love AMD, but this is kinda silly. If you're buying a computer, you buy based on price/performance and possibly performance/watt. For the desktop, all indicators point to Intel having the best product. I'm not getting one, but I'm not buying a new system either.

If this was AMD selling faster processors for less than intel (which was the case for YEARS), would you complain? Of course not.

AMD will survive this. My guess is they'll even manage to make money for now, but they clearly need to have something competitive in 2007. And quad processors probably isn't the answer for the desktop.

Well, it may not be 'good' for AMD, but its definatly good for AMD system owners Check the prices of AMD 64 X2 CPUs around the end of the month, and you'll see what I'm talking about

 

[yyrkoon]

smiley... can you find a processor that can oc up to 4ghz that is not intel..

if so please let me know and then add on to that a processor that can clock up to 4ghz while being a dual core processor. then you got me.

The whole point before conroe, is that AMD CPUs didnt even need to clock anywhere near close to 4GHZ to compete with / surpass what the P4 could achieve. Intel has made its bed (atleast for a little while), so its going to be interresting to see how AMD is going to respond. I havent been watching AMDs (or intels for that matter) future road map, but I'm willing to bet they have something planned for the near future. Time will only tell how long intel will remain 'king' this go around.

Now, if Intel only droped thier lower end Conroe CPU prices a little further, I may beable to justify making a switch, but until that time, I will remain a AMD system user.

 

[muchilus]

8)
i´m been AMD user for more that 7 years, i had been with the company in he´s low state and in he´s crown times. for me the conroe is a excelent processor when you compare with the existent AMD64 architecture. when amd drop price list in the incoming week, amd will be competive range in price performance ratio. up to release he´s under hand 4x4 platform, that will let you run 2 dual cores processor on single PCB and stay on the benchmark scenario. for me amd is going to be real challenger to intel with the K8L desing,that is going to be available on the first quater of 2007, with big changes, like l3 shared, new htt link 3.0, REVERSED HTT :?: , remember that amd had almost 3 years in the top of the performance leader ship, so just take in mind that this new launch of intel a totally new redesing architecture. :arrow:

I DON´T GOING TO CHANGE MY CURRENT setup AMD 64 4400+ X2 PROCESSOR, for a couples of FPS. :lol:


I´ll be with amd in the next month´s to come, and let´s see what happen.



i trust on amd marketing and engineer.



go ahead AMD.

 

[carl0ski]

The policy of waiting 6 months - 1 year just for prices to drop is a bit ridiculous in my book, but nothing wrong with it. It is two diffrent sides of the same coin. Some people live on the edge of technology (early adopters) and some wait for product maturity (second movers), I prefer to be the former. That is just how I am. Is it more expensive? Quite, but it is the way I like to do things.

I'm not a fan of waiting for prices to drop

Whati am a fan of is Mature and Second Revisions of Mainboards, Chipsets and the CPU itself.
First Generation of Any family is never great.


Pentium Pro, Pentium 3 on Slot 1, Pentium 4 Willamette
all first revisions soon looked pathetic compared to their 2nd revision.

 

[gvaley]

Someone said, that Core 2 Duo is competting with something 2 years old and the lead is to be expected. But actually, Core is 12 years (think of its Pentuim Pro roots) old and is competting with something 7 years old (Athlon64 is basically the same as Athlon. The performance leap came solely from the integrated memory controller and more importantly, the addition of SSE2 block).

Alright, so Intel's new amazing architecture is something from 12 years ago, and AMD's is from 7 years ago. Or maybe we should say that they gave up on something good to muck around with Netburst for 5-6 years, only to realize that what they ended up was worse than something they were working with a decade before.

That's the point, the all new Intel architecture isn't so "new" and "amazing". Evolution of the mobile Core CPU, optimized for the status quo. Core was evolution of Pentuim M, which was evolution of Pentium III, which was evolution of Pentium II, which was downgrade from Pentium Pro.

And yes, Netburst obviuosly proved do be a bit of a pain, but not until lately. Northwood WAS the better CPU by it's time.

And Intel never gave up the Pentium Pro architecture. Rumors ware that Pentuim 3, coupled with DDR memory, was in use inside Intel long after Netburst arrived. This never saw market, but no one can convince me that Intel didn't try it in their labs and even used it for their own needs.

 

[MasterLee]

No reason.........yet.
I race and slay online always and I have yet to lose to a better machine than mine. It isn't the fastest, but until it matters in winning and losing races I won't.
Besides, I'm a single father, building a motorcycle, I'll finish the bike before I upgrade, that way all of the problems will be known with the new hardware, and hopefully remedied.