<p>I know this isn't the place for this question but I have to ask</p>
<p>I am building a new computer for use/college and i can't make a decision between 3 processors</p>
<p>Either an </p>
<p>AMD Phenom 9850 2.6 ghz quad core $180</p>
<p>Intel e8400 3.0 ghz core 2 duo $165</p>
<p>or Intel e7300 2.66ghz core 2 duo $120</p>
<p>Do processor prices drop after christmas time?? I've been ripping my hair out over amd vs intel and the e8 series or e7 series. </p>
<p>Hope someone can help</p>
<p>i doubt prices drop after christmas, but then again i haven't built anything recently.</p>
<p>don't worry about amd vs intel, just buy the processor that's more reliable or suits your needs/wants better.</p>
<p>the best would actually be none of those- i recommend getting the new budget Core i7 - it will be a whole lot faster and last longer than any of those.</p>
<p>if you already bought your motherboard, however, id go with the 3.0 dual core</p>
<p>I'd say wait for the i7's too. But out of that list, the quad core if you are doing anything real number heavy.</p>
<p>I too would recommend the i7 processors.</p>
<p>But out of those three, I would recommend the intel e8400 one if you do video editing a lot because the extra L2 cache helps. Otherwise, the e7300 would be fine if you care about the money.:D</p>
<p>the cheapest i7 is around $300, something i def cannot afford</p>
<p>also, my gpu is a geforce 9500gt 1gb...so ill just end up with a bottleneck system</p>
<p>i think ill w8 till the quad cores are fully matured and developed. I'm runing a p4 rite now, so i haven't really experienced a dual core</p>
<p>quad cores are well developed</p>
<p>I'd go with</p>
<p>only $9 more than the AMD quad core ;)</p>
<p>or actually...</p>
<p>as cheap as the dual core, but a whole lot better ;)</p>
<p>i heard the 9600 was unstable with vista 64bit :(</p>
<p>AMD chips don't support SSSE3 (I have looked and could find no evidence of support) or SSE4.1 at this time so you would lose the performance benefits of these additional instruction sets for software that supports them.</p>
<p>BTW, what do you plan to do with the system? Do you need better integer or floating point performance?</p>
<p>all around good performance computer for gaming, web browsing, movie making, and everyday stuff. Not blazing fast but reliable, fast, and cheap</p>
<p>anyway i think i've decided on the e7300. If i get in ocing, i can probably oc it to around the e8400.</p>
<p>since the 84 and the 73 are the same technology, ocing it will give me the same performance</p>
<p>Those are both great processors. I think that I'd personally wait for Intel to fill out the Nehalem line but that's probably at least six months away. I'm seeing some benchmarks on Nehalem that are really amazing. They are server benchmarks though. At any rate, it's hard to go wrong with Penryn.</p>
<p>I got the E8400 a few months back when my build my current machine. Well worth it I'd say. I would have tried what you did and OC the CPU but I'm not that much of an enthusiast. you really can't go wrong with intel though.</p>
<p>have you bought all the parts yet, or are you just putting together the parts online to order them? i'd be interested in what build you have or will have and the budget you're under. building computers is fun.</p>
<p>on a side note, i was looking at some computers from dell and hp and i was surprised to see that they are offering machines at around $800 running quad cores, current gen mid-range video cards, big hdd, 4gb of ram, etc. i haven't looked oem computers in a while so maybe this is how it's been the past 2 yrs but that really surprised me.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
AMD Phenom 9850 2.6 ghz quad core $180</p>
<p>Intel e8400 3.0 ghz core 2 duo $165</p>
<p>or Intel e7300 2.66ghz core 2 duo $120
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>The Intel vs AMD debate really boils down to what you want to use them for. Each company has its processing strength and you should purchase accordingly.</p>
<p>Intel processors are better at large amounts of data and huge computations (i.e. Video Editing, SETI, Gaming, etc). It's longer pipeline gives it an advantage in these fields.</p>
<p>AMD processors flex their strength in office applications and divisions of computing that involve many small functions (i.e. Office application, OS operations, internet browsing, etc). It has a much smaller pipeline so it's able to run through small calculations much faster than intel.</p>
<p>For me, my office computer has an AMD processor in it because it plays to its strength. Conversely, my server has an Intel processor because I need the processing power for large mathematical computations and occasionally video editing. </p>
<p>...As for prices...</p>
<p>Look on technology sites and read Intel & AMD roadmaps. The week after a new CPU is released the old lines drop by 20% or more overnight. They usually both do a major release in the beginning of the year.</p>
<p>"Intel processors are better at large amounts of data and huge computations (i.e. Video Editing, SETI, Gaming, etc). It's longer pipeline gives it an advantage in these fields.</p>
<p>"AMD processors flex their strength in office applications and divisions of computing that involve many small functions (i.e. Office application, OS operations, internet browsing, etc). It has a much smaller pipeline so it's able to run through small calculations much faster than intel."</p>
<p>Your information is a few architectures old. The Pentium 4 had a long pipeline but Intel went back to the Pentium 3 as the base for it's Core Duo line. Intel is generally acknowledged to have far better integer and SIMD performance. AMD has generally had better floating point performance and better memory latency with their integrated memory controller. Intel countered that in Core 2 Duo with large caches and aggressive memory prefetching.</p>
<p>(3 MacBook Pros, 3 Dell Inspiron Laptops, 1 PowerMac G5, 2 Dell Desktops, 2 HP Desktops, 1 HP Laptops: 2 Pentium 3s, 2 Pentium 4s, 3 AMD K8s, 1 Core 2 Duo Conroe, 2 Core 2 Duo Merom, 1 Core 2 Duo Penryn).</p>
<p>Actually my assessment isn't invalid at all, the newer Intel CPU's have a shorter pipeline in comparison to their older CPU's but still longer in comparison to AMD. </p>
<p>Also, I'm giving information to someone trying to delineate between the two companies not go over trifle details with him. Most people just want the summary, sorry if my explanation was over simplified.</p>
<p>"Actually my assessment isn't invalid at all, the newer Intel CPU's have a shorter pipeline in comparison to their older CPU's but still longer in comparison to AMD."</p>
<p>Dothan had 12, Core 2 has 14. Not a big deal. Nehalem's is longer but benchmarks show that this isn't a problem - the integrated memory controllers net reduction in memory latency more than makes up for the longer pipeline. Nehalem isn't really out yet unless you want to spend $$$ and change your motherboard. Inexpensive chips will probably be out next summer.</p>
<p>If your applications are using Profile Guided Optimization in their builds, it's even less of an issue as codegen will result in optimized branches.</p>
<p>Sorry. I was gone for a couple weeks.</p>
<p>I've already bought everything.</p>
<p>atx steel case
450 watt power supply
Gigabyte ep45-ud3r
9500gt video card
2 x 2 gb ram 800 mhz
intel e7300
vista ultimate 32 bit
seagate 250 gb hdd 8m cache</p>
<p>total price of everything including shipping and rebates is $382
My budget was <$400, so I'm quite happy</p>