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AMD X3 720 BE or E8500???

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tachi1247

Member
Joined
Oct 28, 2008
I'm building a new system for a buddy that for all intents and purposes will be for gaming since excel and web surfing will be blazing fast on either.

My dilema is which processor to recommend? Guru3d.com published their review on the X3 and showed that it was slightly faster than an E8400 on all the games they tested. However Anandtech found the E8400 slightly faster for the games they tested.

Obviously the 8500 will be incrementally faster than the 720 but for this particular user I don't think he will ever OC the Intel chip :cry: and when I put this computer together I'm pretty confident I could get a stable 10-15% OC on the 720 just by upping the multiplier and leaving it.

I've been leaning towards the X3 since I think the speeds will come out close to the 8500 if I OC it and we're looking at a $40 savings which when putting together a system for $800 could be used somewhere else (GPU). I just want someone else to verify that I'm not missing something as my desire to tinker with a PII may be pushing me in that direction even if it isn't better for my buddy.
 
I agree 1000000% with the x3, in fact you could probably go with the 710 and save yourself another $30 (I haven't checked the prices lately). Bus clocking on the phenom II's is easy enough and I'm sure the guys in the amd forum (me :D) would be willing to help. You really wouldn't even need to oc' it that much anyway, the 720 are at 2.8, What does anyone need more than 2.8 ghz for? Other than extreme stuff of course.
 
Does the E8500 not OC better for gaming purposes though (wondering for my own purposes)?
 
the intel can overclock higher, but you could give him the amd and let him play around with amd overdrive - assuming he's never overclocked before. of coruse, my point is null and voided in case he is a keen overclocker.
 
If you are looking at a new build go with the AMD you will get more mileage or go with i7. The 775 will die out soon and your options will be non existent with that build.
 
the intel can overclock higher, but you could give him the amd and let him play around with amd overdrive - assuming he's never overclocked before. of coruse, my point is null and voided in case he is a keen overclocker.

Lies. It will clock higher on 24/7 volts, but us amd guys have the world record if I remember correctly :beer:. No offense meant. And you do have a good point that it will oc' higher on 24/7 but the 720's get to 3.5-3.6 on stock volts just by upping the multi.
 
According to this website, ( http://www.ripping.org/database.php?act=records ) the E8500 record overclock is higher than any Phenom II (albeit by a very slight margin.)

The E8500 overclocks higher on normal cooling, but either cpu is a good choice. If you will use the third core, get the 720, otherwise I would opt for the E8500.
 
That is a good point ^^ I wasn't calling anyone out. I meant the 3dmark06 record though. I never knew intel's went that higher due to cooling constraints.
 
The Q6600 of course.

Will clock as high as the 720 but it is still faster clock for clock not to mention a quadcore which in time will gain significance in games as well, and is about the same price as the other two.
I would recommend the 8400 over the 8500 the OC results are almost the same but even so I would pick the 720 among the two you mentioned.
It clocks high enough to run any game which only supports 1-2 cores but with time the third will be put to use so it will gain edge over the C2D.

If you are looking at a new build go with the AMD you will get more mileage or go with i7. The 775 will die out soon and your options will be non existent with that build.

That's not true, Intel will make cpus based on the core arch even in 2011.
 
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