I guess i'll ask the Intel folks

[Speciale]

The rig in da sig (catchy ehh?) isn't up to date.

I've currently got an athlon 64 oc'ed to 2.6ghz, 1 gig of ram at 220mhz (i believe), x850 XT....36gig raptor running windows and 300 other gigs of storage/apps etc.

Its student loan time which means irresponsible borrowing and spending. The truth is that my computer can no longer keep up with my insane typing rate...ok i lie, the truth is that I’m a digital photojournalist and editing times are taking away from homework...ok not entirely true, i want to be vista/DX10 ready so I can crank the graphics up all the way in FSX and other future games...yeah, that's pretty much it.

I’ve been a faithful Athlon user since the days of the P4’s, the days of the Barton. In the back of my mind I always wondered “Is my Intel counterpart faster?” When HT came out I almost made the switch, but decided against it.

The bottom line is that I think I want to go back to Intel, and I think I’m going to go back to Nvidia. My question I guess is a simple matter of timing. I seem to have pretty bad timing. Like, buying an AGP motherboard for my first Athlon 64. A few months down the road I realized that was lame and dropped more money for a PCI express board and card.

I’m not going to say money is no issue but I want to have a pretty cutting edge system by next January.

2 gigs DDR2
Dual core CPU
DX10 video card
700 watt PSU

My question is mostly the CPU/motherboard combo. I don’t know anything about Intel chipsets. When I bought my barton it was simple, get the lowest grade barton throw it into an NF7-S and overclock the snot out of it. I’m out of the loop...i guess I’m being vague here, but I’m interested in any (friendly) debate that may arise here.

If i were to do it today, i'd throw something like this together:

- ASUS P5W DH DELUXE/WIFI-AP Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 Conroe 2.13GHz LGA 775 Processor Model BX80557E6400 - Retail
-CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X2048-6400C4 - Retail
- XFX PVT80GTHF9 GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail
- OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI ATX12V 700W Power Supply - Retail

Total of about $1400


Is intel going to be releasing anything new any time soon??

By the way, why did intel ditch HT?

 

[hUMANbEATbOX]

that p5w-dh could top out around 400-420fsb. that would put a e6400 around 3.2-3.3ghz, because the e6400 has a 8x multi.

if you were getting a e6600, with its 9x multi, this wouldn't be a problem. for the e6400, i would choose something that can do 450fsb+ consistently, like a p5b-e or p5b-dlx. the thing is, you sacrafice SLI later on with these boards. so if SLI is important to you a new 680 chipset nforce board could probably do 450-480fsb, give you SLI options, but costs more.

 

[zebkoolindc]

I would sudjest a SilverStone (SST-ST56ZF) Instead of the OCZ PSU, cheaper and better quality.

Intel is releasing a new CPU in january.

E4300 Comes Out In January: We've talked about this before. 1.8GHz, 9X multiplier running at 200MHz FSB. Reasonable to expect close

Its mainly a cheap cpu that should OC almost as well as your E6400.

As far as HT, my P4 has it and I shut if off. I think it was all snake oil anyway.

 

[Speciale]

The E4300 is going to be a sort of budget chip then right? No performance increases?

 

[hUMANbEATbOX]

no, no performance increases, but it will have a 9x multi, so 400fsb would give you 3.6ghz.

 

[Speciale]

How likely do you think 3.6ghz is though?

 

[warlock110]

How likely do you think 3.6ghz is though?

not likely

 

[hUMANbEATbOX]

not likely

why's that? i can do 3.6ghz on my e6300.

 

[warlock110]

why's that? i can do 3.6ghz on my e6300.

rare case? people don't generaly expect to double their speed with any chip...

 

[freeagent]

rare case? people don't generaly expect to double their speed with any chip...

thats what i hope for

ram is holding me back....

 

[greenmaji]

rare case? people don't generaly expect to double their speed with any chip...

He's a bit more ballsy with Vcore and temps then most people, from what I've seen it looks like most of them have it in them.

I like the Estalis built silverstone PSU's better as well.. the 38A single rail Zuse is cheap at performance-pcs you should check that out.

I would stick to the Asus P5B-Deluxe unless you plan on crossfire (dumping your Nvidia card) or going SLI down the road.

E6400 now or E4300 later would be my choices for CPU's unless you would like to take your shot at playing SuperPI with DI for the team

 

[Speciale]

Thanks for the opinions folks.

I was actually hoping to get a sparkle or fortron PSU but i can't seem to find anything over 600 watts. I find that i'm always buying a PSU that "fits my needs" only to find myself purchasing another PSU the next time i upgrade my video card(not to mention the fact that it's nice to have extra power when your running stuff out of spec).

I guess i really don't know where 700 watts put me as far as that goes but i'm guessing it's geared towards an SLI configuration, which is something i cant see fitting into my budget anytime soon.

As far as video cards, i think i'm going with nvidia but the truth is i probably won't be buying this until ATI has introduced their DX10 card...so we'll see.

 

[hUMANbEATbOX]

rare case? people don't generaly expect to double their speed with any chip...

the only thing stopping most with getting a 100% oc (or close to it) is either ram or motherboard. with the e4300,neither of these will be an issue, as it starts with a default fsb of 200. we all know that 3.6ghz is possible on these chips...i don't see anything to stopping you.

i plan on getting one to beat around with some DI.

 

[Speciale]

I guess you guys wouldn't agree with me, but it would probably be vastly cheaper to stay with Intel, i could use the same motherboard and ram.

 

[hUMANbEATbOX]

I guess you guys wouldn't agree with me, but it would probably be vastly cheaper to stay with Intel, i could use the same motherboard and ram.

i think you mean to say "to stay with AMD"..

if that's the case, of course i agree...it WOULD be cheaper. but it also wouldn't be a huge upgrade. you'd be going from a single core 2.6ghz a64 to a dual core 2.6ghz a64, give or take a few hundred mhz.

it all depends on what you want to spend and what you want to get out of it. if you are looking at a budget build then i'm sure that can be accommodated as well.

 

[greenmaji]

The wattage rateing isnt what you look for in the power department of a PSU.. its the Amps on the primary rail for the rig your wanting to power.
Modern PC's currently are 12V rail dependent, therefore more 12V rail amps is better then more total wattage.

Quality is a primary consern as well.. the Estalis builds are right up there just below or almost equal to Zippy/Emacs.
Solid steady well regulated power is the consern here.

 

[Speciale]

i think you mean to say "to stay with AMD"..

if that's the case, of course i agree...it WOULD be cheaper. but it also wouldn't be a huge upgrade. you'd be going from a single core 2.6ghz a64 to a dual core 2.6ghz a64, give or take a few hundred mhz.

it all depends on what you want to spend and what you want to get out of it. if you are looking at a budget build then i'm sure that can be accommodated as well.

Right, my bad.

I did a little more research, i didn't realize how far ahead the intels were

 

[MadMan007]

the only thing stopping most with getting a 100% oc (or close to it) is either ram or motherboard. with the e4300,neither of these will be an issue, as it starts with a default fsb of 200. we all know that 3.6ghz is possible on these chips...i don't see anything to stopping you.

i plan on getting one to beat around with some DI.

Well, no one actually knows because there aren't any (?) of the 2MB native CPUs out in the wild. This is actually a subject I thought of a while ago. I agree in theory they should clock the same. Now you know the 'but' is coming...

but! Right now the e6300/6400 are coming off the same wafers as all the 4MB chips. So in principle they are starting life as the same chip. They may get binned for cache errors, speed, or for market segmentation purposes (listed imo in increasing desirability), but I have no idea how Intel actually bins stuff. The last is the ideal chip because it could have been one of the faster grades anyway. The 2MB native chips will not be coming off the same wafers as the current e6300/6400 and may be binned differently too. Plus the overall production may be of different quality; ex: they may use blank wafers that are subpar, relatively speaking, for clockspeed because the fastest CPU in the native 2MB lineup will be the e6400 as opposed to now where the fastest CPU for the whole line is the x6800.

To counterbalance off that line of thought is the usual 'production process gets better over time' angle. Also the fact that it's a new die layout may result in some oc-friendly tweaks. The conservative guess is to not assume they will behave just like the current 2MB chips, at least not until we see some in action.


I was trying to think of a similar situation where Intel had different parts of the same mainstream line using two different dies but I couldn't come up with one off my head in a few minutes - I'm sure one of you smartypants will figure one out though. There are many examples of one die for a broad range of CPUs of course.

Overall I'd say chances are good they will oc like mad as well though, but there are legit reasons they might not...anyway, enough useless geeking out for now

 

[hUMANbEATbOX]

Well, no one actually knows because there aren't any (?) of the 2MB native CPUs out in the wild. This is actually a subject I thought of a while ago. I agree in theory they should clock the same. Now you know the 'but' is coming...

but! Right now the e6300/6400 are coming off the same wafers as all the 4MB chips. So in principle they are starting life as the same chip. They may get binned for cache errors, speed, or for market segmentation purposes (listed imo in increasing desirability), but I have no idea how Intel actually bins stuff. The last is the ideal chip because it could have been one of the faster grades anyway. The 2MB native chips will not be coming off the same wafers as the current e6300/6400 and may be binned differently too. Plus the overall production may be of different quality; ex: they may use blank wafers that are subpar, relatively speaking, for clockspeed because the fastest CPU in the native 2MB lineup will be the e6400 as opposed to now where the fastest CPU for the whole line is the x6800.

To counterbalance off that line of thought is the usual 'production process gets better over time' angle. Also the fact that it's a new die layout may result in some oc-friendly tweaks. The conservative guess is to not assume they will behave just like the current 2MB chips, at least not until we see some in action.


I was trying to think of a similar situation where Intel had different parts of the same mainstream line using two different dies but I couldn't come up with one off my head in a few minutes - I'm sure one of you smartypants will figure one out though. There are many examples of one die for a broad range of CPUs of course.

Overall I'd say chances are good they will oc like mad as well though, but there are legit reasons they might not...anyway, enough useless geeking out for now

its simple really, IMO. if you put 1.5v into them, they will clock like mad. who knows, they might have a default vcore of 1.1v. there is nothing i can think of that would preclude a e4300 from clocking, just because it has 2mb cache native. just because it MIGHT be from a diff process than a x6800 is irrelevant. its not like they say "hey, this wafer is for the Allendale line...lets slack off on it, because it won't have to reach the high clocks that a x6800 does". i'm sure they design all of their wafers to be "perfect", but best laid plans fall to waste, and there will be "golden" and "bum" cpu's in every run of cpu's.

the point is, the architechture has proven that it can scale VERY well, and that 3.6ghz is not a stretch by any means. we shall see, but i know i'll be buying one, because if it doesn't clock on air, i'll MAKE it clock with something else.

 

[batboy]

I was actually hoping to get a sparkle or fortron PSU but i can't seem to find anything over 600 watts.

With the Intel dual core processors, it's probably more important to have a lot of amps on the +12v rail rather than a bunch of total watts. Here is a nice 550w Sparkle PSU single rail rated 36a/+12v. They used to be priced at $90, but looks like the price recently went up.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817103517