[O/C]AMD and Intel Buyer's Guide (10/2010)

[Overclockers.com]

AMD and Intel Buyer's Guide (10/2010)
by Earthdog

One of the more common topics started by forum members who recently signed up or those wanting to upgrade are, "build me a new PC for $XXX.xx". Usually there is a significant response in this type of thread because it is a good feeling to help someone stretch their dollars and its also fun to play with other people's money for "dream rigs" in the larger budget requests. While everyone's part lists will likely be different, the members here have put together a solid group of AMD and Intel builds that are a jack of all trades type system for almost any budget.

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[I.M.O.G.]

Great work putting this together Earthdog, enjoyed reading it and I like the way its broken down. Nice work also from the other forum members who helped select the components.

 

[MattNo5ss]

Yep, good read

"Yay!" for separate "O/Community" and article threads

 

[JGarcia]

Great work Earthdog! Just a heads up on the 1100 dollar system the Intel section memory is a link to G.Skill Ripjaws ram.

 

[EarthDog]

Thanks Jgarcia for the headsup!! I will have that corrected ASAP.

EDIT: Fixed now, thx - IMOG, Editor

 

[Moshu]

I have the $850 AMD config since april this year except:
- 2 x 4870 512MB in crossfire (and a bigger PSU to support them)
- Phenom II X4 955 BE OC @ 3.7 GHz

Basically the same value (around $800 - $850) but the gaming performance is much improved over the GTX 460 bringing the graphic power in the 5870-GTX480 range.
As DX11 is not really bringing new things (with or w/o tesselation visual differences are really small in games), a Xfire DX10 solution is cheaper and brings more bang for the buck... at least until next year.

Nice article, thumbs up!

 

[QuietIce]

Some possible adjustments for the AMD builds:

$600 Systems
Phenom II X3 740BE - $89
Only $4 more than the recommended CPU plus 6 Mb L3 cache, guaranteed.
A Black Edition chip is always a nice addition to those budget builds where the board clock may not be so good.
I honestly don't know why we published the Athlon II X3 450 CPU, though it does include a stock heatsink.

OR

AMD Phenom II X4 925 - $130
ASUS M4A79XTD EVO - $109 + $3 SH
AMD Total ~ $673
(Intel total ~ $678 for a dual-core v a quad AMD)
Again, both systems are now well over budget but the AMD is still the less expensive of the two.


$850 Systems
Phenom II X6 1055T - $200
$40 more than the current recommendation but only $7 more than the Intel build - and who can pass up 6-cores in a mid-range system?


$1100 Systems
Phenom II X6 1090T BE - $296
Current Intel = $1249.97
Current AMD = $1187.97
Difference of ..... $62.00
Hmmmm, that looks like more than enough to upgrade to the 1090BE and still have some money left over!
Nothing quite like an unlocked hexcore if you can afford it. Of course, both systems are way over our $1100 budget now.


$1500+ Systems
ASUS Crosshair IV - $210
An ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme combined with a pair of ATi video cards? The Crosshair IV Extreme is a great board if you're looking to experiment by playing mix and match with the video because you can run virtually any card combinations you'd like with this board, both Ati and/or nVidia (yes, you can even mix the manufacturers!).

On the other hand, if you're building it with ATi cards and don't see nVidia in your future you might want to get the ASUS Crosshair IV (not Extreme) and indulge yourself with the $90 you'll save! Bigger SSD, second HDD, lots of choices.


Just some food for thought ...

 

[Wiggin]

Great guide EarthDog! Really helped me put my new system together and saved me hours of research.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Nice input quietice.

 

[EarthDog]

Agree with QI. This is something we talked about via PM a couple weeks back but never made it past that point (my bad QI, it should be in there!).

As far as the budgets are concerned, it was noted in the article we tried to stay around 10% of the stated amounts outside of the $1500+. We did accomplish that, give or take 1% or so.

The problem, again as was noted in the article, you cant please everyone and all that have valid questions/statements about choosing part A over part B.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Thats why I like integrated commenting on the articles with the forums and pushed hard to ensure that was part of the new version of the site - there were only a couple features which I said had to be there, and this was one. Back if Joe would have written an article like this, there wouldn't have been a way for the community to voice additions or suggestions. Now its easy, and anyone can add to it, criticize it, or improve it.

 

[EarthDog]

Next article I think he needs to be the AMD lead, if he wants to take on that task. Not that what was done by others is bad, quite the contrary, its just that he is one of the most respected AMD guys in this forum and if he stamps his approval, you can take it to the bank.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Sounds like a plan. I think we made good progress with this guide also - its the strongest yet in how its broken down and comparable between platforms. Next one should be better yet.

 

[QuietIce]

As far as the budgets are concerned, it was noted in the article we tried to stay around 10% of the stated amounts outside of the $1500+. We did accomplish that, give or take 1% or so.

All 2 of 3 Intel systems went more than 10% over budget while the AMD systems kept within the +10% budget, with an associated performance drop as well. My suggestions simply tried to even the field a little.


On that note, in the budget category, I edited the "suggestions" post above to include an AMD quad option.

Nice input quietice.

Thank you ...


PS
Sorry, missed the last few posts.
I would suggest we keep the budgets between the two systems a little closer in the future. I think I've demonstrated those "few percent" or "few dollars" difference is a bigger difference than many people may think. In both the budget and mid-range systems I've managed to add two cores to the AMD system (over the Intel) for virtually the same price as the Intel system ...

 

[EarthDog]

In fairness, this article evolved a bit from when I first wrote and completed it (some behind the scenes PM's with the editing team as far as how the article was to be written). We ended up standardizing parts outside of the mobo/cpu/ram. So I had to mishmash this together a bit and as stated earlier, talked with you QI on it but never ended up following through on the suggestions.

Its intent was not to showcase anything but the parts you can get at a given budget. At least Intel hit the $850 budget with 10% (according to my math) right?!

If there were any glaring or maybe, inferred (as I dont see them) performance digs, that was certainly not the intent. Its an art to try to shoehorn different pieces in while also considering compatibility and budget considerations. There will inevitably be performance differences between AMD and Intel especially at the extreme budget end where AMD shines its brightest. QI has again done a good job at showing what one can get for the dollar in his field of expertise.

 

[QuietIce]

Its intent was not to showcase anything but the parts you can get at a given budget. At least Intel hit the $850 budget with 10% (according to my math) right?!

My bad, original post edited. Intel was only sightly over the $850 and still within the 10%.

I believe my suggested change to an X6 is also still within the +10% and < 1% more than the Intel system. But you're right about part A/part B. If you're not overclocking the quad is faster. If you are overclocking, and what's our name? , the X6 is a better choice hands down.

If there were any glaring or maybe, inferred (as I dont see them) performance digs, that was certainly not the intent. Its an art to try to shoehorn different pieces in while also considering compatibility and budget considerations. There will inevitably be performance differences between AMD and Intel especially at the extreme budget end where AMD shines its brightest.

The problem was the budget structure. Like I said, we just need to keep the end product closer in the future because a few $$$ can make a BIG difference - even more so as the budget gets smaller.

As for there being no "intent" - I understand that. But many other people, both now and in the future, trying to prove points over price/performance or simply researching a system for their budget won't care about our intent. All they will see is what we post and that should be as even-handed as possible.

 

[EarthDog]

As for there being no "intent" - I understand that. But many other people, both now and in the future, trying to prove points over price/performance or simply researching a system for their budget won't care about our intent. All they will see is what we post and that should be as even-handed as possible.

Agree again!

Hopefully the next installment will be even closer to achieving that goal.

 

[doz]

Just for some reference, I just built a system for my brothers friend. Total cost w/ shipping, $733

HAF 912 w/ Coolermaster M600
Asus M4A87TD
AMD PII 955 BE w/ Coolermaster Hyper 212
2x2gb GSkill 1600mhz c9
Gigabyte 6850
WD 640gb Black HDD
24x DVD-RW

Gotta say, for a middle of the road system, it was still quick. I tried to get him to give me another $100 for a nice little SSD, but he couldnt swing it. All in all though, its a good quality system. He didnt want it overclocked though :O

 

[badboyeee]

QI's suggestions

I know this is an old thread, but being the person who was part of the AMD side of this version of the Buyer's Guide, I'd like to post why i didn't pick the parts QI did. My ultimate goal was to stay as close as possible to the budget given, not to go over the budget as much as Earthdog (the Intel side) did.

$600 system:
Don't know how the 450 cpu got listed, i picked one that was cheaper. but if you read my buyer guide's notes, i gave the option to spend $20 more for the CPU QI suggested. the other parts he suggested puts it way over budget.

$850 system:
At the time of this post, quad cores with higher ghz speed trumped over (and overclocked better than) hex cores with lower ghz, especially for gaming. Of course it depends on the application, but $40 was not worth the extra two cores & lower ghz speed for a real world person and/or gamer (which were mainly the two types of people that were checking the General Hardware forum, so i catered to them).

$1100 system:
see above notes ^^^ ($850 system), same reasoning. And again, "My goal was to stay as close as the budget that was given, not to go over the budget as much as Earthdog (the Intel side) did."


$1500+ system:
Read my notes in the Buyer's guide. I suggested the non-extreme version for those only wanting to use AMD video cards to save $70. But at this budget I figured they'd want to toy around and have some fun by mixing AMD & Nvidia cards so I posted the extreme version, and it was no limit to budget anyway.

Oh well this is Guide is ancient now. After I helped out on this buyer's guide I ended up not posting much here anymore and didn't stumble on the comments made for this guide til now.