$1100 to spend help me decide amd 4400+ or intel 930

[soccrstar]

my current cpu is taking a BEATING with 60+ processes, encoding, burning, surfing, etc. and i'm in need of a new processor. I was planning on spending it on my car but I dont feel like spending 7000+ bucks on my car turbo charging it (GTRS turbo kit $1600, FMIC $1000, stage 4 clutch w/ flywheel $1300, manifold $450, exhaust system $1100 and much more totaling 6876.31 and thats not including installation) when i'm going to change the car in 3-5 years so i figure i'll spend $1100 on a new computer system that I will be happy with for 3-4 years. thats like leasing the system for 366.67/year for 3 years vs 2666.67/year for 3 years for 150whp extra.
currently have a p4 2.66ghz 533mhz fsb via gigabyte sinxp1394 motherboard


If there's anything coming out in april, i'm willing to wait (new core, etc), I read here that preslars will be going down in price in april?....


What will I be doing:

- Encoding video files to DVD format
- Heavy duty Multi-tasking (60+ proceses)
- Gaming hence the X850XT GPU
- rarring, unrarring
- microsoft office (excel, word, powerpoint)
- web surfing
- web design
- video editing
- TV watching, hence the TV tuner card w/ FM
- other misc items
- I will be pelting w/ watercooling the system in sometime between april and july

AMD Athlon XP2 4400+ via DFI nF4 Ultra-Infinity Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra ATX AMD Motherboard
Memory: OCZ Gold Edition 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 500 (PC 4000) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory Model OCZ5002048ELGE-K
or

Intel Pentium D 930 (3.0ghz dual core 65nm) via ASUS P5WD2 Premium Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 955X ATX Intel Motherboard
Memory: G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5400) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit


Both systems will have:

swiftec thermalelectric waterblocks (226w pelt)
blackice extreme3 radiator
ehiem water pump
-saphire X850XT PCI express video card
-PowerColor T55E-P03 Theater 550 PRO PCI-Express x1 Interface Tuner Card
- ENERMAX Liberty ELT620AWT ATX12V 620W Power Supply 90V~265V (Auto Adjusted) UL, cUL, TUV, CB
- Aluminum Case (havent decided which yet)

please help me decide
dont know nothing bout the new technology.

 

[Avg]

Well the X2 is hands down the best dual core option, you would probably be better off with a 100 series dual core Opteron which seem to oc higher. The problem is that you got good cooling with a tec setup which might take the Pentium D pretty high and I don't know how high a Pentium D must be overclocked in order to match and/or surpass a X2 or dual core Opteron at about 2.8ghz or more given your cooling.

Let me explain why the Pentium D is not a good dual core option. Intel got caught off guard with the heat the prescott and 90nm process brought to the table and when the market decided to switch to dual core instead of higher clockspeeds, Intel only had a single core chip that was never meant to be a dual core, while AMD had a chip that was designed with multi core in mind. So what Intel did was to put two hot prescott cores on the same package and call it a dual core, so the problem is that the two core need to talk to each other, but the only way is the slow FSB and now the chip doesn't perform as well as expected because it is bottlenecked by the FSB. It also runs very hot at much lower clocks and uses a lot more power then a single core chip or AMD's dual core alternative.

Another thing though is that if you plan to upgrade both the Intel and AMD are moving on to incompatible platforms this summer so what you get now your pretty much stuck with it. You can still upgrage ram, video card ans such but not the cpu.

By the way Intel will replace the pentium D with a much better design that fixes most of it's problems later this year.

 

[Blackmage]

wait for conroe to come out

 

[Ducatti]

I am in the same boat, except that I am going AMD. I'm just not sure when. I'm moving to PCI-E as well though, so a video card upgrade is in my mix.

 

[Goshawk]

Dual core will really only benefit you if the majority of your applications actually take advantage of the technology.

What i am kindof confused about, is the 60+ processes... i dont suppose you could run "hijack this" and post the result? 60 processes sounds quite excessive to me. I do most of what you have listed minus TV tuning, rar'ing, and video editing and i run perhaps 20-30 process' max.



~ Gos

 

[greenmaji]

wait for conroe to come out

 

[deathman20]

Dual core will really only benefit you if the majority of your applications actually take advantage of the technology.

The thing is you don't need programs to take advantage of it to utilize dual core. You could have 2 processes running using 100% CPU power. One on the first and one on the second very easily. Apps running in the background take up CPU cycles which takes advantage of the dual core also.

Overall its tough to say though between the 2 since you have higher end cooling but it would be a tough choice between the AMD Opteron 165/170 and the 930 though.

A while back I know I was trying to compare my Opteron clock to a 930 if im not mistaken and it was roughly 2.6Ghz (mine) = 4.1-4.2Ghz Intel if not mistaken in synthetic tests at least.

 

[greenmaji]

yea.. and peps have had there 930's running near 5Ghz.. a few in the 5.3+ range
I still dont know why more AMDers havnt looked into how much more scaleable the pressler is then the 1XX opty..

and all you have to do is run two applications at once and boom your taking advantage of dual core.. gamers need to take this into consideration..

 

[deathman20]

yea.. and peps have had there 930's running near 5Ghz.. a few in the 5.3+ range
I still dont know why more AMDers havnt looked into how much more scaleable the pressler is then the 1XX opty..

and all you have to do is run two applications at once and boom your taking advantage of dual core.. gamers need to take this into consideration.. :rooleyes:

I think its mainly heat reasons why more havn't looked into it. The intel chips do run hotter and well cooler numbers always looks better weather or not the CPU can take it.

One reason why I went AMD is power consumption because it used a decent amount less then Intel's offerings, second was heat. Less heat = less noise expecially coming from an air setup.

 

[greenmaji]

good air will get a 930 at or over 4.3Ghz.. check the intel section..
and no thats not delta screamers.. the sythe ninja doesnt even do all that well with super air.
more power is a definate consern but if your running ATI or capable.. like the 520 powerstream your more then fine.