Want a new CPU and mainboard

[bcrew1375]

I've been considering buying a new CPU and mainboard. In the past I've leaned towards AMD's processors, but it seems recently Intel has been overtaking them. So, I want to know which company I should go with, which processor, and which mainboard would support it well.

[Doomulation]

AMD is leading right now. They consumes less power and perform better than any intel cpu on the market right now.
For the future, the cheapest X2 processor would do you well. A good motherboard, I suppose, is ones with the nForce 4 chipset.

[Clements]

I would buy an Athlon64 X2. Either the 3800+, the 4400+, 4800+ or FX-60 - whichever suits your budget. For dual core Opterons, the models that are decent are the 165, 170, 175 and the 180.

If you have a PCI-E graphics card, or have no graphics card but wish to buy one (no point in buying AGP now), then buy either an nForce4 SLi x16 chipset, an nForce4 Ultra chipset (if you don't plan on SLi), or for ATi chipsets the Xpress 3200 and Xpress 200. Good companies include DFI, MSI, Gigabyte, Asus and Abit and Sapphire among others.

In my case, I had an expensive AGP video card, so got an S939 nForce3 Ultra board instead of nForce4, but I could have bought the Asrock 939Dual-SATA2 based on the ULi chipset for both AGP/PCI-E, but I saw that it only had 100Mbit Ethernet and less features in general, and the company was bought out.

[vtnwesley]

I personally prefer the Intel side. AMD or Intel, as long as you have a high quality motherboard from a trusted brand, you should do fine. I personally would buy a higher end Pentium 4 (not Pentium D). Any of the Prescott or Cedar Mill CPUs are great, but I'd opt for the newer Cedar Mill products given the choice. At 3Ghz, 800mhz FSB, 2MB cache, single core they cost about $180.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116004

All of the newer Intel boards are on Socket T (Look for "LGA 775" on the box). If you have older parts you want to reuse like video cards, you can on older Intel chipsets like the 865PE, but I recommend going with the newer stuff like the 945P/G series (consumer class, one has video on board for non-gamers), or the higher end 955X/975X. If you wanna get all the speed and power you can, and/or plan on doing SLI/Crossfire kinds of things, the intel 975X is a must.

I personally am a bit more conservative, so I'd probably concider a Asus, Intel, or Gigabyte board on the 945P series chipsets. Regardless of who you buy from (use your best judgement, I prefer Intel and Gigabyte), they usually run around $90-120. For the sake of perspective, the higher end (ECC enabled, yay) 955/975x boards run around $175-220. They all offer modern standards like PCIe x16 for video, Serial ATA, DDR2, and everything else you'd expect from a modern mobo. Boards by all of these companies on many diff chipsets can be found on Newegg.com . It's where I do most of my shopping, but be careful. Just because they sell it doesn't make it a good product.

As for the AMD vs Intel debates, both are fast. The Conroe based chips will be coming from Intel soon and for a while, Intel will be on top again. Right now, AMD is on top. I buy intel for the "complete package". When you are on an intel cpu with an intel chipset, things tend to run smoother than say... ANY CPU on a Via chipset lol. AMD has no first party anything, but Nvidia seems to be doing a great job. If you do go AMD, get one of the latest and greatest Nvidia based Gigabyte or Asus boards.

[Doomulation]

And these conroe will be very expensive when they hit the market. Amd is the best way to go, for now. Pentium 4's are kinda pathetic processors. High energy consumption at a low processing speed, so deffinetly no P4.
With AMD's integrated memory controller (Athlon 64), many boards run equally due to it not being limited by the north bridge chipset (because memory handling is in the cpu now).

Intel or AMD is up to you, but I definetly recommend AMD. Ready for the future with 64-bit support!

[kallileo]

I dont think that Conroe CPUs are expensive.
So the best you can do is to buy mobo with Intel 975 chipset and a cheap Cpu(like Pentium 630) and for Conroe to be availiable in July.

[Doomulation]

Pffft, I shall not argue, but the Athlon64 X2 3800+ is highly overclockable to my knowledge, so it might still have a huge gain over Intel.
EDIT: The 3800+ overclocked from its 2.1 GHz store clock to a whopping 2.9 GHz! Beat that!

[vtnwesley]

All new CPUs are a little over priced (although those prices posted don't look bad at all). Thats what happens when you buy new technology of any kind from any company. I wouldn't call Intel chips pathetic. It kind of overstating the issue. Intel chips do seem to run a bit (not a lot) hotter, and the highest AMD chips out there do technically run faster than Intel CPUs. That is a good thing for AMD and something to concider. AMD also does have the northbridge integrated into their CPUs, which isn't terrible either (promises some level of performance, but dictates the feature set of every mobo). Mind you, a bad mobo can still effect performance, but not as much.

While every AMD fanboy loves spouting off about how great it is to have 64-bit support, and how Intel isn't ready for the future. Intel is on all the new standards, and AMD isn't AMD has 64-bit support first (which is going to be all but useless for the next 4-10 yrs in my opinion). Intel got into it quickly because the industry followed. Since both have the EXACT same 64-bit extensions, the same way both offer SSE1, 2, and 3 (AMD took years to support SSE3!). Both sets of CPUs have minor pluses and minuses. Don't let a polarized opinions fool you. Basically, 64-bit hardware is pedestrian at this point. It's not a selling point, especially since it won't do anything for you.

To check for sure which Intel CPUs support 64-bit, check out intel.com or newegg.com. Almost all of them do at this point, including the latest Celeron D chips. If you need that 10 frames per second higher in a theoretical number you can't see with the naked eye, then go for that Athlon whatever definitely. Otherwise concider both options, and make your own choice. As long as you get a nice solid mobo by a trusted company (i.e. NOT ECS/PC Chips, MSI, ASRock, etc), you will probably be happy on either CPU. I know I am happy with my Celeron D 2.66Ghz, and my friends Pentium 4 3.2Ghz.

[kallileo]

Pffft, I shall not argue, but the Athlon64 X2 3800+ is highly overclockable to my knowledge, so it might still have a huge gain over Intel.
EDIT: The 3800+ overclocked from its 2.1 GHz store clock to a whopping 2.9 GHz! Beat that!

I had a x2 3800+ and it hadrly overclocked from stock 2.0 Ghz to 2.4 GHz with watercooling . I sold it and I bought an Opteron 165(dual core, 1.8 GHz stock). It clocks to 2,75 Ghz. There very few CPUs that can overclock to 2900GHz on air. Believe me.

Any new AMD or Intel CPU fully support 64bit technology.Even Sempron and Celeron CPU.

[Doomulation]

I wouldn't call Intel chips pathetic. It kind of overstating the issue.

Don't get me wrong. I am calling the pentium 4 architecture pathetic. But the new, coming, is nowhere near pathetic--a worthy chip of honor! Pentium M isn't pathetic; only Pentium 4 is. They performed less, drew more power, ran hotter, etc, than athlon.

@kallileo:
There are many factors in overclocking. You need a good motherboard, first of all, and you also need to make sure memory or other things aren't holding you back. This is a number that the processor CAN reach, if done right. Yes, there was benchmarks showing this!