Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Considering AMD. Need input on mobo cpu choice
Since ive been building intel for the last 2 years, Im not familiar with AMD. Curious if this motherboard will support this CPU or if theres a better mobo option. (I usually stick with Asus for intel)
ASUS M4A79T Deluxe AM3 DDR3 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard
*edit* also I dont plan on overclocking it, and was curious how well the stock AMD heatsink/fan combos are in retail? I hate the ones for intel so I buy aftermarket (Im not a fan of push pins. I like the clamps) So do the stock clamp, or are they pushpin like intel?
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a robot foot stomping on a human face -- forever."
Comments
I have a M4A78T-E with an X3 Phenom II 720 BE and 4 GB of Corsair 1600MHZ Ram. I reccomend the Asus board as it is my favourite, the stock fan allows me to OC the X3 from 2.8 to 3.6GHZ stable. The fan uses a clamp and not pins, as for your CPU it is an excellent choice and a match for the whore i7 920 price and performance wise. Other boards to look at ar here click they all come very close but this review may help you decide which is best for you.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
I have a M4A78T-E with an X3 Phenom II 720 BE and 4 GB of Corsair 1600MHZ Ram. I reccomend the Asus board as it is my favourite, the stock fan allows me to OC the X3 from 2.8 to 3.6GHZ stable. The fan uses a clamp and not pins, as for your CPU it is an excellent choice and a match for the whore i7 920 price and performance wise. Other boards to look at ar here click they all come very close but this review may help you decide which is best for you.
agreed. you could also get a calisto dual core. the first shipment are just normal quads with 2 cores locked out.
www.lostcircuits.com/mambo/index.php
I agree, I hate the intel stock heatsinks.. those twisting plastic push pins are terrible to put on. AMD's stock heatsinks are very easy to install clamp ones and perform fine.
thanks a lot for the responses. Good to know I can shave a good chunk of coin by going with AMD this go around instead of intel
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a robot foot stomping on a human face -- forever."
Its true, AMD is cheaper than Intel, but there is a reason for it.
I use to be hardcore about AMD. But, recently I decided to make the switch to Intel.
First off, many of the "3 core" AMD processors you see are actually suppose to be quad, and in fact do have 4 cores in them, but only 3 are working. This was a factory error causing only 3 to work, so AMD sucked it up and sold them as 3 core. Do a search on Google there is a lot about it out there.
Secondly, AMD still uses 65nm processors. This is slowly becoming dated technology and makes for a less than stellar processor.
Thirdly, the L2 cache, which is used for gaming mostly, is very low in AMD processors. The processor you linked has 4 x 512kb L2 cache. So thats 512 per core. Most intels have 2-3mb PER core. I bought a E8400 Intel Core 2 Duo recently and it has 3MB per core, for 6MB total. This processor is much cheaper than the one you listed and I am willing to bet it out performs that AMD (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037)
Fourth, overclocking may not be important to you, but for a lot of people it is. Intel is far easier to overclock and manage than AMD. Search Google and you will find tons of articles supporting this. That AMD is 3.2ghz, but I bet you cant overclock it much more. Whereas, the E8400 is stock 3.0ghz, but people have taken it as high as 4.0ghz by installing a 3rd party heatsink and using a little thermal compound.
Fifth, do not let a heatsink disuade you from going Intel. I thought this at first as well, but when it came time to install it... I had zero problems. In fact, I found Intel's stock heatsink to be easier than my previous AMD one.
Sixth, if you look around you will see most games these days support Intel, meaning they have designed their games to purposefully work better with Intel. Also, it seems to me that a lot of AMD's lack certain SSE instruction sets whereas a lot of Intels have them.
Overall, I think with the money you are spending you could go Intel and see a noticeable difference in performance. AMD is lagging behind and needs to catch up. You can bet the day AMD catches up I will roll AMD, but for now... Intel is king. Im not saying AMD is all bad. You would probably be very happy with that processor, but in the end Intel is going to be more inline with high performance.
My specs:
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0ghz (stock gonna OC soon)
4GB g.Skill RAM (windows 32bit only notices 3.25!)
500GB Seagate HD
EVGA 9800 GTX+
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R Motherboard ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128359 )
I run every game maxxed out settings.
AMD uses 45nm dies currently and will be transitioning to 32nm in the fall. The L2 cache no longer matters now that Intel has accepted the L3 cache concept. The Core i7 has even less L2 cache. If anything the Core2 has become the dated technology.
As far as heatsinks. The AMD standard heatsink is actually pretty good on its own, it has heat pipes now as well as better tech. If anything you will have more trouble installing a non-stock heatsink then the stock one. ASUS or Gigabyte FX models are good choices if you don't plan to overclock. If you do plan to overclock, the MSI model is probably best. ASUS really isn't the best mobo for AMD, there are several equally as good. Also you might want to consider a 790GX model instead incase they decide to implement a power savings feature that uses the IGP when the Video Card isn't needed.
Not many of the 3 core Phenoms are quad cores, they ALL are quad cores with 1 core disabled. In fact the supply of x3 wasn't able to keep up with the demand of x3's so at one point AMD took perfectly good x4's and disabled the 4th core just to meet demand. With the right chipset you can actually reactivate the 4th core with no problems if you got a lucky bin part.
This is simply because of chip design: Core2Quads are just 2 Core2Duo dies glued together. Each core of the Core2Duo has its own LARGE L2 cache - if one of the cores or L2 caches is bad they firstly DON'T glue them together which saves them 1 good Core2Duo chip, then from the bad Core2Duo they cut out as much of the defective L2 cache/clock speed from the chip as they need to get it running then repackage it as an entry level Core2Duo with little L2 cache.
In Phenom's design all CPU's start as Phenom II x4. They place all 4 cores on a single die each with its own SMALL L2 cache and a large shared L3 cache. If a core or L2 cache are defective the best way to make use of the chip is to simply disable that single core/L2 cache and run it on 3 or 2 cores ( = Phenom II x3 700 series and Phenom II x2 500 series), or if any of the shared L3 cache is defective they can cut out the bad portion of L3 cache ( = Phenom II x4 800 series).
Both companies get factory defects but because of chip design they have different ways to deal with them and both try to reuse the bad chips. I find the 3 core chips to have a lot of value as hardly any apps can make use of all 4 cores of a quad core, but can still use more cores than a dual core, so it does have a place as 3 is the only number between 2 and 4.
Intel's next 8 core chip will actually use the same process to derive 5-7 core chips, from what I understand the current interconnected dies design of the Core2Quad chip doesn't actually allow a 3 core configuration even if they wanted to.