Posted by Rene de Heer on June 29, 2006 at 1:38 PM
I am in the process of upgrading my desktop to either a Dell Precision 640 3.6GHZ XEON Hyperthreading or 470 3.2 GHZ.
I can get either of these machines at a reasonable discount.
Alternatively i can get an Athlon Dual core 4200 2 GB DDR+ Nvdia 7900GT or Intel Pentium Dual core 3.2 with 7900 GT card. Both are substantially cheaper than the 2 Intel Precisions and do come with a good quality motherboard being ASUS.
I'm not a PC expert (Mac user), but the hyperthreading Xeons have just been replaced (with the 5100 series), which although don't have hyperthreading, are all dual core, and are supposedly much more efficient. These new 5100 series Xeons are based on the Core microarchitecture which is being phased in to replace the Pentium line. All Penitum 4 and Pentium D chips will be phased out over the next year, in favour of Core 2 Duos. The first Core Duo range were laptop chips, though Apple has been putting them in desktops because they were desparate to go Intel, but didn't want to use the Pentium 4 that they have been bad-mouthing for the last few years.
I just had David Cantrilles Athlon Dual 64 in for repairs this last week. Personally I wouldn't touch the AMD stuff. The Intel Core Duo2 are exceptional processors and the Asus boards are what we use for all our builds. Very good PC's. I know several other people who will say that the AMD chips are good but we have found too many issues with them over the last 4 years. One being the chipset they use for things like the USB controllers not being fully compatible with all devices.
Rob
Posted by Rene de Heer on June 29, 2006 at 3:31 PM
I'm surprised Rob - I've have been building and running AMD machines for a number of years now and have never had any problems with them post K6. In fact, I'd given up on Intel as I'd had quite a few CPU's fry themseleves . BTW - ask David if I can hire him as a Grouse beater in August - I need someone to flush them all for me
Rene - I thought you'd switched to Mac's?
Posted by Rene de Heer on June 29, 2006 at 3:37 PM
I have partly swapped to Apple but not my desktop and have decided NOT to! Anyway thanks for more confusion
Sorry Nick. It's like all these things. If you get your fingers burned once or twice you start to get paranoid about things. We've never had an Intel chip fry (although heard others who have). We have had various problems with AMD machines though which cost us a fair bit of business so shy away from them now. Both systems are probably much of a muchness the majority of the time. It comes down to what you are comfortable with. Same as the great Canon/Nikon debate
Hi, Rene.
Hmm, My vote would be for AMD, having worked as a system developer, working for such people as Microsoft and the BAR team, i can put my hand on my heart and say i have full confidence in the Athlon 64.
I personally had the first opteron's and asus board (SK8N) and had a perfectly stable system which ran 24 7 with no issues, I'll say that again, i didn’t have a single PC crash in 3 years! no bare in mind my systems get allot of beta software and game thrown at it.
My only recommendation is that you get quality parts, not necessarily the most expensive. All my systems run corsair memory, Seagate hard drives (5 year warranty!), pioneer DVD drives, antec cases and PSU’s. As for main board i recommend, Asus, but i have good experiences with smaller companies, my current system for example is running the EQS AK72-CF which i chose having worked with EQS on previous projects, i helped design the AK72 :).
Saying all this, I have nothing against intel CPU’s but as a previously serious gamer I’ve always had an affinity with AMD.
Discussion
10 repliesI can get either of these machines at a reasonable discount.
Alternatively i can get an Athlon Dual core 4200 2 GB DDR+ Nvdia 7900GT or Intel Pentium Dual core 3.2 with 7900 GT card. Both are substantially cheaper than the 2 Intel Precisions and do come with a good quality motherboard being ASUS.
Any advise/
many thks
Rene de Heer
Phillip.
Rene de Heer
I just had David Cantrilles Athlon Dual 64 in for repairs this last week. Personally I wouldn't touch the AMD stuff. The Intel Core Duo2 are exceptional processors and the Asus boards are what we use for all our builds. Very good PC's. I know several other people who will say that the AMD chips are good but we have found too many issues with them over the last 4 years. One being the chipset they use for things like the USB controllers not being fully compatible with all devices.
Rob
Rene - I thought you'd switched to Mac's?
Rene de Heer
Rob
Hmm, My vote would be for AMD, having worked as a system developer, working for such people as Microsoft and the BAR team, i can put my hand on my heart and say i have full confidence in the Athlon 64.
I personally had the first opteron's and asus board (SK8N) and had a perfectly stable system which ran 24 7 with no issues, I'll say that again, i didn’t have a single PC crash in 3 years! no bare in mind my systems get allot of beta software and game thrown at it.
My only recommendation is that you get quality parts, not necessarily the most expensive. All my systems run corsair memory, Seagate hard drives (5 year warranty!), pioneer DVD drives, antec cases and PSU’s. As for main board i recommend, Asus, but i have good experiences with smaller companies, my current system for example is running the EQS AK72-CF which i chose having worked with EQS on previous projects, i helped design the AK72 :).
Saying all this, I have nothing against intel CPU’s but as a previously serious gamer I’ve always had an affinity with AMD.
i tried to reply to your email, but it failed? Email me directly to hokum15@hotmail.com
I'd rather not put my phone number on a public forum.
From Paul