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Making leap to AMD from Intel

P

Pimp20G

Weaksauce
Joined
Nov 12, 2000
Messages
76
Ok it is time for me to jump ship from intel and build an AMD based system. My current system is:

Abit IC7-G Max3
P4 2.6@2.99
1GB of Corsair PC3200 DDR
ATI X850XT AGP@555core600mem

I have a $2000 budget. I am going to reuse my Koolance PC2-601BLW case, the dvd-rom and dvd burner. Thats all that is moving over to the new system.Please criteque my purposed system and give me any suggestions on what could be better. I plan on using this system primarily for gaming but i do a lot of multitasking, frontpage, photoshop things like that.

Here it goes:
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe $194.99
AMD Opteron 170 Dual-Core 2.0GHz Processor Retail $399.00
Koolance CPU-300-H06 CPU Cooler $56.99
Koolance AMD Opteron/Athlon-64 Adapter (for CPU-200/300) $6.99
Koolance Liquid Coolant Bottle - 700cc (LIQ-700BU-B) $16.99
Corsair TWINX2048-3500LLPRO 2GB Kit DDR433 $234.00
eVGA e-GeForce 7600 GT CO PCI Express 256MB GDDR3 Video Card w/DVI-I Retail $172.99 x 2 = $345.98
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200KS 320GB Serial ATA II 7200RPM Hard Drive w/16MB Buffer $122.00
Enermax ELT620AWT Liberty 620W Power Supply Retail $169.99
I also need a new monitor:
BenQ FP93GX Black 19" 2ms LCD Monitor - Retail $259.99
Grand Total: $1806.92 + shipping which shouldn't be too much since zipzoomfly has free shipping most of the time.

What do you guys think?
 
With that setup, there are some things I'd change to free up enough money to go for 2x7900GT's instead of the 7600's

First, probably go with ddr 500 memory, G.Skill's are running great in my rig and my roomates rig right now, and I think the egg has em on sale at $165 for 2x1GB

Second, the Opteron 170's are great, but Monarch as the 165 @ $276.11 shipped with their $67 coupon and right now, they are still sending out some great oc'ers; which with ddr 500memory and your watercooling setup you could take full advantage of it.

Lastly the psu you picked is an excellent one, but if you wanted to, you could go with an OCZ Powerstream wich after rebate, is only $110 at the egg as well.

With those changes you could toss out the two 7600's and pickup some 7900GT's in sli and only be at a net price difference of about $75 initially, $50 after the rebate on the psu.
 
You've picked THE WORST time to jump ships mate....
Aside the fact that Conroe is gonna kill you "new" AMD system with no problem, you're also about to buy AMD right before their "major" price cuts. If you must jump to AMD, the choice is yours, but do yourelf a favor and wait a few more weeks for the prices to come down.
Just my $0.02

Mike
 
mzs_biteme said:
You've picked THE WORST time to jump ships mate....
Aside the fact that Conroe is gonna kill you "new" AMD system with no problem, you're also about to buy AMD right before their "major" price cuts. If you must jump to AMD, the choice is yours, but do yourelf a favor and wait a few more weeks for the prices to come down.
Just my $0.02

Mike
Click to expand...

QFT this is exactly what i was thinking. waiting for conroe to come out and to see its bench marks is worth putting your new build on hold for a few months imo.
 
As much as I hate to say it, I need to agree with the guys above. Waiting for Intel's new conroe chip will give you the best performance. In addition, it seems as though these chips will be fairly cheap when they debut.

If you still want to go with AMD, I'd wait until the price cuts. No doubt you will be able to build an excellent system for a low price at that time.
 
No point waiting till July for no tangible performance increase. Just ge it. CPU's are becoming a non issue anyway. Photoshop might see a boost, but there's no way to tell yet. The Pentium M was awesome on some thing but absolutely crappy on others. Conroe could be the same way.
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
No point waiting till July for no tangible performance increase....
Click to expand...

Hmm, Wow...!!!!
You've either been living under a rock lately or are simply a f-a-n-b-o-y... Even some of the most avid AMD users here agree that Conroe is the CPU to beat when it comes out in a FEW weeks and AMD will HAVE to lower prices to compete. Your "just buy it NOW" comment is a bad advise on so many levels :confused: :eek: :cool:

Mike
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
No point waiting till July for no tangible performance increase. Just ge it. CPU's are becoming a non issue anyway. Photoshop might see a boost, but there's no way to tell yet. The Pentium M was awesome on some thing but absolutely crappy on others. Conroe could be the same way.
Click to expand...

The CPU has to do with a lot more than Photoshop. Video encoding, folding, rendering, multitasking, etc, the list goes on. About the only place where the CPU isn't the biggest factor is gaming.

EDIT:

Besides, the system he has is plenty fast to hold on for the next month or two anyway, I am still running happy with a P4 2.4, half his ram, and an old Radeon 9500, no sense in upgrading immediately when he already has a pretty fast system.
 
Ah man you guys have me really confused now. Anyone know exactly when the price cuts are coming? And also do you guys really think Conroe will be that good?
 
sigh...as much as it pains me to say it (along with others who have)....Conroe looks to be a AMD killer...for now at least...sure most of the stuff is not on paper etc...but..so far..its not looking good.

Either way..you would benefit from waiting cos, IMO, you will either :

1) See Conroe outperform AMD chips (performance and price) and choose to go with it
2) Conroe is on par with AMD chips. So generally, prices will drop across the board allowing you to either save money or get a better set up.

thats IMO at least...
 
Pimp20G said:
Ah man you guys have me really confused now. Anyone know exactly when the price cuts are coming? And also do you guys really think Conroe will be that good?
Click to expand...

Benchmarks so far have shown AM2 showing only a slight performance increase for the current AMD lineup.

Benchmarks have also shown a stock pre-production Conroe chip destroying an overclocked FX60, even though the FX60 has several hundred more Mhz of clockspeed going for it.
 
Pimp20G said:
Ah man you guys have me really confused now. Anyone know exactly when the price cuts are coming? And also do you guys really think Conroe will be that good?
Click to expand...

Intel just cut their prices this past April. Some CPU's got slashed twice... :eek:
Anyways, AMD will "milk" their current dual-core lineup as long as possible before Conroe hits the streets. After that they'll have no choice but to lower prices. I wouldn't be surprised to see X2 3000+ going for $200 or less then. Conroe's performance was previewed at Anandtech's, and confirmed by several independent (read Lucky Bastards) sources. In short, with Conroe you're looking at 20~40% performance advantage over AMD's CPU's, and at a very low intro price. Wait just a few more weeks and HardOCP and other "major" websites will have full and official reviews of Intel's new CPU's. That'll be the time to make up your mind on which "ship" you wanna be on... ;)

Mike
 
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