1mb cache or 2mb CPU question

[mr soft]

Hi
I´m looking at a new cpu, and wondering about the benefits of 1mb cache or 2mb.
Here are the two I´m looking at.

http://www.appinformatica.com/procesadores-micro-amd-am2-x2-4.200-64bits-box.php

http://www.appinformatica.com/procesadores-micro-intel-core-2-duo-e4500-box-2mb.php

Should the the difference in bus speed also be taken into account?

I heard that amd´s are essentially for gaming and intel for numbers crunching. I mainly use my PC for encoding music and vids.

Any advice appreciated.

[Dark Shikari]

Hi
I´m looking at a new cpu, and wondering about the benefits of 1mb cache or 2mb.
Here are the two I´m looking at.

http://www.appinformatica.com/procesadores-micro-amd-am2-x2-4.200-64bits-box.php

http://www.appinformatica.com/procesadores-micro-intel-core-2-duo-e4500-box-2mb.php

Should the the difference in bus speed also be taken into account?

I heard that amd´s are essentially for gaming and intel for numbers crunching. I mainly use my PC for encoding music and vids.

Any advice appreciated.For both gaming and number crunching, the Core 2 Duos wipe the floor with the Athlon 64s. Your point was only true with the Pentium 4s, which other than their ability to do extremely well in certain calculations were otherwise completely useless.

[DJ Bobo]

@ mr soft
These processors are not comparable.
The AMD 4200+ costs about 75 €, where the Intel E4500 costs about 115 € boxed.

To get a fair comparison, you'll have to compare the E4500 with the Athlon X2 5200+ (~105 € for the Brisbane boxed version).

You may consider the AMD 5000+ Black Edition, which costs about 100 € (without fan) and has an open multiplier, whichs enables it to easily overclock to 6200+ (without changing anything else but the multiplier to 15.5) which is comparable to an E6420 for XviD or DivX encoding, and to an E6700 for H.264 or MP3 encoding!

[mr soft]

Thanks for the replys

QUOTE]Your point was only true with the Pentium 4s[/QUOTE]

Yeh it´s been a while since I went shopping for CPU´s. :)

These processors are not comparable.
I only put those two up because they were similar CPU´s with different cache sizes. (which I read would only be noticed in gaming) I had a look at that black edition it looks very nice for the $. but I´m having trouble sourcing it.The amd x2 5200 is at my local store for 115. It looks very similar, specs wise, just larger cache size. However it´s running 90nm. I can also find the x2 5000 non black edition for 105 euro with 65nm .


I was looking at this MB for it to sit on
http://www.appinformatica.com/placas-base-amd-gigabyte-m56s-s3-atx-am2.php

[DJ Bobo]

The larger cache has almost no impact on encoding performance (0 to 4% difference, depending on the codec), so you could grab the 5000+ Brisbane instead of the 5200+ Windsor.
But try to get hold of that Black Edition. Ask at your store wether they could get it for you, it's just best value for money.

That Gigabyte motherboard looks perfectly fine to me. Several reviews state that it's very stable. And you can even upgrade to the Phenom quad-core CPU later if you want. The Gigabyte site states that it supports these processors.

[swaaye]

Depending on which codec you want to encode with, the Intel Core 2 chips will range from somewhat faster to much faster per clock rate than an Athlon 64 X2. But yeah, AMD does have some nice prices that make up for their lack of competitiveness. Cache size on Core 2 CPUs doesn't begin to really impede speed until you get down to the 1 MB and 512 KB CPUs such as the Pentium Dual Core and new Celerons.

Core 2 Quad chips also outperform the Phenom X4 by a decent margin per clock, btw. Phenom X4 is going to be faster than a Core 2 Duo though.

[mr soft]

Ivé found a couple dotted throughout different countries. Not easy to find. My local shop is looking into it also. I´ll let you know how I get on. Are all the black editions the Brisbane, or are there some Windsors mixed in?
Thanks a lot for the reassurance on the MB. The´re so cheap at the moment. I´ve gone from 754 to 939 ,and now looking at that am2. It´s refreshing that the Phenom won´t need the mandatory platform update. The extra pci slots are a plus, most MB´s seem to be shipping with only two.
I did look at the Intel´s, but bang for bucks the amd´s keep getting my attention. The whole rebuild should be about 210 euros. 230 if I go for the hyperx ram.
x2 am2 5000 (105 euros) Black edition (101 euros)
gigabyte m56s-s3 atx am2 (65 euros)
Kingston 2 gig pc 800 (42 euros) HIPERX 2gig pc 800 (62 euros)

[DJ Bobo]

There are 2 black editions:
The 5000+ which is Brisbane
The 6400+ which is Windsor (~160€).

So as long as you stick to 5000+ Black Edition, you'll get the Brisbane core.

Good luck!

[blizard]

Depending on which codec you want to encode with, the Intel Core 2 chips will range from somewhat faster to much faster per clock rate than an Athlon 64 X2. But yeah, AMD does have some nice prices that make up for their lack of competitiveness. Cache size on Core 2 CPUs doesn't begin to really impede speed until you get down to the 1 MB and 512 KB CPUs such as the Pentium Dual Core and new Celerons.

Core 2 Quad chips also outperform the Phenom X4 by a decent margin per clock, btw. Phenom X4 is going to be faster than a Core 2 Duo though.

When you start talk about AMDs Phenom you should make clear which Phenom you talk about as there is three out on market of today and there will be in the near future many more, both quad, tri and even some dual core from Phenom core. If you would compare Athlon X2 against Phenom you would see that Phenom have a better clock by clock performance, but in application where there is no SMP then a dual core will win for time being.

Phenom X4 9500@2200
Phenom X4 9600@2300 (also in a Black Edition version)


There are 2 black editions:
The 5000+ which is Brisbane
The 6400+ which is Windsor (~160€).

So as long as you stick to 5000+ Black Edition, you'll get the Brisbane core.

Good luck!

Phenom X4@2200 against Athlon X2 6400+ will be very near in performance, but for H.264 which is SMP enabled there will be better to use X4 then raw clock speed.

A C2Q is faster as for now if you look to Q6600@2400 against Phenom X4 from 2200 and 2300 MHz that I have listed. But when you start to look at cost you will see that Phenom can be found cheaper, so I would say they are even. For Intel there is only Q6600 in that range and then it is a large jump on Quad side in price.

Someone claimed that you could use any motherboard that have AM2 and install a Phenom. That is not the case as most hardware forum have had reports of some luck and some other that will not even boot without a BIOS update and still have some problem depending on quality from MB vendor and what kind of BIOS support there is. Safest is it to go for AM2+ (with support for split power plane for CnQ2, PCI express 2 gen and HTT 3.0) chipset and a motherboard that is official made to be used for Phenom to avoid problem. Older AM2 might or might not work.

[dragongodz]

For both gaming and number crunching, the Core 2 Duos wipe the floor with the Athlon 64s.

bull.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3112&p=9

now that doesnt have the 5200+, which is still cheaper than the e4500, but it does have the 5000+. so you can take the figures for that and up them a tiny amount.

depending on program the 5000+ does very well against the e4500 only being a little slower. not bad considering it is cheaper.

and for games

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3112&p=11

again the speed of the 5000+ is a little slower but it has not been "wiped the floor" as you say.