Give it to me straight, Intel vs AMD

I am looking forward to building an SLi (or Crossfire) computer. First
order of things is to decide what processor to go with. I am looking at
an Intel 630 3.0 GHz socket 775, and an Asus P5ND2-SLI motherboard, and
I am also looking at an AMD 64 X2 3800+ with an Abit A8NSLI
motherboard. Now, what I am worried about is if an nVidia 6800XT will
work with AMD. Besides that, I mean, just overall, which setup is
better? And could you provide some performance charts or something to
provide me with some info (no biased opinions, please). I am building
this system to be used primarily for gaming (HL2 and Battlefield 2, and
maybe Fear), a little bit of multitasking, some music CD making, and
basics like internet browsing, MS Word, watching movies, and playing
music.

I have built 4 intel 478 computers already, and am
ready to move up to the 775. I am also considering moving to AMD, but
only if it fully compatible with all nVidia video cards. I have heard
already that they run cooler and are less expensive, but those alone
aren't convincing enough. Thanks in advance for your input

On Sun, 13 Aug 2006 15:28:07 -0700, sgtdisturbed wrote:

I am looking forward to building an SLi (or Crossfire) computer. First
order of things is to decide what processor to go with. I am looking at
an Intel 630 3.0 GHz socket 775, and an Asus P5ND2-SLI motherboard, and
I am also looking at an AMD 64 X2 3800+ with an Abit A8NSLI
motherboard. Now, what I am worried about is if an nVidia 6800XT will
work with AMD. Besides that, I mean, just overall, which setup is
better? And could you provide some performance charts or something to
provide me with some info (no biased opinions, please). I am building
this system to be used primarily for gaming (HL2 and Battlefield 2, and
maybe Fear), a little bit of multitasking, some music CD making, and
basics like internet browsing, MS Word, watching movies, and playing
music.

I have built 4 intel 478 computers already, and am
ready to move up to the 775. I am also considering moving to AMD, but
only if it fully compatible with all nVidia video cards. I have heard
already that they run cooler and are less expensive, but those alone
aren't convincing enough. Thanks in advance for your input

The processor of choice these days is the Intel E6600 or E6700, for
cheaper systems maybe a E6300. The E6300 is 1.86GHz, the E6700 is 2.66GHz,

http://www.intel.com/products/proces...ifications.htm

The new Core2 Duos are faster then the Athlon 64 X2s which in turn are
much faster then the P4s.

The motherboards for the Athlon 64s offer a lot more for the money then
the motherboards for Intel processors. The Nvidia Nforce chipsets for the
A64 motherboards have built in gigabit MACs and built in RAID controllers.
The on chip MAC also has a TCP/IP offload engine. Generally the A64
motherboards have two Gigabit controllers and a couple of SATA-II RAID
controllers plus a couple of regular SATA-II connectors. The Intel
motherboards are all using external MACs and RAID controllers and they
generally only have one gigabit controller and one RAID controller. None
of this matters to you if all you want to do is play games.

The thing that does matter is SLI vs Crossfire. There are a lot of A64 SLI
motherboards, very few Crossfire A64 boards. There are a lot of Intel
boards with Crossfire support, there is no SLI support of the Core2 Duo
yet. All this is pretty ironic given AMDs purchase of ATI.

Nvidia graphics cards will work in any PCIe motherboard, but of course of
you want SLI you'll need an SLI capable board. Like wise ATI graphics card
will work in any PCIe motherboard under Windows (their Linux drivers suck
so Linux users like me generally stick to Nvidia which has excellent Linux
support). And of course if you want Crossfire then you'll need a Crossfire
capable board which means that you'll want an Intel system.

wrote:
I am looking forward to building an SLi (or Crossfire) computer. First
order of things is to decide what processor to go with. I am looking at
an Intel 630 3.0 GHz socket 775, and an Asus P5ND2-SLI motherboard, and
I am also looking at an AMD 64 X2 3800+ with an Abit A8NSLI
motherboard. Now, what I am worried about is if an nVidia 6800XT will
work with AMD. Besides that, I mean, just overall, which setup is
better? And could you provide some performance charts or something to
provide me with some info (no biased opinions, please). I am building
this system to be used primarily for gaming (HL2 and Battlefield 2, and
maybe Fear), a little bit of multitasking, some music CD making, and
basics like internet browsing, MS Word, watching movies, and playing
music.

In fact, SLI and Nvidia cards are designed more for AMD boards than for
Intel boards. SLI is more common on AMD than on Intel platforms. That's
because the biggest maker of chipsets for AMD platforms is Nvidia, so
Nvidia designs their chipsets for SLI. ATI and Crossfire is more common
on Intel platforms. Of course this may all reverse itself now that AMD
has bought out ATI.

The Athlon X2's will be much faster than that Pentium D you're talking
about. Similarly, Intel's Core 2 Duo will be much faster than Athlon
X2's. Core 2 Duo is their new architecture which will replace Pentiums.
However, Core 2 Duo will be very hard to find for the remainder of this
year.

Yousuf Khan

wrote:
an Intel 630 3.0 GHz socket 775, and an Asus P5ND2-SLI motherboard, and
I am also looking at an AMD 64 X2 3800+ with an Abit A8NSLI
motherboard.

Pentium 4 630 or Pentium D 930? There's no eason whatsoever to get a
single-core processor these days, so the 630 is right out.

Between the Pentium D 930 and the Athlon 64 X2 3800+, the 3800+ will be
slightly faster for most uses (closest in performance to the 3.2ghz 940,
AFAICT), but the performance will be pretty close; that said, the AMD will
also be about $30 cheaper than any price I've seen on the 930, so it seems
like a no-brainer to me.

In terms of compatibility with the Nvidia video cards in SLI mode,
personally I'd go with AMD for that as well; experience among my friends for
NVidia's chipsets for Intel has been worse than experience with NVidia's
chipsets for AMD.

--
Nate Edel http://www.cubiclehermit.com/

"What's the use of yearning for Elysian Fields when you know you can't get
'em, and would only let 'em out on building leases if you had 'em?" (WSG)