Updating the 'puter for hardcore ownage

[DeeBye]

While it's true that AMD can't compete with Intel in the performance area, their ability to keep your power bill down still makes them worth considering for the average buyer that doesn't need a high performance machine.

Screw the electric bill - I want power :shuriken:

EDIT: After further internet research, I need to respond to this a bit more. AMD does not consume less power than the Intel dual core CPUs, especially not the newer 45nm Intel chips.

Take kandrathe's AMD X2 6000+ versus my choice of the Intel C2D E8400. I found a nice review that pits them against each other (and other dual core CPUs).

Here's the power consumption at idle and at load:



You'll see that they are pretty close at idle, but the Intel clearly wins under load.

If you look at the various benchmarks for performance, again the Intel is the winner. I'm not much of an overclocker, but again Intel is the champ in that arena right now.

The AMD CPU is less expensive, but I don't find it's that great a difference ($194.99 versus $153.00 according to newegg.com right now), and that difference in price is offset slightly if kandrathe chooses a less expensive motherboard without SLI capability.

Apologies if I come off sounding like a rabid Intel fanboy here - I'm really not and my last two system were AMD-based out of loyalty. It's just that right now there are very few AMD CPUs that aren't soundly thrashed by Intel.