Small laptop

**cpjust** · 12-07-2008

For me it was a toss up between AMD and Intel.
The only reason why Intel won that toss was because I couldn't find the motherboard I wanted when I was specing out my system.
Here's what I ended up getting (11 months ago):

Asus P5K3 Deluxe motherboard: $238.99
Intel Q6600 Quad Core 2.4GHz: $259.97
OCZ Gold DDR3-1333 (9-9-9-26) 2 x 1GB: $255.99
Asus EN8600GT 512MB DDR3 nVidia video card: $160.99
3 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB hard drives: $383.97
Ultra Chilltec CPU cooler: $158.99
Ultra 500W X-Finity Power Supply: $73.99
Antec Nine Hundred mid tower case: $101.99

Which cost me over $1900 after tax.

I was going for I/O bandwidth more than CPU speed.

**Elysia** · 12-07-2008

You could save a great deal on the motherboard. And have you looked at the Phenom CPUs (quad)? The cheapest costs about $100 or so, not exactly sure, but greatly cheaper than Intel's.
The memory is also severely overpriced. You can get 4 GB for $50 or below nowadays.
A CPU cooler for $160!?!?!?! What the heck did you do? A cooler does not cost that much! You could save huge there.
You also got a moderately expensive case... you could have gotten a little cheaper one, there, I think.

How much could you have saved? I'm guessing about... $138.99 (at least) + $129.97 (CPU) + $205.99 (memory) + $108.99 (cooler) + $51.99 (case) = $635.93.

And I put in some savings here and there, I can get it down to a paltry ~$400-$500 for a gaming machine.

**SlyMaelstrom** · 12-07-2008

Originally Posted by Elysia

You could save a great deal on the motherboard. And have you looked at the Phenom CPUs (quad)? The cheapest costs about $100 or so, not exactly sure, but greatly cheaper than Intel's.
The memory is also severely overpriced. You can get 4 GB for $50 or below nowadays.
A CPU cooler for $160!?!?!?! What the heck did you do? A cooler does not cost that much!

These are 11 month old prices. ... and there is no place where you can get a decent brand of 2GB (let alone the 4GB that you suggested) of DDR3 RAM for $50. Even today. That particular kit is still $80 in most places.

Yeah, you didn't need that TEC cooler. Personally, among hardware enthusiasts, Ultra products are considered pretty lousy. Kind of like Thermaltake. The Chilltec doesn't perform as well as the Thermalright Ultra 120 with some decent fans and it costs half the price you paid. Also, Ultra power supplies tend to be a joke as far as efficiency goes... just be careful it doesn't pop on you in the next few months.

**cpjust** · 12-07-2008

Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom

Yeah, you didn't need that TEC cooler. Personally, among hardware enthusiasts, Ultra products are considered pretty lousy. Kind of like Thermaltake. The Chilltec doesn't perform as well as the Thermalright Ultra 120 with some decent fans and it costs half the price you paid. Also, Ultra power supplies tend to be a joke as far as efficiency goes... just be careful it doesn't pop on you in the next few months.

I know I don't really need the Chilltec. I could have gotten a much cheaper one, but it just looked so cool with the temperature display on the front of the case, I couldn't resist.

BTW, my CPU never gets above 27C and most of the time stays around 23-24C! So I'd say it's working pretty damn good.

As for the case, it's big (so it's easier to get your hands in there), it has lots of fans (which I probably need with 3 hard drives), and it looks cool.

**Elysia** · 12-07-2008

Meh, I get 30-35 on stock.

**cyberfish** · 12-07-2008

But AMD kicked Intel's processor back in the AMD64 days, and I have always been an AMD fan, so I refuse to go with Core 2 Duo for desktop

hehe. I have no brand loyalty.

The first computer I built myself is this one (C2D). I gave fair consideration to both sides... and it was fairly clear Intel was winning.

Sure overclocking = more power... but 3.5ghz vs 1.86ghz... that's almost doubling in speed. (only had to raise the voltage a little over stock. it could do 0.9V at stock frequency)

The newer 45nm ones can go up to 4.0ghz easily.

I cannot thank AMD enough, though. They are who keep Intel prices reasonable

we don't need another Micro$oft.

I still have hopes in AMD. They made the first native quad-core, after all. They made the first HyperTransport, after all.
And now Intel realizes that it's a good design and creates their own equivalent technology.

Intel started x86

.

Everyone keeps mentioning Core 2 everywhere. And except for laptops, I have never owned a Core 2. I stick with AMD's processors, which are generally cheaper. And up until Core 2, also better in terms of performance.

A Core 2-based dual core Celeron (E5x00?) can be overclocked to almost 4ghz easily. They cost $50

. What does AMD offer in that price range?

You gotta tell me where you shop, because I'd expect to pay at least 2 or 3 times the price for most of that stuff. 4GB RAM for $50? 250 GB HD for $50??

I shop at NCIX. They are perfect because they do pricematches (all my requests so far have been accepted). I would look online for random no name online shops that I would worry buying from (but have lower prices), and tell NCIX to pricematch that

. They have wicked memory sales once in a while (like $20 for 2GB 800mhz CAS 4 after rebate). $50 for HD I pulled out of thin air =P. It's from an old machine, so I don't remember.

**Elysia** · 12-07-2008

Dude, you should know Celerons are very, very poor. I don't care how "overclockable" they are, they are an eyesore.
AMD invented x86-64...

Unfortunately, I don't keep tabs on that market very much. I'm waiting for some energy efficient Phenom2s for an attractive price.

**cyberfish** · 12-07-2008

Sure, they have a smaller L2 than regular Core 2's.

What else?

**Elysia** · 12-07-2008

They an old "budget" version, of PentiumX, I believe (replace X with 3 or 4, don't remember).
So they are much inferior to Core 2 and Athlon64 and Phenom 1 & 2.

**cyberfish** · 12-07-2008

I mean the newer Celerons that came out a few months ago, based on the Core 2 architecture.

Intel reuses the name Celeron over and over, just like how AMD reuses Athlon.

(I think I remembered the numbers wrong, they are E1x00 not E5x00, which are Pentium Dual-Core's)

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...ron-e1200.html

So I also wrong assumed that they are 45nm. They are actually 65nm, and can "only" be overclocked to just over 3ghz.

**Elysia** · 12-07-2008

Well, at least AMD is clever enough to rename them slightly, such as Athlon, Athlon XP, Athlon 64 instead of just keeping "Celeron."
And it's a budget CPU that is inferior to the real thing, that much I know.

**cyberfish** · 12-07-2008

It's about price/performance for me.

Sure it's not as good as the real thing, but it costs 30% the price of the real thing, too, and at 3ghz... it's surely not slow.

**Elysia** · 12-07-2008

I'm too tired to look up benchmarks to see who of us is right...
So I'll just say: whatever you say...

**SlyMaelstrom** · 12-07-2008

Originally Posted by Elysia

I'm too tired to look up benchmarks to see who of us is right...
So I'll just say: whatever you say...

The Celeron performs just fine at higher clock speeds. The architecture is identical to the Core 2 architecture, the difference being the size of the L2 cache which is significantly smaller on the Celeron processors. It also lacks some of the Intel's more popular features like SpeedStep. From a price-to-performance ratio, however, the modern Celerons are just as good as any Core 2 chip. Newegg.com, right now, is selling the Celeron 430 1.8GHz Dual-Core for $39.99 in retail packaging. Without even overclocking, a simple pin-mod can knock that up to 2.45GHz... and from there it can still easily be overclocked to 2.8GHz. ... and trust me, it will exceed the performance requirements of most users.