AMD or Intel - Which platform should I go for?

[Dark Mantis]

I would have to agree with your findings there absic and would mirror what I thought about the two manufacturer's systems.  I think this particular offering from Intel is very value laden and am not at all surprised at your overclocking adventure. I am sure that you will take it further yet but there is plenty of time for that. Good comparison of the two platforms anyway mate! 

[Aussie Allan]

    ABSIC

   Nice to hear you're having a happy adventure.... makes the AMD/INTEL age old argument seem really petty and lame now to be sure!

   Your cooling at 4.6 seems to be well under control as well ... it's nice when all things come together .... cut your teeth on the new Intel rig and enjoy your last days of air cooling (tee hee)..... when you make the next step (2011) I don't think anyone who clocks at all will be running pure air cooling for very much longer ..... unless you're willing to shut down the PC for 10 minutes every 50 to let the bugger cool down

  Aussie Allan

[Dark Mantis]

Actually Allan I am more unsure now that the 2011 motherboards are the way to go for the general populace. They will certainly be the power platform for anyone who really needs the top perfomer but it will come at such a price and be so pointed at specific areas of computing that I wouldn't be surprised if it fell into a sort of niche market. For those who need the heavy duty number crunching platform then it will be top but I think for general use like gaming and everyday work the 1155 and IvyBridge will be the mainstream choice as long as it lives up to expectations and ships when expected. 

[Aussie Allan]

  You know DM .... Like you , I'm not to sure either ...... but the other way.

  When haven't we all lustered after the very latest chip or platform ... I know many people who think nothing of of spending 500 squid on a pair of high end graphic cards but cringe like they've been shot when spending the same amount on an Intel chip .... and why ? ... because it's Intel! ...

  Absic found out the hard way, but in a nice way that with careful critiquing and frugal spending .... there's no real difference in the price of a similar powered machine, be it AMD or Intel ..... what Intel can give you though, and always have ..... is another level above the middle class .... this time round it's the 3960X over the 3930 .... problem is, what folks concentrate on is the $1000 price tagged 3960X instead of the realistic 3930.....this will be the main stream buy for the majority .

  And why wouldn't it be .... for less then half the price of the top chip, you loose 3MB of L3 cache and 100Mhz of clock speed .....big deal...... now that's bang for buck ....and the really good news is the over-clock ceiling of both chips seem to be about the same.

  Aussie Allan

 

[Dark Mantis]

I wouldn't argue with anything you have to say there Allan it's all correct of course. Personally I wouldn't even feel comfortable paying £500 for a chip regardless of who makes it! To me about £300 is top money for a CPU. I know everyone has there own ideas on it. .....that was lucky, some of those moths almost escaped!

By the way I notice that AMD has launched their new HD7970 which is supposedly something great on 28nm etch.

[Aussie Allan]

      "By the way I notice that AMD has launched their new HD7970 which is supposedly something great on 28nm etch."

   Yeah! .... I saw that this morning! ..... pretty lack luster for such a big event ..... all they missed out on was a "Oh yeh! we released the latest GPU yesterday...... sometime.....I think!

  And as for your moths .... My Mrses worked out long ago ..."If you got moths in ya wallet .... ya got cash she didn't know about"

                                                      BUSTERED!   

  Aussie Allan

[Dark Mantis]

..................and those mothballs are bloody uncomfortable in my back pocket all the time!