Dual Cores

[tommyt]

Any preference AMD vs. Intel?

I'm going to start dual boxing soon, and want to be sure the computer I build is as fast as possible for the money.

I plan on running 3 accounts, which processor tends to perform better for the money?

Thanks in advance!

-Tom

[Contents]

For the money, a dual core would work for you, but quad core-s arn't that much more. So you may just want to go high end with your processor and mobo.

Now I'm an AMD fanboy, so I'm going to suggest AMD. However, we have had this discussion before and it really seems that the newer Intel and AMD's are about the same. They both have minor pro's and con's. Pick whichever one you can get a better deal on.

But for a video card get something good. Mid 8 series nvidia should be pretty good. You won't need it for only 3 WoW's, but it will be able to handle anything for some time to come.

[Djarid]

I am also an AMD fan and I am going to disagree with Contents. Unless you are looking at going FX / Opteron then get an Intel... unfortunately AMD have lost the plot a little at the minute. They are struggling in the home market right now probably due to their rapid expansion / acquisitions.

[tommyt]

Thanks for the reply.

I have a 7x something series at the moment with 256 megs of ram, sounds like I might as well upgrade it at the same time? or will it last me for a little bit?

(I plan to run 2 monitors, one large for the main and the alts to the side)

Thanks!

[Contents]

well if your card doesn't have to outputs (VGA / DVI) then you're going to have to get a new one, but for the time being you should be able to get away with your card. Worst case you may have low FPS. But for leveling high FPs really isn't that big of a deal. Just go make dinner and watch a movie while loading ogrimmar.

And as far as AMD's expansion I hadn't heard anything about that. I just know that I've never had any problems with AMD.

[ITAvenger]

AMD is in the rebuilding phase right now. They've openly admitted that they paid too much to buy ATI. Which was a horrible decision in my opinion. Why would a chip maker that has a small portion of the processor market shackle themselves to a GPU maker that's just lost a good chunk of the videocard market?

The latest article I read had the CEO making questionable decisions and the COO as a potential successor. So there may be yet another blow to the company coming.

They've gotten stomped performance-wise by Intel for the past year. Power per dollar the way to go right now is with Intel. Also the Core 2 duo are less power hungry than the latest 2 and 4 core AMD chips.

I really hope AMD can recover. It was great when the Athlon first came out and it was kicking the crap out of the Pentium lineup. Competition brings out innovation and that's always a good thing.

[Bollwerk]

I'm not a fanboy of either. Currently, Intel chips perform faster in most game benchmarks, but AMD chips are a llittle cheaper. I'd recommend Intel if you don't mind paying a little more, but if you are really tight on cash, AMD is fine. The differences aren't all that big. Just check out some benchmark charts on places like Tom's Hardware, then check prices.