Cheap Quad cores compared

[LiamC]

Just in case you missed it


http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2quad-q9400.html

And unless you're running the latest and greatest, selected software, the Q6600 still looks awesome performance wise...

 

[Mercutio]

The AMD's numbers are pretty sad, but I'd still say there's value to be had in AMD-land. It's just not found in their top-end chips, which is the only thing being tested in the article. You can buy a decent AMD motherboard + one of the lower-range quad (9300) or three core Phenoms, for less than what a Q6600 costs.

As much as we want to whine about how "slow" Phenoms are, they are still fast compare to anything pre-multicore and a sizable portion of Intel's price-competitive lineup (E2180s etc).

 

[ddrueding]

I'm still running a Q6600 at home @3Ghz and it is a great chip. Though the Q9550 @ 3.6Ghz at the office is appreciably better in CS4, XviD encoding, and games.

 

[Howell]

You can buy a decent AMD motherboard + one of the lower-range quad (9300) or three core Phenoms, for less than what a Q6600 costs.

Merc, can you recommend a specific MB. Also, I can't find that proc you mentioned for sale anywhere.

 

[ddrueding]

Here is the low-end three-core Phenom.

 

[Mercutio]

Merc, can you recommend a specific MB. Also, I can't find that proc you mentioned for sale anywhere.

Apparently I typed 9300. I meant the 9600. I've gotten them for $115. I pair them with Gigabyte motherboards that have a 780G chipset (uh... GA-MA78GM-S2H). Total cost is about $185 as I recall. If I didn't want the nice onboard graphics I'd probably just buy the cheapest Gigabyte board with an AMD chipset I could find.