MB and CPU for my new PC

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Cristiano

I need a PC mainly for integer math and I thought to use an Athlon 64 X2
5200. It's a good choice or an Intel with the same price is better?
Which MB should I buy?
I currently have a Barton 3000+, what performance should I expect from the
new CPU with respect to the Barton?

Thanks (and sorry for my English)
Cristiano
 
I need a PC mainly for integer math and I thought to use an Athlon 64 X2
5200. It's a good choice or an Intel with the same price is better?
Which MB should I buy?
I currently have a Barton 3000+, what performance should I expect from the
new CPU with respect to the Barton?

Thanks (and sorry for my English)
Cristiano
Click to expand...

Cantrary to popular belief, the Intel EM64T CPU line is a subset of
the AMD64, both in instruction set and feature depth and breadth.
Which is important in your case because it sounds like you're doing
your own programming for math applications.

I've found over the last few years that it's smarter to purchase a
system that has already gone through significant testing across a
broad customer base when it comes to 'work' machines.

It's a balance between how much time you want to spend on 'work' vs.
how much time you want to spend on futzing with your new system while
getting IT to work. You buy a system, bring it home, plug it in and
go to 'work'. You buy a bunch of pieces and it can take a friggin'
MONTH to get it to work right. And then, there's all this doubt that
while putting the <bleep>ing thing together all the swapping thing
around for a month just might have damaged something.

Buying a system in pieces generally costs a lot more also.

Also, if something goes wrong with a system, you have a lot less
hassle at the return/support counter than you do with pieces. They're
always looking at you like you plugged something in backwards when you
return a piece, which is generally quite often TRUE.

I feel that building your own system these days is more for gamers,
tweakers, and masochists.

ymmv
 
Infinicat said:
I've found over the last few years that it's smarter to purchase a
system that has already gone through significant testing across a
broad customer base when it comes to 'work' machines.
Click to expand...

For the basic home user, yes. However someone who needs something very
specific it seems to me that they will be wasting money on components that
they do not really need.
It's a balance between how much time you want to spend on 'work' vs.
how much time you want to spend on futzing with your new system while
getting IT to work. You buy a system, bring it home, plug it in and
go to 'work'. You buy a bunch of pieces and it can take a friggin'
MONTH to get it to work right. And then, there's all this doubt that
while putting the <bleep>ing thing together all the swapping thing
around for a month just might have damaged something.
Click to expand...

I find that to be untrue as well being that you must spend countless hours
and days uninstalling the useless crap that HP, Gateway, etc put on a new
PC. Who the hell needs 37 IM programs, 12 virus programs that expire in one
month after activation however continue to load at startup even after their
trial period has ended, Wild Tangent, or my favorite; a program that loaded
on startup on my 2005 HP that let me know when I inserted a memory card.
(number one, windows lets me know that. number two, I just put the card in
the PC, if I forgot that fact only 10 seconds later I have bigger things to
worry about.) Then after you uninstall all these useless apps Windows
becomes impossibly unstable. The restore disk is useless because in just
returns all that crap to the front lines.
Buying a system in pieces generally costs a lot more also.
Click to expand...

It can be cheaper, however requires A LOT of shopping.
Also, if something goes wrong with a system, you have a lot less
hassle at the return/support counter than you do with pieces. They're
always looking at you like you plugged something in backwards when you
return a piece, which is generally quite often TRUE.
Click to expand...

I agree, except if you plan on upgrading down the road. The OEM blames all
problems on the new fan you put in, not the fact they build systems faster
then McDonalds prepares BigMacs.
I feel that building your own system these days is more for gamers,
tweakers, and masochists.
Click to expand...

Masochists, the people who willing call tech support that is routed to
India. I find that most good component manufactures have US and Canadian
support unlike most of PC manufactures. This is a real bonus to me, I can
call the people who know their products and not be told to F-off and call
HP/Gateway/etc support personal who have trouble spelling "retart the unit"
or ask me "is the PC turned on" after I tell them I am receiving a error
message.
ymmv
Click to expand...

36 highway, 28 city

___________
WooHoo2You
 
Cristiano said:
I need a PC mainly for integer math and I thought to use an Athlon 64 X2
5200. It's a good choice or an Intel with the same price is better?
Which MB should I buy?
I currently have a Barton 3000+, what performance should I expect from the
new CPU with respect to the Barton?

Thanks (and sorry for my English)
Cristiano
Click to expand...

There is a performance table here:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=432&model2=465&chart=158

The FX-70, FX-72, FX-74 at the top of the chart, are the "quad-father"
configuration (dual socket, dual core). QX6700 is an Intel quad core.

The Sandra benchmark takes both cores of a dual core into account. You
have to divide the number by two, to get the performance of a single
core (if you were comparing to Pentium 4 670 for example).

The closest thing on the chart, to your 5200+, is the 5000+.

Paul
 
WooHoo2You said:
For the basic home user, yes. However someone who needs something
very specific it seems to me that they will be wasting money on
components that they do not really need.
Click to expand...

As if OEMs throw in extra hardware.

I mean extra besides the "$8,000 worth of software".
I find that to be untrue
Click to expand...

Maybe exaggerated.
as well being that you must spend
countless hours and days uninstalling the useless crap that HP,
Gateway, etc put on a new PC.
Click to expand...

Also exaggerated.

Some enjoy getting rid of junk software. Some users even write
scripts that will remove junk software. And you can probably find a
way to install Windows without the junk.
It can be cheaper, however requires A LOT of shopping.
Click to expand...

Maybe, with a lot of shopping over a period of a few years, and
waiting months for rebates that never come.
 
There is a performance table here:

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=432&model2=46...

The FX-70, FX-72, FX-74 at the top of the chart, are the "quad-father"
configuration (dual socket, dual core). QX6700 is an Intel quad core.

The Sandra benchmark takes both cores of a dual core into account. You
have to divide the number by two, to get the performance of a single
core (if you were comparing to Pentium 4 670 for example).

The closest thing on the chart, to your 5200+, is the 5000+.

Paul
Click to expand...

Strange how the "multimedia" float and integer results are so
different from the "memory" float and integer results.
 
Thanks for posting my headers, I really think it adds a lot to the topic.
(bandwidth) Here is a neat idea, make a "script" that will automatically
reply with headers to every new post.

___________
WooHoo2You
 
Thank you very much!
Cristiano
Click to expand...

LOL. Tom's website is an INTEL whore ;) I was looking for a
benchmark that AMD64s do well at in number crunching and I notice
it's not on his list of selectable benchmarks. Not surprising.

AMD athlon64 cpu's are pretty good at number crunching. It's one
area they are competitive with the newer Intel core2duo cpu's.

I suppose the real clincher is what software you want to use.
However, you might want to consider what graphics card you choose as
the ATI graphics cards are being used for Math applications now as
math co-processors of a sort. When used to their greatest
advantage, they blow away the math capabilities of intel and amd
CPUs.

http://www.gridtoday.com/grid/944852.html
 
LOL. Tom's website is an INTEL whore ;) I was looking for a
benchmark that AMD64s do well at in number crunching and I notice
it's not on his list of selectable benchmarks. Not surprising.
Click to expand...

How could anybody be an Intel whore, at the moment? It's not possible to
over-state Intel's advantage over AMD, at the moment.
AMD athlon64 cpu's are pretty good at number crunching. It's one
area they are competitive with the newer Intel core2duo cpu's.
Click to expand...

I'll take your word on that one. But in just about every other benchmark,
Intel has a clear advantage. At the moment
I suppose the real clincher is what software you want to use.
However, you might want to consider what graphics card you choose as
the ATI graphics cards are being used for Math applications now as
math co-processors of a sort. When used to their greatest
advantage, they blow away the math capabilities of intel and amd
CPUs.
Click to expand...

Not surprising. GPUs are so powerful that within ten years (likely), one of
2 things is going to happen:
1) The video card, as we currently know it, will cease to exist. You will
buy a GPU, slap it onto a mainboard, and it will act as a CPU AND GPU, with
no separate video card required.

2) The CPU, as we currently know it, will cease to exist. You will buy a
video card, and all CPU functions will be farmed out to the GPU on the video
card.

This is going to happen, as GPUs are getting to be SO fast that they can
handle ALL functions of the CPU (and all their normal GPU functions, as
well) without seeming to slow down, at all. We're already at a point,
technology-wise, where the CPU is redundant. It's literally NOT needed.
All someone has to do is create a chipset to allow the GPU to handle all CPU
functions. You were perhaps wondering why AMD bought ATI? Now you know.
It was a brilliant business move. ATI makes very powerful GPUs AND makes
very powerful chipsets. In order for AMD to survive, they had to get into
GPU *and* chipset manufacturing, in a big way. They did this by buying
their way into both, with the purchase of ATI. Now ATI and AMD can join
forces to create a combination GPU/CPU, and the chipset to support that
puppy. It's happening. We'll see it. Soon. Expect Intel to follow suit.
Maybe next we'll hear of Intel buying nvidia? I'd be shocked if we do NOT
hear of that merger soon. It makes perfect sense, even though intel is
SOMEWHAT in the GPU business already. Fact is, Intel will not be able to
compete with AMD/ATI in the long run (without help from nvidia), even though
Intel is currently kicking AMD's ass. -Dave
 
sleazoidacuss said:
LOL. Tom's website is an INTEL whore ;)
Click to expand...

I didn't know. :-)
AMD athlon64 cpu's are pretty good at number crunching. It's one
area they are competitive with the newer Intel core2duo cpu's.
Click to expand...

I think the same; my Athlon 3000+ is very good.

Here, in Italy, we have that the E6400 has about the same price of the X2
5200+ (220 E), but in that link there is the X2 5000+ which cost 190 E like
the E6300 which is not in the link. :-(
Interpolating Tom's graph, we can say that with the integer numbers, Intel
and AMD are the same, but unfortunately, Core2duo seems better than X2 in
many other areas.
I suppose the real clincher is what software you want to use.
Click to expand...

I use the program that I wrote.

Cristiano
 
LOL. Tom's website is an INTEL whore ;) I was looking for a
benchmark that AMD64s do well at in number crunching and I notice
it's not on his list of selectable benchmarks. Not surprising.

AMD athlon64 cpu's are pretty good at number crunching. It's one
area they are competitive with the newer Intel core2duo cpu's.

I suppose the real clincher is what software you want to use.
However, you might want to consider what graphics card you choose as
the ATI graphics cards are being used for Math applications now as
math co-processors of a sort. When used to their greatest
advantage, they blow away the math capabilities of intel and amd
CPUs.

http://www.gridtoday.com/grid/944852.html
Click to expand...

also see

http://www.tgdaily.com/2007/02/16/nvidia_cuda/

nvidia's cheap tech will be upgraded later this year for better
precision.
 
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