More Chip For Your Scrip: AMD And the Budget Build
With all the excitement over Intel's upcoming Core i5 line, now would seem to be a strange time to think about building a computer. And if your budget is around the $1000 mark, it is; wait a few months for the latest and greatest from Intel and get your money's worth then.
But if you're on a tight budget, and I'm talking less than $300 here, read on: now is the perfect time to build yourself a zippy little computer, and longtime underdog AMD is the company to help you do it.
Intel has been neglecting its low end somewhat, and with all the hype over Westmere, Lynnfield, and Nehalem, less attention than usual has been paid to the sub-$100 CPU segment. This is not to say that the offerings at that price point are bad, far from it. But those chips are only good because they are, let's face it, die-harvested Core 2 Duos. The low end is in serious need of fresh air.
Enter AMD's Athlon II X2 series, codenamed "Regor." This core is an interesting beast: it's not a reclaimed Phenom II, but an entirely separate die design with 1 MB L2 cache per core but no L3. It comes in 2.8, 2.9, and 3.0 GHz speeds (240, 245, and 250 respectively). And it's aimed directly at Intel's Pentium Dual-Core line, undercutting it by $5-10 in most cases and delivering far better performance almost across the board.
Put another way: how would you like the equivalent of a Core 2 Duo E7300 for $80? Yeah, I thought so.
That's no exaggeration: benchmarks show the 250 falling somewhere between the Pentium Dual Core E6300 and Core 2 Duo E7300 for most tasks, except in a few multimedia and gaming benches where it actually exceeds the E7300. Not bad for an $80 chip, and its siblings are even cheaper.
Of course, a budget build relies on more than just a cheap CPU. Ideally, you want as much as you can integrated into the motherboard, and this is where Intel really falls down. While the CPU performance is fairly close dollar for dollar, the difference between, say, a $50 G33 Intel motherboard and a $50 780G AMD board is like night and day.
Why? Basically, graphics. Gigabit LAN, Serial ATA 3Gb/s, and 2-4 RAM slots are more or less standard now, but the X3100 and 4500HD IGPs found on budget Intel boards can't hold a candle to the Radeon HD 3xxx and 4xxx series commonly found on AMD boards in the same price range. Yes, Intel IGPs are enough to play HD content, but why not get something stronger for the same money?
Bear in mind Intel is phasing out Socket 775, while Socket AM3 (and AM2+!) will probably be around a good long while and provides an upgrade path. The compatibility is also useful, letting you reuse your DDR2 RAM and plug newer CPUs into older motherboards. At this point, at the low end there is no reason to go Intel unless you have a spare video card sitting around or the machine really is only going to be used for IM and Youtube, and if that's the case, save even more money and get a Celeron 430 and be done with it.
But if you're on a tight budget, and I'm talking less than $300 here, read on: now is the perfect time to build yourself a zippy little computer, and longtime underdog AMD is the company to help you do it.
Intel has been neglecting its low end somewhat, and with all the hype over Westmere, Lynnfield, and Nehalem, less attention than usual has been paid to the sub-$100 CPU segment. This is not to say that the offerings at that price point are bad, far from it. But those chips are only good because they are, let's face it, die-harvested Core 2 Duos. The low end is in serious need of fresh air.
Enter AMD's Athlon II X2 series, codenamed "Regor." This core is an interesting beast: it's not a reclaimed Phenom II, but an entirely separate die design with 1 MB L2 cache per core but no L3. It comes in 2.8, 2.9, and 3.0 GHz speeds (240, 245, and 250 respectively). And it's aimed directly at Intel's Pentium Dual-Core line, undercutting it by $5-10 in most cases and delivering far better performance almost across the board.
Put another way: how would you like the equivalent of a Core 2 Duo E7300 for $80? Yeah, I thought so.
That's no exaggeration: benchmarks show the 250 falling somewhere between the Pentium Dual Core E6300 and Core 2 Duo E7300 for most tasks, except in a few multimedia and gaming benches where it actually exceeds the E7300. Not bad for an $80 chip, and its siblings are even cheaper.
Of course, a budget build relies on more than just a cheap CPU. Ideally, you want as much as you can integrated into the motherboard, and this is where Intel really falls down. While the CPU performance is fairly close dollar for dollar, the difference between, say, a $50 G33 Intel motherboard and a $50 780G AMD board is like night and day.
Why? Basically, graphics. Gigabit LAN, Serial ATA 3Gb/s, and 2-4 RAM slots are more or less standard now, but the X3100 and 4500HD IGPs found on budget Intel boards can't hold a candle to the Radeon HD 3xxx and 4xxx series commonly found on AMD boards in the same price range. Yes, Intel IGPs are enough to play HD content, but why not get something stronger for the same money?
Bear in mind Intel is phasing out Socket 775, while Socket AM3 (and AM2+!) will probably be around a good long while and provides an upgrade path. The compatibility is also useful, letting you reuse your DDR2 RAM and plug newer CPUs into older motherboards. At this point, at the low end there is no reason to go Intel unless you have a spare video card sitting around or the machine really is only going to be used for IM and Youtube, and if that's the case, save even more money and get a Celeron 430 and be done with it.