Currently, the Intel chips - especially their newest release, Sandy Bridge - are faster and more power-efficient. At around the $200 mark, AMD currently has no competition for Intel's Sandy Bridge quad-cores. Lower down in the price spectrum (around $100) AMD puts up more of a fight, though, since AMD's low-end pricing has always tended to be rather aggressive.
To be fair, though, that lower price spectrum is ideal for people who don't need to perform crazy cpu-intensive tasks. That even includes people who do pretty crazy gaming - you can get decent FPSes on high-end games with even a sub-$100 AMD. For someone like Axel, though, who's likely gonna be compiling up a storm on this thing, likely worth it to drop the extra hundred or so on the Sandy Bridge.
To be fair, though, that lower price spectrum is ideal for people who don't need to perform crazy cpu-intensive tasks. That even includes people who do pretty crazy gaming - you can get decent FPSes on high-end games with even a sub-$100 AMD
True enough; although the Core i3-2100 is a faster gaming CPU than most of AMD's offerings around that price, Intel doesn't really have anything at around $80, which is a significant price difference.
For someone like Axel, though, who's likely gonna be compiling up a storm on this thing, likely worth it to drop the extra hundred or so on the Sandy Bridge.
He was saying he'd be doing stuff like 3D animation, which justifies it even more.
For someone like Axel, though, who's likely gonna be compiling up a storm on this thing, likely worth it to drop the extra hundred or so on the Sandy Bridge.
He was saying he'd be doing stuff like 3D animation, which justifies it even more.
2D, 3D, C++ (eventually) and C#...Yeah, I want super-powers. The mobo is being returned and refunded. New one has been ordered. Hopefully I'll get it Monday (I payed for next-day shipping). I should be able to get back to where I was in my build fairly quickly, but I basically only needed to hook up the CPU, hook up the HDD, and put in my DVD drive. And probably plug stuff in internally, but that didn't seem like it was gonna take all that long.
That even includes people who do pretty crazy gaming - you can get decent FPSes on high-end games with even a sub-$100 AMD
It's true. I have an AMD in my machine I can run pretty much any modern game at Maximum settings - even the latest crysis 2 patch - and get perfectly acceptable framerates. Then again, take that with a grain of salt, because I'm not one of those people who freaks the fuck out because I'm getting 58 FPS instead of 60.
The CPU cooler can be really weird and difficult to get all the pushpins in. Make sure you get them all in securely and if you mess it up and have to take it off, you may want to re-apply the thermal paste. My CPU overheated a few times while trying to work this out.
The CPU cooler can be really weird and difficult to get all the pushpins in. Make sure you get them all in securely and if you mess it up and have to take it off, you may want to re-apply the thermal paste. My CPU overheated a few times while trying to work this out.
The CPU should drop right into the slot nice and easy. you shouldn't have to force anything. If you are trying to force something very strongly, you are probably going to break something.
The CPU cooler can be really weird and difficult to get all the pushpins in. Make sure you get them all in securely and if you mess it up and have to take it off, you may want to re-apply the thermal paste. My CPU overheated a few times while trying to work this out.
Mine has pre-applied thermal paste, and I don't own any of my own... Time to not mess it up the first time!
I never add extra thermal paste. I just stick on the default cooler that comes with the CPU that has a strip of thermal paste on the bottom. Never been a problem.
I never add extra thermal paste. I just stick on the default cooler that comes with the CPU that has a strip of thermal paste on the bottom. Never been a problem.
Yes, but Pegu is talking about setting the pins. They do sometimes require more force than it initially seems to properly set the cooler.
I also don't bother with custom coolers with modern CPUs, but there are a couple reasons to do so if you want (overclocking or silent computing being the two ends of the spectrum generally).
Monoprice for Cables ++.
Personally I've become fond of Asus Mobos. I've had to work with four or so other brands (intel, gigabyte, asrock, msi), and while Asus mobos are ~$10-$20 more they are pretty feature rich and there seems to be more love in the bios.
As people have said, monitors are a longer term investment, so you're better off spending dollars there than on any other component. A good monitor will last you through three to five system builds most likely. That said, depending on your use-case a TN panel is not the cardinal sin some people make it out to be. They're cheap. If you need cheap, they make some pretty good TNs for cheap.
Graphics cards... I always try to talk people down on the expenses. $100-$200 today is fine for most use cases. And you can pocket that extra $100 difference for an upgrade in two years which will buy you something reasonable then. Obvious, if your use case is more "extreme", go for it. People fight wars over the brands. I'm not even touching it. There are a couple I stay away from, PowerColor comes to mind.
Power Supplies and Memory are two areas where I do end up following major brands. Corsair/Seagate/Antec have worked for me in the power supply department, but I'm obviously open to others. Corsair and Crucial have been my go-to memory for a while now after having failures with OCZ and a few other brands, but my current computer is using Mushkin and it's been great. Learning all the little details of memory can be messy... what I like about Corsair here is the same thing I like about asus, it's more plug and play. Some brands have default profiles set for their memory below the spec you're purchasing. An informed user fixes this easily, but it just irks me.
The CPU should drop right into the slot nice and easy. you shouldn't have to force anything. If you are trying to force something very strongly, you are probably going to break something.
I'm pretty sure he means the lever you have to push down in order to lock the CPU into the socket. That certainly requires a fair amount of force.
Yeah, its surprising its not some $10000 behemoth. But really, who needs a computer that costs more than $1665 anyway? Maybe if you wanted to RAID a bunch of SSD for super fast storage access but otherwise its just "my gaming cock is bigger than yours because I spend way more on my computer than you did....And mine has more lights."
Comments
At around the $200 mark, AMD currently has no competition for Intel's Sandy Bridge quad-cores. Lower down in the price spectrum (around $100) AMD puts up more of a fight, though, since AMD's low-end pricing has always tended to be rather aggressive.
The mobo is being returned and refunded. New one has been ordered. Hopefully I'll get it Monday (I payed for next-day shipping). I should be able to get back to where I was in my build fairly quickly, but I basically only needed to hook up the CPU, hook up the HDD, and put in my DVD drive. And probably plug stuff in internally, but that didn't seem like it was gonna take all that long.
I have an LGA 1155 processor. Got a Mobo for an LGA 1156. FUCK.
If there is someway an LGA 1155 CPU can't fit into an LGA 1155 socket, I will hurt someone.
Time to not mess it up the first time!
Monoprice for Cables ++.
Personally I've become fond of Asus Mobos. I've had to work with four or so other brands (intel, gigabyte, asrock, msi), and while Asus mobos are ~$10-$20 more they are pretty feature rich and there seems to be more love in the bios.
As people have said, monitors are a longer term investment, so you're better off spending dollars there than on any other component. A good monitor will last you through three to five system builds most likely. That said, depending on your use-case a TN panel is not the cardinal sin some people make it out to be. They're cheap. If you need cheap, they make some pretty good TNs for cheap.
Graphics cards... I always try to talk people down on the expenses. $100-$200 today is fine for most use cases. And you can pocket that extra $100 difference for an upgrade in two years which will buy you something reasonable then. Obvious, if your use case is more "extreme", go for it. People fight wars over the brands. I'm not even touching it. There are a couple I stay away from, PowerColor comes to mind.
Power Supplies and Memory are two areas where I do end up following major brands. Corsair/Seagate/Antec have worked for me in the power supply department, but I'm obviously open to others. Corsair and Crucial have been my go-to memory for a while now after having failures with OCZ and a few other brands, but my current computer is using Mushkin and it's been great. Learning all the little details of memory can be messy... what I like about Corsair here is the same thing I like about asus, it's more plug and play. Some brands have default profiles set for their memory below the spec you're purchasing. An informed user fixes this easily, but it just irks me.
Huzzah?