Intel Quad or AMD Quad?

Leatherneck · Post by **Leatherneck** » Fri Oct 22, 2010 12:47 pm

I'm about to purchase a new HP for my family and have narrowed it down to either a AMD Athlon IIx4 635 or Intel i-760 Quad. The AMD is about $100 cheaper but I don't care too much about that. The Intel has no HT but probably no biggie either.

I have built my own PCs since the early 90's but with my work discount the HPs are insanely cheap.

Any ideas on which quad might be better?

Thanks

Easto · Post by **Easto** » Fri Oct 22, 2010 1:39 pm

Although I can't chime in on the choice of CPUs I would probably look to see how much room there is for upgrading the Vid Card, Memory etc. With a 64bit system you may want to up the memory sooner or later and the HP may be restricted to the size of modules you can install. Just a thought.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Fri Oct 22, 2010 1:46 pm

Intel wins, pretty much every test you can find.

Leatherneck · Post by **Leatherneck** » Fri Oct 22, 2010 2:06 pm

The HP is from the Elite series and allows for 16GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [4 DIMMs] Probably more than I would ever install.

I can build my own kit with same or better specs for about $500 or so from Newegg, but if I get a new one I can retire my old PC to my guitar room which would be a nice upgrade.

-I seldom play any games (BF2 & COD type once in a blue moon)
-Use limited capabilities of photoshop
-Mostly cruise the net
-Stream Netflix to Plasma

I want it quiet, cool and to last 5 years.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Fri Oct 22, 2010 2:22 pm

Intel has been dominating, and the price diff isn't that great like it used to be.
As the Intel "i" series are flooding the market, the Core 2 Quads, and the Core 2 Duos..are dropping in price drastically to clear them out of inventory.

For mostly cruising the net and streaming Netflix...you don't need horsepower. Games are hit 'n miss, some do better with a higher speed dual core, yet a few can harness quad cores and run better. But the quads do help with PhotoChop.

Sava700 · Post by **Sava700** » Fri Oct 22, 2010 2:36 pm

I agree...stick in Intel

Shinobi · Post by **Shinobi** » Fri Oct 22, 2010 10:11 pm

I would go with the HP/Compaq , I bought a single core tower for my wife because the price was so great, and it was faster hardware then she had, with Windows 7 and our digital camera plus printer, worked with Windows 7. The thing has been up for months now.. just a really great buy.

jaydeee · Post by **jaydeee** » Sat Oct 30, 2010 10:06 am

for this specific model I would go for intel, since budget is not an issue.

Leatherneck · Post by **Leatherneck** » Sun Nov 21, 2010 8:26 pm

Went ahead and ordered this weekend. Been waiting and waiting for a price drop and it happened this morning. For $648 I got:

# Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-760 quad-core processor [2.8GHz, 1MB L2 + 8MB shared L3 cache]
# FREE UPGRADE! 6GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [3 DIMMs] from 4GB
# FREE UPGRADE! 1TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive from 500GB
# 512MB ATI Radeon HD 5450 [DVI, HDMI, VGA adapter]

DVD burner/card reader, etc..

Going to be a nice Home PC for HT and general work. Pricing out equivalent parts on Newegg was not significantly cheaper..

loop2kil · Post by **loop2kil** » Mon Nov 22, 2010 1:02 am

Looks like a great purchase...It should suit your needs well.

Rainbow · Post by **Rainbow** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 9:38 am

I only use AMd..ran into compatability issues with intel I7. Video card problems, memory timing issues...no thanks

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 9:43 am

Rainbow wrote:I only use AMd..ran into compatability issues with intel I7. Video card problems, memory timing issues...no thanks

With what card?

That sounds kind of odd. I assume it was an ATI card?

Leatherneck · Post by **Leatherneck** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 8:21 pm

Seeing as though I am buying a new kit I am not so worried about issues. This will be my first Intel kit since a PII 350. I have enjoyed AMD products for years but felt like the i5760 is a cool running, high scoring chip to try.

Rainbow · Post by **Rainbow** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 10:37 pm

YARDofSTUF wrote:With what card?

That sounds kind of odd. I assume it was an ATI card?

Yes ATI 5970

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Wed Nov 24, 2010 3:11 pm

Hopefully that was a very limited issue, I would hate to have eliminate AMD ATI cards while intel chips are on top.

Leatherneck · Post by **Leatherneck** » Thu Dec 02, 2010 11:59 am

Got the HP Elite yesterday and was up & running lickety split. The i5 quad with 6GB of RAM is plenty powerful and everything worked well. The one thing that is very nice is the absence of bloatware and trialware. There is really nothing on it besides 15 months of Norton. A couple hours on my home network and I had everything transferred from my old PC and the am well on my way to making Win7 tweaked to my liking. Good stuff for my first "bought" PC since about 1998. The only thing I would upgrade is the PS if needed.