All this Intel talk has me thinking...

2006-05-30 10:18:49

#1

OMG-AIDS: Member; +24|6855|Florida

Well I was going to build a computer that would handle BF2 after I got my car. Now with all this Intel talk I have a few more questions. This Conroe thing is coming out in Q1 '07 for $300(?) and was wondering how much the motherboards and graphic cards are going to cost now. Also will the motherboards be out there that support the Conroe be a reasonable price? However, should I wait for the quad dual processors or just build a computer after July 23?

I just want a good computer at a good price which seems to be easier to acquire with Intel's new pricecut. I know the tech specs are always becoming better, but...how long should I wait or what should I wait for?

EDIT: And what is AMD doing to counter this? I can't imagine they're just sitting there going omgwtf?

EDIT2: Also, should I worry about the DX10 cards or DX10 compatibility?

Last edited by OMG-AIDS (2006-05-30 11:18:58)

2006-05-30 10:40:12

#2

slo5oh: Member; +28|6953

Amd has the AM2. It's supposed to be out now or VERY soon.
Everyone has their own opinion on wait vs. buy now...
I personally don't like spending $2k to $3k for a computer so I always aim for one or 2 notches below the "bleeding edge" of new tech. I don't care what or when you buy if you wait 6 months you can either save 10 to 20% or get something faster for the same $. That's just a fact.

My recommendation is always build now.
If you're going to build it yourself, by far the best bang for your buck is to built an AMD opteron CPU with an nforce 4 chipset motherboard and get either a 7800gt or a 7900gt.

2006-05-30 11:19:23

#3

OMG-AIDS: Member; +24|6855|Florida

Thanks mate.

2006-05-30 11:22:16

#4

acidkiller187: Member; +123|6922

slo5oh wrote:
Amd has the AM2. It's supposed to be out now or VERY soon.
Everyone has their own opinion on wait vs. buy now...
I personally don't like spending $2k to $3k for a computer so I always aim for one or 2 notches below the "bleeding edge" of new tech. I don't care what or when you buy if you wait 6 months you can either save 10 to 20% or get something faster for the same $. That's just a fact.

My recommendation is always build now.
If you're going to build it yourself, by far the best bang for your buck is to built an AMD opteron CPU with an nforce 4 chipset motherboard and get either a 7800gt or a 7900gt.

agreed im waiting but the pocket is burning

2006-05-30 11:22:52

#5

wayneakagod: Member; +17|7039

Conroe is set for release on July 23rd.

Prices can be found here. AMd just seems to be pretty expensive at the moment.

I am building a new comp this summer aswell, and I think I'll wait for Conroe tbh. Seems to be worth waiting for.

2006-05-30 11:23:15

#6

OMG-AIDS: Member; +24|6855|Florida

My pocket is burning, but I'd rather have a better car than a computer so I keep saving.

2006-05-30 11:23:39

#7

fierce: I love [fiSh]; +167|6860

Conroe will be released in the beginning of July 2006. You can find official prices under following link: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2547 remember they are prices for a 1000 quantity but should be nearly the same for customers.

As for Graphic Cards - i'm sure that all Conroe motherboards will work with PCI-E and if you're going to buy a high class CPU you even want a high class GPU - so take a look for something like NVIDIA 7900GT or higher, ATI X1800 or higher.

For motherboard prices you can only guess right now, i think they will vary between 150-220.

AMD has the AM2? Compared to actual AMD CPUs and the AM2 socket there are nerly only differences between the socket coding and DDR2 Support (performance increase by 1-2%).

AMD recently announced a counter for the Conroe processor, but this new competitor will as earliest released in 2007/2008 - i see a big gap coming between AMD & CPU.

/edit on PCI-X/E/

Last edited by fierce (2006-05-30 12:04:54)

2006-05-30 11:25:25

#8

Hurricane: Banned; +1,153|6922|Washington, DC

Here's a benchmark from one of the new Conroes:

http://forums.overclockersclub.com/10s_ … 68872.html

2006-05-30 11:26:03

#9

Agent_Dung_Bomb: Member; +302|7028|Salt Lake City

I don't agree with always waiting for the next best thing, but when you are sitting right at the release line of a product that is showing to be quite worthwhile, unless you must have something right now, give it a little time. I don't know that I would wait for DX10 compliant cards. That wait is a bit too long.

2006-05-30 11:28:28

#10

wayneakagod: Member; +17|7039

Yeah agreed. I'd go for a 7600gt right now and upgrade next year.

2006-05-30 11:30:05

#11

fierce: I love [fiSh]; +167|6860

Agent_Dung_Bomb wrote:
I don't agree with always waiting for the next best thing, but when you are sitting right at the release line of a product that is showing to be quite worthwhile, unless you must have something right now, give it a little time. I don't know that I would wait for DX10 compliant cards. That wait is a bit too long.

I agree with this statement. The Conroe is just around the corner (1,5 months), DirectX Cards are going to take a while - pick up a good graphic card now.

2006-05-30 11:42:15

#12

max: Vela Incident; +1,652|6859|NYC / Hamburg

AM2 is already out (there is a nice artticle on this: i gave it to janus and now i cant find it anymore, will ask him), though new tech always has bugs. Conroe will be out on the 23ed. It will deliver (according to the benchmarks we have today) greatly increased performace in comparison to it predecessor (the pentium 4/D). It also seems to have a performance benefit in comparison to AMD. This is due to the fact that Intel has reworked the entire mircroarchitecture (new: core, old: netburst).

For the actual hardware: most Motherboards with the 975X (and 965) chipset will support conroe (or as its officially now called: core2duo). I'm not sure about the support of the nvidia (500 series for intel probabely will i guess) or the ati chipsets.

for the graphics: no gfx card supports dx 10 officially (though it is roumored that the ati 1900 will with some sort of update). dx10 is a core component of vista (the future OS from Microsoft; the beta2 was recently released and will be availibe to the public as a free download soon (office 2007 beta 2 already is)). Though a native gfx card support for dx10 is not necessay for vista, the games in the future (long time - if same as dx8 and 9 - you can still play pretty much any game with a dx8 gfx card) however will.

if you dont want to wait to build (because there is always something new and exciting will be out in the soon future) check my sig for a list of a good gaming pc.

EDIT: BTW: pci-express in short is pci-e not pci-x (pci-x is based on the standard pci arcitecture and is mainly used in servers)

Last edited by max (2006-05-30 11:53:41)

_{once upon a midnight dreary, while i pron surfed, weak and weary, over many a strange and spurious site of ' hot xxx galore'. While i clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning, and my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour, " 'Tis not possible!", i muttered, " give me back my free hardcore!"..... quoth the server, 404.}

2006-05-30 11:48:53

#13

fierce: I love [fiSh]; +167|6860

max wrote:
For the actual hardware: any Motherboard with the 975 (and possibly 965) chipset will support conroe (or as its officially now called: core2duo). I'm not sure about the support of the nvidia (500 series for intel probabely will i guess) or the ati chipsets.

This isn't completly true, not any 975X Chipset supports the Conroe Processor. There are 975 Motherboards that support the Conroe Core, but these have been modified by the manufacturer.

The Intel 965 Broadwater Chipset got the new ICH8R Southbridge and is designed for the Core 2 (Conroe, Merom, etc) processors.

2006-05-30 11:51:25

#14

max: Vela Incident; +1,652|6859|NYC / Hamburg

fierce wrote:
max wrote:
For the actual hardware: any Motherboard with the 975 (and possibly 965) chipset will support conroe (or as its officially now called: core2duo). I'm not sure about the support of the nvidia (500 series for intel probabely will i guess) or the ati chipsets.
This isn't completly true, not any 975X Chipset supports the Conroe Processor. There are 975 Motherboards that support the Conroe Core, but these have been modified by the manufacturer.

The Intel 965 Broadwater Chipset got the new ICH8R Southbridge and is designed for the Core 2 (Conroe, Merom, etc) processors.

thanks - edited

_{once upon a midnight dreary, while i pron surfed, weak and weary, over many a strange and spurious site of ' hot xxx galore'. While i clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning, and my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour, " 'Tis not possible!", i muttered, " give me back my free hardcore!"..... quoth the server, 404.}

2006-05-30 12:02:27

#15

Janus67: Tech God; +86|6887|Ohio, USA

max wrote:
AM2 is already out (there is a nice artticle on this: i gave it to janus and now i cant find it anymore, will ask him), though new tech always has bugs. Conroe will be out on the 23ed. It will deliver (according to the benchmarks we have today) greatly increased performace in comparison to it predecessor (the pentium 4/D). It also seems to have a performance benefit in comparison to AMD. This is due to the fact that Intel has reworked the entire mircroarchitecture (new: core, old: netburst).

For the actual hardware: most Motherboards with the 975X (and 965) chipset will support conroe (or as its officially now called: core2duo). I'm not sure about the support of the nvidia (500 series for intel probabely will i guess) or the ati chipsets.

for the graphics: no gfx card supports dx 10 officially (though it is roumored that the ati 1900 will with some sort of update). dx10 is a core component of vista (the future OS from Microsoft; the beta2 was recently released and will be availibe to the public as a free download soon (office 2007 beta 2 already is)). Though a native gfx card support for dx10 is not necessay for vista, the games in the future (long time - if same as dx8 and 9 - you can still play pretty much any game with a dx8 gfx card) however will.

if you dont want to wait to build (because there is always something new and exciting will be out in the soon future) check my sig for a list of a good gaming pc.

EDIT: BTW: pci-express in short is pci-e not pci-x (pci-x is based on the standard pci arcitecture and is mainly used in servers)

here is the link to the article: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/di … t-am2.html

2006-05-30 12:04:51

#16

max: Vela Incident; +1,652|6859|NYC / Hamburg

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/di … t-am2.html: here's the article i was talking about

EDIT: damm i see janus beat me

just forget this post

Last edited by max (2006-05-30 12:12:32)

_{once upon a midnight dreary, while i pron surfed, weak and weary, over many a strange and spurious site of ' hot xxx galore'. While i clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning, and my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour, " 'Tis not possible!", i muttered, " give me back my free hardcore!"..... quoth the server, 404.}

2006-05-30 12:05:12

#17

ghettoperson: Member; +1,943|6941

I still can't decide whether to go for AM2 or Conroe. I get my wages a few weeks after Conroe is released, so it's a tough decision. It'll probably go down to whether I can build a decent PC in my budget with Conroe. Conroe will be DDR2 won't it?

2006-05-30 12:07:13

#18

max: Vela Incident; +1,652|6859|NYC / Hamburg

ghettoperson wrote:
I still can't decide whether to go for AM2 or Conroe. I get my wages a few weeks after Conroe is released, so it's a tough decision. It'll probably go down to whether I can build a decent PC in my budget with Conroe. Conroe will be DDR2 won't it?

ddr2? well in theory its neither: the memory is adressed though the northbridge. All chipsets that support conroe today are however ddr2

EDIT: i guess that for a budget (and for performance as well) intel will be the way to go once core2duo is out. Though K8L (with the well known joke - why did amd call it 8kl and not k9 - because it was afroind it would be a dog) is not far away then either

Last edited by max (2006-05-30 12:16:39)

_{once upon a midnight dreary, while i pron surfed, weak and weary, over many a strange and spurious site of ' hot xxx galore'. While i clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning, and my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour, " 'Tis not possible!", i muttered, " give me back my free hardcore!"..... quoth the server, 404.}

2006-05-30 12:17:09

#19

fierce: I love [fiSh]; +167|6860

ghettoperson wrote:
Conroe will be DDR2 won't it?

Conroe and AM2 are both DDR2.

2006-05-30 12:19:29

#20

ghettoperson: Member; +1,943|6941

That's good, saves me 30 quid or so.

2006-05-30 12:41:43

#21

unnamednewbie13: Moderator; +2,058|7063|PNW

Whether you should wait or 'buy now' depends on how many hardware generations you wish to skip between computer systems.

2006-05-30 12:46:41

#22

[TUF]Whiskey_Oktober: mmmm...Toasty!; +91|7014|Oregon

conroe is expected to be out sometime in the next 1-2 months (exact date not final) according to a friend of mine who works for intel. the elimination of memory controllers in the conroe processor and the non-stacked dualcore technology will make it FAR superior to the AM2, which were released last week. while this is AMD's first DDR2 processor, Intel has been doing DDR2 for several years and has it down to an art. also, im not shure where you guys are getting these prices, because the Conroe will cost between $400-$800, $300 is way too low for intel to make a profit. thats the price my friend is getting his on Employee discount. and before you ask, I cant even get one with his discount. also, the DX10 cards are coming soon. nVidia is releasing their new dual chip 7950's June 5th, and will be compatible single card or Quad-SLi only. So if you dont want to wait for the DX10 cards, which are rumored to be out sometime Before September, at least wait for the 7950/conroe. o, and conroe Motherboards should start coming into production soon, but because the chipset is brand new, you wont see any on the market untill 1-2 weeks before conroe launch.

2006-05-30 12:50:54

#23

max: Vela Incident; +1,652|6859|NYC / Hamburg

[TUF]Whiskey_Oktober wrote:
conroe is expected to be out sometime in the next 1-2 months (exact date not final) according to a friend of mine who works for intel. the elimination of memory controllers in the conroe processor and the non-stacked dualcore technology will make it FAR superior to the AM2, which were released last week. while this is AMD's first DDR2 processor, Intel has been doing DDR2 for several years and has it down to an art. also, im not shure where you guys are getting these prices, because the Conroe will cost between $400-$800, $300 is way too low for intel to make a profit. thats the price my friend is getting his on Employee discount. and before you ask, I cant even get one with his discount. also, the DX10 cards are coming soon. nVidia is releasing their new dual chip 7950's June 5th, and will be compatible single card or Quad-SLi only. So if you dont want to wait for the DX10 cards, which are rumored to be out sometime Before September, at least wait for the 7950/conroe. o, and conroe Motherboards should start coming into production soon, but because the chipset is brand new, you wont see any on the market untill 1-2 weeks before conroe launch.

when did intel have an integrated mem controler (btw - this is seen as the best feature of the AMD's)

_{once upon a midnight dreary, while i pron surfed, weak and weary, over many a strange and spurious site of ' hot xxx galore'. While i clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning, and my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour, " 'Tis not possible!", i muttered, " give me back my free hardcore!"..... quoth the server, 404.}

2006-05-30 13:19:50

#24

OMG-AIDS: Member; +24|6855|Florida

Thanks so much for all this info guys, I really appreciate the genorosity you're expressing and sharing your knowledge with me. With the Conroe coming out in late July, I can wait that long.

Whiskey if what you're saying about the $400-800 price is true then that is really going to put a damper on a lot of people's plans. I can believe that the technology in the chip would cost that much with prices right now, but releasing the prices for employees only would put a lot of people out about the excitement and hype around this chip when they're expecting a much lower price range.

I have a few more months I can wait so let's just hope everything will be nice and cheap.

Janus + Max, the link led me to a 404 Not Found error.

2006-05-30 13:27:15

#25

max: Vela Incident; +1,652|6859|NYC / Hamburg

sorry about the 404 - they must have the pulled the article: it just basically says that there is no performance benefit (AM2 vs. 939)

_{once upon a midnight dreary, while i pron surfed, weak and weary, over many a strange and spurious site of ' hot xxx galore'. While i clicked my fav'rite bookmark, suddenly there came a warning, and my heart was filled with mourning, mourning for my dear amour, " 'Tis not possible!", i muttered, " give me back my free hardcore!"..... quoth the server, 404.}

BF2S Forums All this Intel talk has me thinking...

slo5oh wrote:

Agent_Dung_Bomb wrote:

max wrote:

fierce wrote:

max wrote:

max wrote:

ghettoperson wrote:

ghettoperson wrote:

[TUF]Whiskey_Oktober wrote:

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