Squilliam on 04 September 2008
| quaiky said: if you want best performance for money atm i would go with a intel core 2 duo cpu E8400 up to E8600 combined with an ati radeon 4850 gfx card. but the amd cpu will probably be a bit cheaper than the intel one if money is more important than power. using an amd 5000+ black edition myself (had the mainboard allready so only switched cpu last time) and the unlocked multiplier is very nice if you want to overclock it (i personally got my my cpu from 2.6 up to 3ghz without a big change to voltage, but others were more lucky and got it to 3.2 without changing voltages at all), only disadvantage of overclocking these is thatyou loose cool and quiet energy saving mode cause if you turn taht on it will reset your cpu back to standard clockings. gfx card wise i personally would get a gainward 4850 golden sample, been folowing the reviews of the 4850/4870s for a few weeks now and its the best choice cause it has a better cooling that results in cooler temperatiures than standard model even with the nice factory overclock and its still more silent than most other 4850s out there. and if you compare it to the 9600gt then its only 20-30€ more here in europe for a lot more power. |
E8600 is good, but the CPU is $170 with a dead upgrade path whereas the CPU/Motherboard cost $130 and it can take the Deneb 45nm AMD cpus next year if you want. But in any case thats a great little CPU there and it would perform exceptionally well, even if it adds $140 to the price it'd still be worthwhile.
Tease.
