The Processor Waiting Game

What is the most Cost and Performance effective thing to do?

  • Get the A8

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Get a Current Phenom II (Thuban or Deneb) and a GPU

    Votes: 2 40.0%

  • Wait for a $150 Bulldozer and a GPU

    Votes: 3 60.0%
  • Total voters
    5
NissanSkylineN1

NissanSkylineN1

3,204
Canada
2.2L Camry
NissanSkylineN1
Xbox??? Who is this Xbox??
Hey,
With AMD's new Bulldozer coming out, what is it wise to do cost and performance wise?

1: Buy an AMD A8
2: Buy a Phenom and a GPU
3: Wait for the Bulldozer and get a CPU around $150 and a GPU

I'm thinking of the A8, especially with my low $500 budget.
 
Neither. Get a Sandy Bridge system instead, then you will be able to upgrade to an Ivy Bridge processor which even the entry level should wipe the floor against the top end Bulldozer processors. Sandy Bridge processors out now most likely will beat Bulldozer already so why wait. However if you are sticking with AMD, then it is a good thing as customers like you will keep AMD in business and also keep Intel processor prices low.

I would get a cheap graphics card for now as 28nm graphics cards will be out soon and you will get much more performance per watt for the money as well as very low idle power consumption.
 
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Well, the AMD ones out now are already beating some of the i5 and the i3 processors, so I doubt that Intel will make Ivy Bridge "Wipe the floor". Also, I am looking for something on a budget and with the highest clock/ number of cores possible. I also want to do a bit of gaming too. I'm looking to either overclock the A8 or wait for the Black Edition of the APU to be released according to rumors. I have a $600 budget and am looking to purcahse from newegg. Here's my cart so far:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119148

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811156258

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824228030

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128515

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134829

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103942

And I have a hard drive sitting in my room.

Don't forget Shipping and Tax
 
Bulldozer is a month away, so they say, so just wait.
Wait, $500 budget? The power supply in that case is garbage so you'll need another one.
I'm not sure what you'll be using the PC for and I'm not sure if you have a micro center in "soviet russia"(people use real locations for situations like this) but I would go there, get a x4 or x6 phenom along with one of the free motherboards. Quality power supply, and whatever GPU you can afford.

Oh, you are aware that the CPU in your cart has onboard GPU, right?
 
I am totally aware about the 6500D on the A8. I will be using it for everyday school use. I will be doing lots of multi tasking and will be producing music with it. The problem is that I want decent graphics as I will be playing some games with it and modeling in 3d, but mostly Counter Strike. Also, when you mean free motherboard, do you mean a combo?

There IS this combo I have looked at:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.681891

The problem is, I need a computer as soon as possible, because I am actually afraid of breaking this POS Celeron single-core due to rage. Also, its quite slow. When the Bulldozer comes out, it WILL be expensive, and I don't really have the time to wait for it to get cheaper.
 
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Counter strike can run on a graphing calculator.

Micro center has a few motherboards they give you for free with a purchase of select processors, then they have a few they reduce to $10 and a few they knock $50 off the price.

I'm not sure why you want FM1 at all. The gains between the apu/discrete card combo are not great between just a discrete card.
Get a x4 955 or 965.
 
There's no Micro Center in Canada, however , there is a Canada computers and a Tiger Direct. The reason why I am getting FM1 is because I don't want to pay for a graphics card, since I do not have the money.
 
If your budget is slightly tighter and you need it quick it would be a rational choice to buy a Sandy Bridge i7 because there are likely to be good deals out there and it will give you a good bang for your buck.

However I personally would wait for Bulldozer, even if its just to see how it stacks up and how the real prices are. I think this really might be the tipping point back to an era of AMD dominance. I've always been on AMD since my first PC.

Robin.
 
NissanSkylineN1
Well, the AMD ones out now are already beating some of the i5 and the i3 processors, so I doubt that Intel will make Ivy Bridge "Wipe the floor". Also, I am looking for something on a budget and with the highest clock/ number of cores possible. I also want to do a bit of gaming too. I'm looking to either overclock the A8 or wait for the Black Edition of the APU to be released according to rumors. I have a $600 budget and am looking to purcahse from newegg. Here's my cart so far:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119148

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811156258

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824228030

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128515

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134829

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103942

And I have a hard drive sitting in my room.

Don't forget Shipping and Tax
Click to expand...

I would get these parts instead.

Motherboard:

GIGABYTE GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128502

$119.99

CPU:

Intel Core i3-2100 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115078

$119.99

Memory:

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231426

$47.99

Screen:

Hanns-G HL227DBB Black 21.5" 5ms Full HD LED BackLight LCD Monitor 250 cd/m2 X-Contrast 15,000,000:1
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824254058

$139.99

Graphics:

SAPPHIRE 100287VGAL Radeon HD 5670 (Redwood) 512MB 128-bit DDR5

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102871

$69.99

You can upgrade the processor at the beginning of 2012 to an Ivy Bridge one and you should then have a system with a CPU faster than any Bulldozer system out by quite some margin. You could also wait a few months for a 28nm graphics card instead of getting something like a 5670 now. There is onboard graphics on the Sandy Bridge processors.

Robin.
If your budget is slightly tighter and you need it quick it would be a rational choice to buy a Sandy Bridge i7 because there are likely to be good deals out there and it will give you a good bang for your buck.

However I personally would wait for Bulldozer, even if its just to see how it stacks up and how the real prices are. I think this really might be the tipping point back to an era of AMD dominance. I've always been on AMD since my first PC.

Robin.
Click to expand...

I don't see why you should wait for Bulldozer as most likely it will perform similar / worse to the Sandy Bridge systems out now. No chance of AMD going back to dominance at the moment, it is more a fight for survival at the moment even when Bulldozer gets released. Intel are just too far ahead but they are ahead of pretty much everyone as far as manufacturing processes are concerned. AMD are doing a remarkable job at the moment to get close to Intel. Ivy Bridge will make Bulldozer struggle a lot as really Bulldozer CPUs will cost more to make than Ivy Bridge ones while also performing worse, taking more power and being priced at a similar amount. Not only that but Intel might have a better GPU onboard the processor too. AMD will have to really sell stuff at the bottom price as they are already doing and it should continue with Bulldozer as otherwise it won't be able to compete with Intel systems.
 
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NissanSkylineN1
^ Intel Fanboy? Also, I NEED the more cores for music production, as computer generated sounds heavily rely on CPU.
Click to expand...

It is the truth. How are AMD going to compete. 32nm vs 22nm 3D with Ivy Bridge.

The 2100 should be as fast as the A8-3850 for music production. At the beginning of 2012 you can upgrade to an entry level quad core Ivy Bridge and beat any Bulldozer system.

Here is music conversion benchmark test and you can see the 2100 beats the A8-3850 by a lot. Not bad for a dual core.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/A8-3850-vs-Core-i3-2100-CPU-Review/1325/11

I see above you added an MATX motherboard. Will you want to get a smaller case?
 
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NissanSkylineN1
Naww.. a larger case will be cooler. I'm thinking of getting the i5 and a 90 dollar mobo.
Click to expand...

I personally think it is better getting the bigger and also better motherboard with the current best chipset for Intel as really it is not much more in terms of cost. You were considering getting the A8-3850 and the 2100 dual core beats that processor by a lot in most of the benchmarks especially the ones that will affect you. Like I said it is better to get the 2100 now, and upgrade to an Ivy Bridge version of the 2300. You will get better performance than a 2600K while taking a lot less power and the good news is it is coming out soon. You will lose less money getting a 2100 than a 2300 now.
 
With your budget I would just grab the Phenom II six core when they release the bulldozer. Think about it, they will be reducing prices on the old CPU's to get rid of them and you could get a great deal of a six core. A $600 budget is already tough enough to get a great current processor with a solid GPU but it's another thing to get a new CPU with a solid GPU(or even just bulldozer's GPU only) when it's just released and possible bugs that might be in the motherboards(such as the bugs in the first rev of the Sandy Bridge motherboards as an example and those bugs were fixed in Rev 3). I would wait and see if you can get any more powerful CPU's for cheaper when bulldozer is released.
 
Due to your past history of great tech knowledge, I'm going with your opinion. In fact, I've actually been waiting all along for you to reply to this thread. I do completely agree too. The X6 will probably drop to 130, allowing me some cash to get some better parts, maybe even a GPU!
 

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