CPU
Midrange CPU Roundup: It’s Time to Buy
As long as competition stays reasonably tight, though, the real winner isn’t going to be Intel or AMD: it’s going to be the end-users.
Both AMD and Intel have enough horsepower with their integrated graphics solutions to drive Windows Vista’s Aero interface, so if you’re not going to be gaming then either integrated graphics solutions is more than enough. Windows and animations did seem to render more smoothly on the Intel platform but we’re not sure if that’s a driver, GPU, or CPU advantage.
AMD and Intel are unbelievably close when it comes to mainstream CPU performance - far closer than we expected. There are a couple of exceptions, however. DivX encoding in particular is extremely strong on Intel CPUs where AMD just can’t compete these days.
If you’re choosing between the Athlon 64 X2 5000+ and 4800+ definitely go for the latter. The performance difference is so small that we don’t even understand why AMD has both speed grades. At the 2.5GHz+ clock speeds we’re talking about, 100MHz differences don’t amount to a significant enough performance difference to justify any increase in cost.
The Athlon X2 BE-2350 does reduce power consumption, but at a noticeable increase to cost. However, if you’re building an AMD system, we’d recommend the BE-2350 over the Athlon 64 X2 4000+ given the reduction in power consumption. Power costs over the life of the system should eventually negate the $18 price penalty.
Although AMD remains very competitive in the vast majority of benchmarks, given the virtual price parity Intel’s performance advantages in some tests make the Core 2 or Pentium Dual-Core a more sensible buy. Both the Core 2 Duo E4500 and Pentium E2160 are great choices, as are their lower clocked variants; it really boils down to price point.
Once you take overclocking into account though, it’s tough to beat Intel’s Pentium Dual-Core lineup. With 65%+ overclocks - with little effort and using stock cooling - the Pentium E2140 and E2160 are easily the best buys on the market today. If you’re absolutely opposed to overclocking, then the AMD/Intel question is a tossup, but if you’ve got no problems pushing clocks then Intel is the clear choice at all price points.
