Update

[YegaDoyai]

Just so you know the 1950XT is now available for about £140, it is quicker than the pro varient that I have told folk to go for in the past. If your budget can stretch the extra £40 then it's an excellent buy.

[Tiberio]

A good idea for those really needing a graphics update but i'd argue that with the falling price of the 8800 series and the imminent arrival of the new ati cards, one would be better served to save up that money and go for a dx10 card.

[YegaDoyai]

clearly, but if you HAVE to buy now.

[YegaDoyai]

for the agp users:
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=119300&_LOC=UK

[YegaDoyai]

hmmm, for anyone thinking of buying a pute

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2007/03/16/intel_quad_core_price_cut_answered/

[YegaDoyai]

Ok, Hex got me thinking on this front and I have tabluated the results for your viewing pleasure.

http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/9607/untitledwp5.jpg

This does not take into account overclockingness. Also you'll note that it does not include the latest X2s upto the X2 6000 that kick the living shit out of the FX62 and do not cost that much. I will hopefully find some conclusive benchmark results for these processors soon. Anyhoo, Intel have been saying that there is a likely 70% price cut coming for the C2D line to make sure that the Quad core varient is competitive with the Barcelona core from AMD (the new and actually quite promising quad core tech). This got me thinking that either the rumur mills were working overtime or Intel actually had something to fear. I think that infact the AMD cores are (at stock speeds) actually quite competitve in the games arena and certain other tasks, they still pale in comparison to the Intels in encoding tests but tbh most of those tests are actually optimised in favour of the Intel because Intel have been the standard for so long.

The whole thing goes a little loopy when you project the E4300 price over the E6600 results (a modest overclock can yeild these results).

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/469/untitled1on6.jpg

Don't take these results as read, the overclocking results are done by extrapolation and are highly inaccurate - in terms of exact figures, but they are consistant with the trend and are representative of what 'could' be achived (with the exception of the 3dmark score).


The bottom line here is this:

If you do not intend to overclock, get an AMD.
If you are buying for your parents, get an AMD.
If you are a gamer it shouldn't matter too much what you get, they are all really good.
If you are a graphics professional, get an Intel.
If you want a future proof machine, get back to reality.

Ok, that's enough for tonight. I enjoyed the first round of the F1 and am off to bed now.