Just quickly, gonna be buying a new desktop pc so which is the flavour to have these days, Intel Core i5 or AMD equivalent?

Computer just gets used for all web stuff, word processing, some low end gaming but I'll be adding a graphics card anyway, and all office work, data burning, etc. I don't really need a high powered machine, but before the tax man buggers off with it all I'm going to have a spend. I'll be keeping it for a good five years or so, and I'm gonna be giving it some long hours and plenty of mundane jobs to do. Budget about £500 inc a decent graphics card for the base unit.

Well, to sort of answer my own question, having read up on various pages about the benefits of both, Intel would appear to be the way forward simply due to the lower power requirements and cooler running. If that makes for a quieter pc then that's about it for me I reckon. The current AMD quad core tank humming away at my feet has always been louder (and hotter) than the previous Core 2 Duo unit I had. But the AMD has been here for over 4 years, and the Intel before that was here for about 6 years. I knew back then it was the case with power and heat, but money was tight at the time so I went for the MAD version. Back to Intel now I reckon.

AMD research and development are a bit behind the times as they simply don't have the budget intel does. The current range of Intel processors leave the older AMD range in their wake.

Just about made a decision anyway, looking at this machine.

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/371533852220

Does not look to bad, shame it's still using a spinning disk instead of SSD.

 

If you don't need the storage then see if they can change the 1TB HDD to a 512GB SSD, the speed difference is night and day.

9 minutes ago, mannyo said:

AMD research and development are a bit behind the times as they simply don't have the budget intel does. The current range of Intel processors leave the older AMD range in their wake.

 

You'd kinda hope the current ones would leave the older ones behind anyway, wouldn't you? No-ones going to release anything that says "buy our current stuff: it's worse than the competitor's old stuff." :p :p

 

Just now, mannyo said:

Does not look to bad, shame it's still using a spinning disk instead of SSD.

 

If you don't need the storage then see if they can change the 1TB HDD to a 512GB SSD, the speed difference is night and day.

 

I have a 240Gb ssd drive here. I was planning on using that to run the OS and other stuff, and just use the standard hard drive as storage.

Ordered it anyway, see how it behaves when it arrives. That'll be a fun fortnight or so, in fact I'll start saving stuff now. I have a hard disc caddy and a spare afternoon as the wife's gone shopping.

Seems im a bit late to this party. Anyone read up on AMD's Ryzen generation chips? Current AMD chips are pretty much EOL now, with new ones some time this year I believe which are much more intels match.

Wait for a few months, there is a lot of change on the horizon which will mean real competition and some large performance improvements.

 

Competition also means lower prices.

Edited 12 February, 20179 yr by cheezemonkhai

I can't wait a few months, as once I get to the beginning of April the tax year ends and the reasoning behind buying a new machine will have departed.

And I ordered a new one anyway.

Edited 12 February, 20179 yr by Rustynuts

TBH right now Intel rules the roost.

AMD still decent bang for your buck so it's a budget choice more than anything.

But as you say Intel is far ahead with power consumption.

 

I'll probably doa  new build at some point this year and it'll more than likely be an i5 as well.

 

I'm running an older very basic i3 and it can still cope with just about everything I throw at it (with a mid range gfx card). The only thing that bogs it down are Windows updates.

If you can't wait a few months, then yes the intel was the correct way to go.

 

When you get it, make sure you update the BIOS to the most recent version (More so if you went skylake and Ideally before you install the OS if you can)

 

On 11/02/2017 at 15:46, robt100 said:

Seems im a bit late to this party. Anyone read up on AMD's Ryzen generation chips? Current AMD chips are pretty much EOL now, with new ones some time this year I believe which are much more intels match.

 

They look interesting so far and depending on what you're looking at the server side ones look very very interesting for certain workloads.

Edited 13 February, 20179 yr by cheezemonkhai

40 minutes ago, cheezemonkhai said:

If you can't wait a few months, then yes the intel was the correct way to go.

 

When you get it, make sure you update the BIOS to the most recent version (More so if you went skylake and Ideally before you install the OS if you can)

 

 

 

 

Went Kaby Lake...

3 minutes ago, Rustynuts said:

 

Went Kaby Lake...

 

Not a build it yourself version then I am guessing?

No, I used to, but I'm not interested in playing too much these days.

I've an old 2nd gen Sandbyridge Intel CPU (i5 2500k) and with a fairly aggressive overclock it still runs virtually anything over 5 years later

Well, new machine arrived promptly and has been sat waiting. New monitor, keyboard & mouse arrived yesterday, so parked it on the dining table this morning and installed the SSD drive. Just installing Windows now, then we'll see what happens.

All up and running again. Remarkably quick compared to the old creaking one it replaced, and I'm happy with the end result.

Bit late now but AMD has just announced their new Ryzen architecture which is allegedly very good and rivals Intel's i7 processors for about 60% the price (UK price rip off applies).

 

https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2017/02/amd-ryzen-price/

2 hours ago, Aspman said:

Bit late now but AMD has just announced their new Ryzen architecture which is allegedly very good and rivals Intel's i7 processors for about 60% the price (UK price rip off applies).

 

https://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2017/02/amd-ryzen-price/

 

It's interesting for sure Keep your eyes out for the benchmark, if it's anything like the server ones...

Edited 24 February, 20179 yr by cheezemonkhai