Intel Processor Advice

My next build I'm going with the i7 930 myself.That's a great price
.That is of course unless I don't have the money when I expect to then I'll see what's out then. Fabe

sanjoseparaiso said:

So majority go for intel?...

I went in to MicroCenter intending to get a budget AMD system. It was only when I got a great deal on the 920 that I changed my mind.

This is a generalization, but Intel basically has the performance lead these days; AMD is a better value if you don't need top-end.

I have used and worked on a lot of AMD systems, and Clock for Clock.
Intel just makes better performing processors. But you get what you pay for.

AMD is not bad, they work and are fine on a budget, just not as good as Intel.

You can always find benches that will say one thing or the other.
When it comes to real world uses though, and actually using a system on a daily basis, you pick the one that works for you.

in my case, Intel has always been the best for me. But for others, it is AMD.

Unfortunately, as it goes, you have no idea till you get the system and actually use it for a while.
by then, it's too late to return everything, or it's considered used and you can't take it back.

For this reason alone, I trust Intel over AMD, only because of my experience with many different AMD systems.

And again the devils advocate: the AMD systems I have used and worked on, were not horrible.
And again, they work fine for many many people. But, they are not my first choice.

I ask the Tech here and he doesn't advice for overclocking the CPU which it makes the CPU lifespan less than a year

Maybe if you don't know what your doing and use stock cooling and over volt it. To make a statement like that is just nonsense.
High overclocking when done properly comes with a caution of reducing the lifespan of your CPU but to put a time on it is crazy.
Generally people that are serious overclockers and push their CPU's to the raged edge are constantly upgrading anyway, a stable moderate overclock done correctly will last you till your ready to upgrade.IMO. Fabe

thefabe said:

I ask the Tech here and he doesn't advice for overclocking the CPU which it makes the CPU lifespan less than a year

Maybe if you don't know what your doing and use stock cooling and over volt it. To make a statement like that is just nonsense.
High overclocking when done properly comes with a caution of reducing the lifespan of your CPU but to put a time on it is crazy.
Generally people that are serious overclockers and push their CPU's to the raged edge are constantly upgrading anyway, a stable moderate overclock done correctly will last you till your ready to upgrade.IMO. Fabe

But there is a caveat to that.

Yes, you can/will reduce the lifespan, but this does depend on the hardware and how well it handles the heat. Anytime you are adding more power to something to make it run harder than intended will reduce it's lifespan. If you can keep it cool enough to gain a proper amount of speed worth doing so.

The question to ask yourself......

1.) Is the amount of speed gained worth the extra cost of buying an upgraded cooling system?

Anybody ever have a normally clocked CPU die on them? (I'm not talking about when your dog peed on it or you forgot the heat sink, just a natural death from "old age".)

I read a tech analysis once that said the normal lifespan of a CPU was about twenty years. Overclocking could cut that in half. Anyone planning to still be using your current CPU in 2020?

By the way, I agree with thefabe that you do need to be careful. I also agree with Tepid - you can easily end up spending more on cooling than a faster CPU would have cost to begin with.

Indeed!

Newegg.com - Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor BX80601950

A Guy