Hey Everyone,

Ok I have about $2000AUD to spend on a PC. Both of these systems are the same price. Which would you go for and why?

OR

The AMD box has 1Gig more RAM but the intel board and memory is more expensive which makes the prices for each system exactly the same.

Thoughts, concerns.....

Cheers!

[ 07-26-2006, 07:41 AM: Message edited by: T-D-C ]

Well, personally, I'd go with the higher ram. Better to go ahead and get it now, instead of having to upgrade it in 6 months. It seems like both systems would perform equally well other than memory.

$2000 sounds like a lot of money. Is that average over there? I'm not sure what conversion is to Canadian. I can get a very good PC here for $800-$1000. Also, what are you using it for? There are differences for gaming PC's and other applications. Don't get a big fancy system such for bragging rights.

thats 2000 aud.. so for USD.. just multiply that by .75??

mmm... might want to hold off JUST A BIT... the Intel Core 2 Duo processors are screamers and my understanding is that they're going to push the whole price tree down on both AMD and Intel systems. They're just starting to hit the market so it may take a bit for the effect to ripple through.

Personally I prefer the AMD processors to the older Intel stuff... but if a Core 2 system was within the price range it'd be pretty much impossible to beat.

Yeah I've heard about those new Intel Core 2 Duos and they are performing really well.

This machine will be mainly for gaming. Im tempted to hold off a bit longer and see how those Intels go on the market.

Either go for the AMD system... I have pretty much the same specs, and it's great! Just with a DFI LanParty instead of the Asus. But I wish I had gone for the Asus.

Core 2 Duo has been released, and Intel is supposed to be very much on top of supply, so there shouldn't be any shortages. Of course, I believe that the cheapest Core 2 Duo is still 30-50 USD more expensive than the X2 3800. Though it does beat it in all the tests.

But if you look at the lower end of that review, you'll see that even the Pentium XE 955 only beats the X2 3800 some of the time, and the 920 is not as fast.

So don't go for the Pentium D system :D

[ 07-26-2006, 10:50 PM: Message edited by: Callum ]

I'd certainly go for the AMD box, as the 3800 is generally a good overclocker, and it would give you better performance in gaming. However AMD have just reduced the price of the 3800 by about 50%, so hang fire for a week or two and see if you get a price drop there.

For an £820 ish budget, I wouldn't really recommend Core 2 Duo, as it'l be slightly on the expensive side.

I like the AMD for the stability, but as everyone ielse is saying wait a bit, the price will come down. Can you you loose the Floppy drive and maybe sub a flash combo in that bay. ( might be able to then get a better CPU fan for the price difference.)

I can swap anything I want out but for old times sake I still have the floppy in there. I already have a 8 in 1 acrd reader on my printer that works fine.