Alex2

Stevenage Gunner -
Both are good CPUs but Intel are leading the market in terms of performance with their dual and quad core CPUs, but if price is an issue then you may find AMDs are more affordable.

My personal preference at this time is with Intel. They've come a long way since their Pentium/Prescott days when AMD had the performance and value for money advantage.

retired_irean

i remember cm 01-02 took about 5% each bit when processing saturday fixtres on my comp, when i got laptop, it took 11% each time, such a big difference a comp makes (noone will probs understand what i mean but o well"!)

Chicagoist

Thanks Neil for your opinion. I'm looking at getting a new computer, but there's quite a few things to think about. I'm not quite sure what RAM to get and I don't know whether to wait a while because some think Vista isn't good enough yet. At the end of the day money talks so i'll try and get the best I can for the budget I have.

retired_dancingneko

SG, I had 512 MB of RAM in my old comp and FM 2008 would freeze. Got 3 GB of RAM in my new one now (Intel Core Duo) and it flies. My RAM usage (I check on Windows Task Manager often), has not yet climbed above 1.5 GB (maximum was 1.2 GB on Command & Conquer Tiberium Wars). Just to give you some idea of what might be a safe target for you to aim at.

retired_dancingneko

And if I'm not mistaken, the AMD Athlons are having some problems with threading for FM 2008. Have seen quite a few posts about it here and there.

retired_wenbieblue

Got a 3000+ and 1 GB ddr, no probs running it here...

retired_lilshorty81

Nothing runs Crysis on v.high. Not even a 4Ghz OC 9750, SLI 8800.

Unless you don't count a playable frame-rate in which case anything will run it on very high </BLOCKQUOTE>

Very high is playable at 1024x768/1280x1024/1280/800 with 8800GT SLI & a C2D @ 3.6GHz.

That'll be the Cache holding back the 2180 though (1MB hurts the E2xxx series pretty bad) as shown here: XbitLabs C2D Caches

There is no games that currently make any use of the Quad Core I have but there are a fair few that use 2 cores now. One consideration a lot of laptop users don't realise is the benefits of a 7,200 RPM Hard Drive for FM. It really does make a noticeable difference over 4,200 & 5,400 RPM drives.

homeslice34

Threads like this make me question my decision. I spent a couple of days mulling whether to get the 160gb 7200 vs 250gb 5400. Perhaps it would have made a nice difference, but I did so much research and came to the conclusion that the higher density of the data on the 250gb mitigates the higher rpm of the 7200 as less movement is required to access the data. So far this is proving true.

Ideally, I would have liked a SSD but at $500+ for a reasonable size its not worth it at this time. Perhaps it will be mainstream in a couple of years when I replace this notebook (love those 3 year warranties, when this accidentally breaks Dell will send out a new one).

retired_ComfyRest

Personally i would go for the 160GB 7,200 rpm!
My former system had a 5,400 rpm drive and i was really disappointed with the performance.
The problem is mainly that you have to defrag almost on weekly basis otherwise the HD slows down the entire system.
Starting up your comp,loading/saving data is slower on a 5,400 rpm drive no doubt about that.
But if performance isn't your thing your better of with the 250GB.
The difference isn't that much, as long as you have a decent amount of RAM.

james81

ah you beat me by 50 whatever the 50 is or does
Core 2 Duo E6700 / 2.66 GHz