Debating between an intel or amd APU build

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luke51087

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Aug 7, 2005
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Hey guys, first off thanks for any responses you may have. My main thing is i have an older quad athlon II 620 quad that is pumping 100 watts, its in my HTPC that is on 24/7 and is used for our ceton cable card tuner.

I was looking in to trying to get something to help cut back on power and that would be a little faster on video playback.

Right now im using only 4gb of ddr2 and the onboard radeon 4250.

Im looking at either moving to an intel pentium G620 CPU its a 65 watt cpu or even maybe spending more for the G630T being a 35 watt CPU and using the HD2000 graphics.
Going to be using
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157256

Second Choice is the AMD A6-Series AD3500OJGXBOX Triple-Core A6-3500 APU
Runs at 2.1ghz with 3 cores and the higher end GPU.
And
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1967886&sku=A455-4016

The Intel system is going to run me about ~160, ~180 for the 35watt CPU i have everything else.

The AMD system will run me about ~205


The main thing is that im trying to do is handle the quad stream HD, along with blu ray rips, ill probably be using my older 60gb ssd as the windows drive and leave my 1tb in there for the storage. Im just wondering even though my older CPU is a quad do you guys think this tri core or dual core will still be a lot nicer? main thing is to provide better performance at less power. Also is the HD2000 graphics good enough for playback
 
I would expect that clock-for-clock, the G630t would be faster, but in your video transcoding (assuming you're using a multi-threaded program), the A6 should be faster overall than the G630 with the extra thread. If you primarily utilize single-threaded apps, then the G630 would be slightly better.

Graphically, the A6 would win out. I can't find the source at the moment, but I've heard about people who talk poorly about the HD2K not able to actually properly process the framerate of most video streams--it essentially locks at 24fps as opposed to the exact 23.976fps, and as such will drop/skip a frame at various times (doubt I've ever noticed it, but some people do). Apparently the AMD GPU is not susceptible to the same problem.

IIRC, Llano CPU (single-threaded performance) is pretty much the same as the Athlon II architecture. So you probably wouldn't see any improvement in single-threaded performance from your current system, and would probably see a reduction in multi-threaded performance (with the loss of a core to the A6).

I don't see that you'd get a lot of bang for your buck in either case from your current X4. If you're dead-set on getting one of the two you've outlined, I'd get the A6 since it would net better multi-threaded performance. But I also don't think that the performance you'll be getting beyond your current CPU is worth a $200 investment.
 
Have you actually measured the power draw of the current system with a kill-a-watt?

I just worked out that, at $0.08 per kw/h, it would take me something like six years to save the $200 this would cost in parts. In other words, in terms of cost, the more expensive low TDP processor isn't worth it unless power is SUPER expensive where you live.

Anyway, if you're looking at spending $200, you can get a 35 watt Core i3 and motherboard from Newegg for less than that, and I'm pretty sure that setup definitely will handle the load you're talking about, assuming you're not wanting to encode four HD streams and watch multiple blu rays simultaneously.

Edit: Forgot about the memory - you might end up spending a little more than $200, but it'd be close, I think.
 
Most of everything is done with Media center, the 160 and 180 i quoted for the pentium also factored in the 2x4gb of ram i would have to buy. The cost of power isnt the biggest thing, but i figured if i could get a lower TDP cpu it would help with fan noise and temps. the media center case i have is pretty cramped so larger CPU fans wont work. So its basically going to be Media center playback of the HD content, mkvs and the such. Thanks for the replies
 
Also the 35 watt pentium at 2.3ghz is 75, the i3 at 2.6ghz is 135

So for the 620 65 watt plus mobo and ram it = 160.95

the 630t 35 watt plus mobo ram = 171.95

the AMD set up tricore plus mobo ram = 208

Update on AMD set up, found a cheaper board with the same features so price is now 193.94
 
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I don't know--you'd still be looking at a net decrease in overall performance from your X4 (might even be substantial depending on what you're doing)--I couldn't imagine spending $200 for less performance, especially if I'm doing something like video transcoding. I'd sooner get a larger case that would accommodate a better CPU HSF if noise is an issue.
 
Most of it is playback, im kinda leaning towards the newer APU from AMD just for the pure hardware GPU capabilities, im gonna continue looking around just ordering the ram right now cause its pretty cheap
 
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