Building a PC, need some advice.

[Bront]

This is funny! Every computer geek I know swears by a different HD manufacturer. I tend to steer away from Western Digital because I have had their drives die on me. Whereas I have always had good luck with Seagates drives.

Yeah, it's always personal preference. But of the people in my area, it's WD.

Seagate has gotten much better, they were horid at one point.

Also, most speed tests tend to show WD as the tops anyway, and price wise, they're pretty close to equal, so I just stick with them.

 

[ssampier]

They're old links. Most of those prices have droped, and some better bang for buck hardware has come out.

Yes. Any DIY parts guide becomes quickly out of date. The $800 PC was updated a few weeks ago, however.

 

[drothgery]

Core 2 is the best bang for your buck, low and high end. We're talking 50%+ performance bost low end X2 vs Low end Core 2 Duo.

The thing is that because AMD's been cutting prices like mad, relatively high-end X2 compares in price to low-end Core 2 Duo, for the most part (and low-end X2 compares to Pentium D or single-core). I mean, the very top A64 X2s -- the 5600+ and 6000+ -- are bad value propositions relative to C2D, but the rest of the line matches up pretty well to similarly-priced Intel chips, and once you get below E4300 prices, AMD clearly has the advantage.

And I say that as an unabashed Intel fan.

 

[Bront]

The thing is that because AMD's been cutting prices like mad, relatively high-end X2 compares in price to low-end Core 2 Duo, for the most part (and low-end X2 compares to Pentium D or single-core). I mean, the very top A64 X2s -- the 5600+ and 6000+ -- are bad value propositions relative to C2D, but the rest of the line matches up pretty well to similarly-priced Intel chips, and once you get below E4300 prices, AMD clearly has the advantage.

And I say that as an unabashed Intel fan.

I have an X2 3800. I still think the Core 2 Duo is a better way to go, particularly if you want to OC. The E6400 is at a great price point, and can regularly get OCed over 50% on air.

If you were going extreme budget, AMD is the way to go, but other than that, I think Intel is the way to lean for the moment.

 

[drothgery]

I have an X2 3800. I still think the Core 2 Duo is a better way to go, particularly if you want to OC. The E6400 is at a great price point, and can regularly get OCed over 50% on air.

If you're overclocking, that changes the rules of the game a lot; that changes Intel vs. AMD midrange parts (C2D E4300, E6300, E6400; A64X2 46000, 4800, 5000, 5200) match up pretty well at stock, but there's no denying that Intel's parts have far more overclocking headroom. Still unless someone says otherwise, I'm going to assume they run their CPU at stock speeds; overclockers are a minority even among people that build their own systems.

Now, for myself, I've got a notebook with a C2D T7200 (2 GHz Merom)...