Hardware Advice

[openmind]

OK I'm getting a new comp and have spent the last few weeks catching up with the major changes in the processor world and I'm having trouble deciding whether to go down the AMD or Intel route.

I've been reading a lot that with the release of the Core2 Duo from Intel, this has kind of blasted AMD out of the water but pricing is obviously higher.

I primarily use the comp for web design and development, more code than graphics though. Typically I will have Outlook open along with 5-6 IE windows, Dreamweaver and several RDC sessions.

In the background I have constantly running ColdFusion MX, IIS, MySQL etc

The most important aspect of a comp to me is speed and the ability to handle several resource hungry applications at once. I run two TFT monitors so I don't need a fancy graphics card (just twin DVI outputs) and I use the on-board sound as I don't play music etc through the PC. I do need a minimum of 2GB RAM though...

I'm looking at this Intel from scan at the moment but I really need to know if the extra cost is worth it?
http://3xs.scan.co.uk/ShowSystem.asp?SystemID=487

Advice and opinions welcome :)

[cmckay]

Phil,

Id reccomend having a look at www.overclockers.co.uk and their forums for info / suggestions.

Also check their systems page: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Full_Systems.html

Hope this helps :)

[liamross]

Hello,

I would also advise you look on a more Specialist forum on this subject. This forum (link below) helped me a lot when I was looking to buy a new PC.

http://www.tech-forums.net/

[SBar]

Our new development machines are dual core Athlon 64s and working well, dual cores or dual processors is a *must* from now on.

I'm running dual opteron for my development machine and it's slightly more responsive that the dual core athlon but we could buy a very high frequency Athlon 64 for the same cost.

I have an Intel Duo in my laptop and it's pretty good, a lot faster than I thought it would be. I'm still an AMD fan though.

[UK-Networks]

For what your looking for I would say Dual Core P4 3Ghz.

I would say make sure you get SATA disks as this will make a major improvement in paging and disk access (One of the major bottlenecks in older machines is IDE).

Rgds,
Chris

[SBar]

Originally posted by UK-Networks
For what your looking for I would say Dual Core P4 3Ghz.

I would say make sure you get SATA disks as this will make a major improvement in paging and disk access (One of the major bottlenecks in older machines is IDE).

Rgds,
Chris

Also make sure the harddrive has NCQ support, it gives a really nice performance boost for <1% extra cost.

[bloo]

don't get a p4 dual core (its not actually a real dual core processor). Intel are leading the way at the moment in processor tech, buy a Core Duo.