Apokalipse
Golden Master
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- 14,559
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- Melbourne, Australia
you shouldn't even need to physically replace the CPU in most cases, so it's basically a non-issue. The only thing it does is reduce the cost slightly for Intel.1) The Intel CPU's use the LGA socket rather then the PGA so you don't have to worry about broken/bent pins.
that doesn't mean anything in terms of quality.2) Intel has been at 45NM longer then AMD and is moving down to 32NM
I highly doubt the CPU would have caused that. My guess is the motherboard/chipset drivers. Remember, AMD didn't make their own chipsets before acquiring ATI.3) My PC servicing Tech hates AMD because he got a bad batch of AMD CPU's in about 20 computers... BSOD like crazy and AMD wouldn't do anything about it.
I know Sis chipsets were pretty bad, and Via chipsets mediocre. Though at least Nvidia made some pretty nice chipsets for the K8 chips (Nforce3/Nforce4)
Now, AMD is making their own chipsets, and they moved the memory controller to the CPU die a long time ago.
Though one interesting point I think is that Intel, being a much bigger company, can afford to build a lot of fabs. So it doesn't matter as much to them if their dies don't have as high yields. Whereas AMD needs to make the most of their fabs. So they have to focus on getting high yields.
Anyway, I think the Phenom II's have the best value out of the quads.
The 940 BE tends to keep up well with the Q9550, and is priced around the level of the Q9400. And it overclocks really well too.
The i7's are faster, but are expensive, and require an expensive board, as well as higher priced DDR3 RAM (though DDR3 RAM is coming down in price, and is getting closer to DDR2)
For gaming, there will be little benifit overall with an i7.