Core 2 Duo or Athlon X2: Performance vs Fanboyism…

I was offended the other day when a friend of mine built a new computer using an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. He called me a fan boy. After watching him stomp me in benchmark after benchmark and watching his games load and run faster and better (higher settings etc…) I realized that he was right. I am a fan boy.

AMD – I LOVE YOU!!!

 Okay, now that I’ve got that out of the way here’s the deal. Yes his Intel C2D E6600 stomped all over my AMD X2 4400 in super pi mod… But does that make his similarly clocked processor necessarily better than mine? I would have to say yes. Does that mean I should dump my love for AMD and go out and buy an Intel mainboard and Core 2 Duo? Maybe… but I couldn’t afford it right now if I wanted to. The answer I gave to him was… “I’m not a fanboy… I just wait for AMD to build a better chip that Intel’s offerings and I buy that.” Sure, in the meantime I am a bit slower. Does that really make a lot of difference for the moment? Not really.

Upgrading the Wife

Okay, no. I’m not upgrading the wife herself. I’m upgrading her computer. Here are her specs.

Athlon XP 3000+

1GB of PC3200 DDR

ATI X1600 512MB AGP

Gigabyte Skt 939 mainboard with Nforce 3 Ultra chipset

40GB 7200rpm 8mb IDE hard drive

80GB 7200rpm 8mb IDE hard drive

The upgrades she is recieving are a Athlon 64 4000+ (single core) and an ATI Radeon X1950 512mb video card.  I am actually pretty excited to see such a boost in power and can’t wait to take note in the performance gains she is sure to have. Most importantly (to her) is that we’re hoping this makes her favorite 3D application stop crashing and killing her video signal.

 So the question I pose to the budget techie. Is it worthwhile to upgrade an antiquidated Socket 939 Nforce 3 chipsetted (new word) system  with AGP graphics or should we have just waited it out and upgraded her in the future when I pick up a new mainboard, proc, and ram? Bear in mind that the video card is a birthday present and therefore free to us, and that the processor cost $35 used.  I am all for it.