Tech Question

by indophile Wed Sep 21, 2011 9:57 am

Intel Core i3 processor

Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor

AMD Athlon 2

AMD Athlon 2x3

What is this 2 and 2x3 for Athlon? For Intel I see that i3 is more recent than Pentium dual core, but is it better? Between Intel and Athlon, which one is better for student/home use?

by charvaka Wed Sep 21, 2011 10:22 am

Don't know about amd but for Intel i3 is better than Pentium

by The Absolute Zero Wed Sep 21, 2011 10:52 am

indophile wrote:Between Intel and Athlon, which one is better for student/home use?

Depends on what the student/home use would be. If it is for connecting to TV and watch videos via roku, you tube and such nothing matters. You won't notice a thing. If it is for high speed gaming and high level coding, machine level assembly coding or learning skills then go for Intel machine. Do you create long to very long videos and post them on You tube? Even then only RAM size matters, not the processor. Frankly you will never know the difference. Even if you decide to expand your RAM later, same modules work for both machines. It is like choosing between brand name Tylenol and generic Tylenol. But remember that even brand name Tylenol has been recalled. So nothing is secure.

I once owned an Athlon machine and was happy with it for 4+ years but had to be dumped for newer version. And the bottomline is, what you are buying today is garbage in making. (in 3 years.) The DVD player I once bought for $45 (propagandhi fainted that day and took off because he could not bear to see me spending $45) standing in line at 4 AM, on after thanksgiving day at Staples looked silly in 3 years and had to be trashed for a new DVD player (only $10).

by indophile Wed Sep 21, 2011 11:14 am

May be some CD/DVD burning, a lot of MATLAB programming at undergraduate level, some Assembly, some simulation - again at undergraduate level, and of course, some movie/video watching/sharing. Looks like either processor would be okay. Thanks.

by The Absolute Zero Wed Sep 21, 2011 11:25 am

indophile wrote:May be some CD/DVD burning, a lot of MATLAB programming at undergraduate level, some Assembly, some simulation - again at undergraduate level, and of course, some movie/video watching/sharing. Looks like either processor would be okay. Thanks.

As you install more stuff like MATLAB and Visual Studio (later in his [under]grad years) running them simultaneously gives a headache due to low memory. So all you would need is 4 GB now expandable to ?? in future. Make sure you have that option. On the earlier Athlon machine running Word and Excel together was a pleasant surprise becuase the earlier intel machine with 4 MB RAM did not allow that :-) But now running a dozen programs is not unusual.

On the DVD burning, it is not processor related (90%) because all the processor has to do is to call the routine to burn and wait till all the burning is done with rotation and such. So DVD drive speeds come in question. The old days of "high speed home computer" are gone. Now the speeds depend on a dozen things like DVD speed, processor speed, program speed, internet speed, whether you have pop-up blocker, network speeds, and of course how fast your own typing on the keyboard is :-)

by artood2 Thu Sep 22, 2011 1:10 pm

indophile wrote:Intel Core i3 processor

Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor

AMD Athlon 2

AMD Athlon 2x3

What is this 2 and 2x3 for Athlon? For Intel I see that i3 is more recent than Pentium dual core, but is it better? Between Intel and Athlon, which one is better for student/home use?

do not get Pentium Dual core. Intel i3 or preferrably i5 would be better. AMD is fine as well. Intel i series does better on performance but it is very application specific. I would go for i5 as it seems to be getting cheaper now. MATLAB simulations can have a huge variety and decent processing power is a good thing to have if he ends up running big simulations.

AMD Phenom series is much better than Athlon. Athlon AFAIR is older generation. You cna tkae AMD instead of Intel but take the Phenom or higher series. Earleri AMD used to burn up batteries faster, don't know how it works today.

Take 4GB or more of RAM.

by indophile Thu Sep 22, 2011 3:08 pm

[quote="artood2"]

indophile wrote:AMD Phenom series is much better than Athlon. Athlon AFAIR is older generation. You cna tkae AMD instead of Intel but take the Phenom or higher series. Earleri AMD used to burn up batteries faster, don't know how it works today.

Take 4GB or more of RAM.

Based on the recos I received here, I would go for an AMD Phenom series desktop. What is even higher than Phenom in AMD?

by artood2 Thu Sep 22, 2011 7:46 pm

[quote="indophile"]

artood2 wrote:
indophile wrote:AMD Phenom series is much better than Athlon. Athlon AFAIR is older generation. You cna tkae AMD instead of Intel but take the Phenom or higher series. Earleri AMD used to burn up batteries faster, don't know how it works today.

Take 4GB or more of RAM.

Based on the recos I received here, I would go for an AMD Phenom series desktop. What is even higher than Phenom in AMD?

The phenoms have different numbers and look for higher end. This page has some numbers

http://products.amd.com/pages/desktopcpuresult.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

Higher the clock speed the better it is for performance. However nowadays things are more complicated with multiple cores, cache sizes, bus speed, multi core architecture, GPU capability etc. On the other hand the CPUs are fairly powerful and differences are not drastic if other configuration like RAM, video card etc are good.

by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Thu Sep 22, 2011 11:31 pm

indophile wrote:May be some CD/DVD burning, a lot of MATLAB programming at undergraduate level, some Assembly, some simulation - again at undergraduate level, and of course, some movie/video watching/sharing. Looks like either processor would be okay. Thanks.

Hm..looks like somoene has decided on Computer Engineering.

by indophile Fri Sep 23, 2011 8:54 am

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:Hm..looks like somoene has decided on Computer Engineering.

Naah, plain old EE with Communications, lot of DSP work.

by The Absolute Zero Fri Sep 23, 2011 9:00 am

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:Hm..looks like somoene has decided on Computer Engineering.

Indophile wrote:Naah, plain old EE with Communications, lot of DSP work.

Yup, dad is dealing with the computer engineering on this forum but the kid is happy with EE/Comm/DSP :-)

by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Fri Sep 23, 2011 11:14 am

indophile wrote:
Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:Hm..looks like somoene has decided on Computer Engineering.

Naah, plain old EE with Communications, lot of DSP work.

A VERY SMART move.. decision.

by truthbetold Sat Sep 24, 2011 8:55 am

I5 would be my suggestion. You could get a decent laptop below $650. Good for Matlab, CAD type of work (plus Hulu and you tube watching. Can't stop it, so try negotiating limits).

I did not have good luck with AMD types. Not because of processor but manf cuts corners on other parts to make a lower cost model to compete on cost. You lose an LED, or power cord jack, you still have to throw away the laptop.

Go with Intel I5 this year.

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