Which would you choose AMD 5050E or Intel 8400E?

[Anteries]

Hi, I've been happily using my AMD 64 single core 3200 running at 2.2 GHz 89 watt computer for ages. I'm using XP have 1.5 GB of RAM. Everything has been tuned up for minimal drag on system resources.

I'm thinking of upgrading, but I'm worried that I will spend loads of cash and not notice much performance increase. I only really care about performance because I used Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice recognition and it's quite slow acting on commands when surfing with Firefox.

I don't really know anyone that has any of the newer processors, that I could try out.

For a long time I have been looking at the AMD low-power, 5050E dual core processor that runs at 2.6 GHz. It is only .4 GHz faster than my current CPU. I know the whole memory and bus speed is vastly improved over my older motherboard, which is 754 socket.

I'm wondering whether I should splurge on the Intel 8400E only problem is it's about £145 compared with £50 for the AMD 5050E.

I suppose the only way to find out is to buy one or the other and see for oneself. I really wish that I had a sense of how these gigahertz numbers related to performance. For example is a 3 GHz CPU one third faster than a 2 GHz?

Any thoughts on recommendations about this upgrade would be appreciated.

[CA_Steve]

My guess is that just going to any dual core cpu with modern FSB/memory bus speeds will solve your sluggish app issue. Firefox and DNS are competing for the same core with your 3200+. Don't think you need much CPU horsepower. Go with the AMD 5050e + 780G for lowest price point or an Intel e5200 + 9300 for a bit more but the ability to OC.

For grins, try using DNS s/w without any other apps running and see how much of the CPU/RAM it uses. That should give you a baseline.

[dhanson865]

I'd recommend you go for an AMD chip on a 780G motherboard and save the extra money. You'll find modern CPUs are faster than you need for most tasks.

If it were me I'd go with the X3 720 but I game occasionally. The 3rd core might help with Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I did a quick Google search and found this quote

Dragon NaturallySpeaking has been multicore capable since the release of DNS 9.0

You are looking at vast differences from socket 754 to socket AM2+. 754 was single channel memory DDR. AM2+ handles dual channel DDR2 at much higher clock speeds.

The 5050e is 45W TDP dual core with no L3 cache, the X3 720 is 95W triple core with 6MB L3 cache. Either way you can get something cheaper than the dual core intel part you mentioned.

[psiu]

And of course, it's 2.6GHz for each core--so it's got a total of 5.2GHz of comparable processing heft versus yours. Of course that does assume proper distribution of resources, but as dhanson865 mentioned DNS is multicore capable so it should handle that well.

[judge56988]

I suppose the only way to find out is to buy one or the other and see for oneself. I really wish that I had a sense of how these gigahertz numbers related to performance. For example is a 3 GHz CPU one third faster than a 2 GHz?

Any thoughts on recommendations about this upgrade would be appreciated.

If it's any help, my computer is very similar spec to yours: Athlon 3200/S754/1GB RAM.
My 2.5 year old laptop with Dual Core Intel T2500 2.00GHz and 2GB RAM runs roughly twice as fast on apps like Photoshop and Premiere.
A new budget processor like e5200 would be maybe double that performance again. (Guessing)

[Anteries]

I am very grateful for your replies and perspective about different components. I would dearly love to support AMD because I like rooting for the underdog but I'm sorely tempted by the Intel chips. Also I know it's stupid but I have a real fear about overclocking mainly because I mentally switch off when I read how to do it and don't really understand it. overclocking a e5200 and is always being talked about in the magazines. just need to get my head down and read how to do it.

The AMD three core Phinom 720 is an intriguing prospect I'm a bit put off by the higher power of these chips. though I say higher power this CPU is only six Watts more power hungry than my single core.

In regards to voice recognition and Dragon NaturallySpeaking I found out some interesting information from a speech recognition forum. I got some information that seemed pretty legitimate.

A guy who claimed he worked programming speech recognition said that speech recognition is basically a linear process which does not benefit much from having multiple cores. In other words the programme has the process your voice signals and wait for that to happen before it can start the next process.

Obviously multithreading and extra cores help with running the other programmes. He said the important thing for speech recognition, apart from processor power is the L2 cache and the way this cache is managed.

And as you know the more expensive multicore phenom and Intel chips have more L2 cache and better ways to manage that memory. The current best being 7i Intel platform which apparently does away with the front side bus. And does very clever stuff in regards to memory management.

I just I would paraphrase this for your mild interest.

The whole L2 L3 cache is a whole another can of worms that I don't really understand. I had pretty much decided on a dual core but now I'm getting pulled into the multicore direction.

Sometimes I think life would be easier if I was just one of those people who went into a shop and asked for a computer knowing nothing.

[CA_Steve]

As said earlier, nearly any dual core will probably meet your needs. The rest of the discussions are overkill in performance, costs, and power. Run the baseline check, yet?

[Mats]

Anandtech comparison.

[Anteries]

Anandtech comparison.

Wonderful tec site, thanks