The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Actually the camera on the iPhone is limited by the software, not the hardware. You can correct this on a jailbroken iPod. It is indeed an 8Megapixel camera. Also, there are about a million and one things you can do for battery life without changing much of anything to do with how it works. Disabling unneeded notifications, updating the software on the phone, disabling bluetooth and data push, disabling ssh when not needed, disabling auto brightness and using a single low level. That's the tip of the iceberg. I normally get about 20-30 hours on my iPod, and my friend's 4th Gen gets 30 to 40. No tinkering eh?

 

Apple sucks!

 

I think the point we're trying to make here Jeff is that while you can do loads with an iPhone by jailbreaking it, you can do it all on Android without needing to jailbreak, and save a lot of money in the process.
My sensation xl was £300 cheaper than the iphone 4s. Not seeing any major disadvantages yet...

Also, the 40 hours only applies with no data or background usage.

 

Well put Sam...

I didn't want to even go here Estuansis which is why I supported you on upgrading your iPod and didn't jump on you over Apple stuff, initially. I think you should upgrade since you like it, the 4th gen is even better and I'm sure you will enjoy the upgrade and that's truly all that matters as you are the one buying it and enjoying it.

However now you know what we really think about it too.

 

yes let me apologize, i did not mean to try and start a apple war, i just wanted to put out there me run in with the wifes IPHONE 4S thats all. i dont want any hard feelings out there anywhere.

ok i just ran into this little promo from microcenter.

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0376491

thats only $30 more than what i paid for my Q9550. unreal. i wish all this probate stuff will get over with so i can get moms cars sold and get on with my build..

 

Yup, the i7 2700K is where it's at these days. That is a particularly good price.

 

That is a good price for an Intel! I'd still go for an octal core before that though.

 

I wanna believe the Octo is worth it, but I don't like what I see of the reports. High power requirement, a handful of applications that can utilize the full potential. No doubt a good multitasker though. Not really knocking the Bulldozer. Fact of the matter is, I'd like to try it. But that'd require a complete new build. I'm waiting for the 10 core freaks now And hopefully the performance per core doesn't drop again :S

 

If you're always going to need absolutely all 8 cores in everything you do, the Bulldozers make some degree of sense. Trouble is, that's only usually things like running virtualised machines on a server, and if you're doing that, you normally want server-certified hardware, not lower quality desktop components.

Typical per-core per-clock performance

AMD Bulldozer: 75
AMD Phenom II: 100
Intel Core 2 (65nm): 98
Intel Core 2 (45nm): 113
Intel Core i5/i7 (LF/NH): 135
Intel Core i5/i7 (SB/SBE): 150
Intel Core i5/i7 (IB/IBE): 180 (est.)

My Lynnfield i5 750 is therefore putting out a good 80% higher per-core-per-clock performance, meaning it's not too far off the bulldozer in a 4 vs. 8 contest. My i5 750 can pull off >4Ghz in less than a 200W footprint. The FX-8150 can barely also achieve that. My CPU was £150 a little over two years ago now. The FX-8150 is still £200, if you can find one.

Also consider, the current sandy bridge CPUs are all capable of very close to 5Ghz, if not over, and they can do this within a 200W (i5) or 250W (i7) footprint. A small number of FX-8150s have made it to 5Ghz, but not far off using 500W to do it, and when you consider that 4 cores of a sandy bridge are every bit as capable as 8 cores of a bulldozer, you have two CPUs doing the same work, at 250W vs 450+W. The i7s are also cheaper in a fair few places, and support HT so they can have 8 'cores' if you really need that sort of functionality, even if it's not going to be as thorough as the bulldozers.

 

My money is on the Octal core and it will out perform the Intel for most of the stuff I use, including MS Office which can use all cores. Cheaper better in my mind and since I'm not worried about power usage on my Desktop I could careless if I need a 500W supply which is pretty much less that my average PS anyway.

If I get an Intel for a Desktop it will be to do a real comparison against the 8 core AMD and for use with MAC OS's. Instead of relying on the over inflated nonsense people use on the net or get from Intel.

Also I certainly am not worried about what programs won't use all 8 cores as those programs aren't probably intensive any how.

 

I hear ya! 7zip for instance, is something I rarely use. And when I do, I'm sure the difference (For me) is negligible. Photoshop, use it frequently. But I doubt very seriously that a 1/10th second increase will benefit me much Perhaps that's a bit harsh, and unsubstantiated. I don't use the more advanced filters very often(that require more time), but I'm sure the difference there would go unnoticed by me. Folding, gaming, benchmarking... yah ok. Go with the best processor you can. I suppose I would benefit from an 8 core. I'd sure love to encode, and game at the same time, without taking a performance hit on either side

 

When you want intuitive better performance with everyday apps, 4 fast cores are infinitely better than 8 slow ones.

 

I don't think so!

 

Practical experience finds that in very rare scenarios I have something running which uses all 4 cores to the extent that it bogs down my system and I wish I had more cores to use during this operation. This does not include 4-threaded video encodes, as performance is good enough even during optimised video encoding programs not to affect general browsing, watching TV, playing music etc, so really this only happens when I stress test, which you'd want to max the system out regardless.

More often (95%+ of the time I find myself wanting more resources) is when you find older programs you're forced into using for whatever reason that only use one core. Having a CPU that's double the speed of the AMD 8-core is very handy, as it doubles the speed of programs you can't get to multi-thread, sadly still a huge number, even in this day and age.

With 8 slow cores, you can browse just that teeny bit quicker when maxing your system out, with barely noticeable effect. With 4 fast cores, you can make a large library of software run twice as fast. It's a no brainer.

 

I'd have to agree there. Fewer fast cores is better than more slow cores. I don't see why it's even up for debate, considering the overwhelming difference in power consumption, for what equates to the same or less performance, even in applications Bulldozer is supposed to be good with. Couple that with the reported temps people have when using Bulldozer, the insane power consumption, and how both of these limit OCing in an average enthusiast system. In a large number of applications, my 3.8GHz Phenom II x4 is as fast as a 4.2GHz Bulldozer, with way less power consumption.

I'll agree for a small amount of users Bulldozer makes sense, but those most likely to need something like Bulldozer already have it in the server version it's based on, and that's a better quality chip. I also have wished for more cores, but Bulldozer is not the answer. Bulldozer's impending successor might be what Bulldozer was supposed to be.

 

If 4 really isn't enough and you can spend a bit more, you can still get 6 very potent sandy bridge cores in the i7 3930K for $600.

 

I'll take 8 cores and much better performance at a much cheaper price! I not buying into the over-rated Intel nonsense, you can have them!!

 

Sounds good if AMD offered a product like that, but they don't yet...

 

The price isn't overrated when they perform better. There are numbers to back this up. Also, they're comparably cheaper. The i5 2500k is only $220 right now.

 

For 'over-rated' read 'I'm the only one that thinks they're bad'.

I could quite easily pretend and say 'the i7 3930K is more than double the speed of any other CPU, it's better by miles! Ignore the benchmarks, they're all biased anyway!' when I don't own the CPU so have no basis to back that statement up. I don't of course, because that's ludicrous. So the exact same should apply to Bulldozer. People who don't own the FX-8 series CPUs should stop pretending that all the benchmarks are wrong and that they're actually amazing CPUs.