AMD Athlon X2 7850 vs. Intel Pentium E5300: Choosing the Best $70 CPU
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 28, 2009 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
SYSMark 2007 Performance
Our journey starts with SYSMark 2007, the only all-encompassing performance suite in our review today. The idea here is simple: one benchmark to indicate the overall performance of your machine.
The SYSMark results show that we’re in for a close race. The overall score has the 7850 in the lead by 3 points but that’s about a 2% advantage over the E5300 - most definitely within the benchmark’s margin of error.
In the individual suites the Athlon X2 and Pentium trade blows with AMD pulling ahead in E-Learning and Productivity while Intel holds the lead in Video Creation and 3D rendering tests. The first results are basically a wash, regardless of which chip you get you’ll see virtually equal performance.
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just4U - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
I don't agree about intel being the clear choice, (enthusiast or otherwise)You have to factor in boards being used to. Chances are most that are looking for a bottom feeder budget build will be using integrated chipsets. The 780g/v brings so much more to the table over what we currently get from intel offerings..
That was a key sticking point for me.. and I think it really makes the choice a hard one to make unless your brand loyal, or a overclocker looking for a cheap cpu based around a competent setup.
nubie - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - link
Depends on what you need, I went for a 650i motherboard with a single PCIe slot for an 8600GTS ( the 2ghz ram actually seems to help with the 128-bit bus). It was $40, and you can get that deal yourself.I doubt for $140 you can beat a 3.3-3.4 ghz core2 with an 8600GTS.
soydeedo - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.Zaitsev - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
I was hoping to see a few words on OCing as well. I mean, having two cores disabled should yield some more headroom than the quad core parts, right?Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
I didn't have time to test overclocking for this article but if there's enough demand we can definitely look at how the two compare. The E5300 has a good amount of headroom thanks to its 45nm process, I'd expect the standings to remain the same if not widen in favor of Intel.Take care,
Anand
cpeter38 - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - link
Please do OC the chip ...crimson117 - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
OC results on these two budget CPUs would be great - but it'd be best if it were normalized somehow...1. Same price-class motherboards, around $100 or less to match the low-cost CPUs
2. Same exact ram modules
3. Same heatsink, or limit it to included stock heatsinks
, and re-run just a few choice benchmarks.
Would make for a great blog post :)
Viditor - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - link
While you're at it, you should unlock the other 2 cores as well...http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/News/143621,amd-x2s-ar...">http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/News/143621,amd-x2s-ar...
johnsonx - Wednesday, April 29, 2009 - link
I've read dozens of articles and posts claiming that you can unlock the extra core(s) in the new X2's and X3's, and exactly ZERO telling how to actually do it. Is this some sort of urban legend?ssj4Gogeta - Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - link
Yes we'd definitely like to see OC results. I'm sure after OC'ing both chips to their max. gaming performance will be significantly better on the Intel part too.