Which one? AMD 6400 Windsor or 5000 Brisbane?

[paulno]

I am about to upgrade my system, but have not decided on the processor yet. I am torn between the Black Editions of both the AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400 and 5000. The price defference on Newegg for example is only $60. Should I go for the much faster speed and bigger cache (as well as the higher power consumption) of the 6400, or the slower, less capable chip but with a lower power need and newer core of the 5000?

The 6400 has the older Windsor core, .09 mircon manufacturing, and thermal design power of 125 watts. It also has an L2 cache of 2048kb and runs at 3200 Mhz.

The newer 5000 has the Brisbane core, .065 micron manu., and 65W TDP. Its L2 cache is 1024 kb and runs at 2600 Mhz.

I I currently do a little bit of gaming and digital photo processing now, but would like to do much more of both with a better system.

Everyone please let me know what you think.
Thanks,

Paul

[Wizzard1]

Whichever you chose, make SURE and get an Am2+ board, with Phenom support!

[D.8080]

As it is often said, video card maybe more a bottleneck than the cpu.

What's your video card model? Maybe upgrading both could be a good solution.

[paulno]

I thought things over and did a little research, and picked a processor that I think is a compromise between the two I mentioned earlier.

I chose the Athlon 64 X2 5600 Windsor core. It is a 2800 Mhz chip with 2 x 1mb L2 cache and 89W TDP, sitting between the 125W of the 6400 and the 65W of the 5000. I also preferred the L2 cache being twice that of the Brisbane chips, even though they are newer.

The 5600 will go into a Gigabyte AM2+ board so I can upgrade to a Phenom processor down the road if I like, using the same mobo. The gpu is a BFG Tech 6600 OC 512mb PCIe.

I hope this combination works for what I want. I am by no means a serious gamer, but I would like to play more than I do now and have the capabilities to try out current new games without having my system struggle to slog through things.

[D.8080]

Looks good, think about changing the vid card, as ati is going with new products, in a few months you'll have good prices.

Enjoy your games

[iguana]