A straight up side by side comparison; which is best?

[stu8080]

Heres my dilemma: I have chosen two motherboard and cpu combos from online merchants who also supply the Antec Fusion case that i want. One's a Core 2 Duo E4400 and an Asus P5V-VM SE DH, the other an AMD Athlon X2 1.9GHz AM2 on an Asus M2A-VM/HDMI.

I intend to use the setup headless, running only MVP's wired (work in progress...) to rooms in the house. I have two Freeview DVB-T cards for the UK, and may add USB tuner for my cable box. I can get a cheap gigabit PCI-E gigabit card locally as well as a gigabit switch and hope to use WHS with a DHCP add-it (hopefully! If not XP with similar software) and allow me interuption free TV, music etc through the house.

Intel Pro's: Core 2 Duo better, can use existing three HDD's without SATA adapter, cool remote feature, eSATA
Intel Cons: No chance of direct TV out (would be ideal especially when i get a HDTV)

AMD Pro's: CPU less power, loads of USB ports, decent graphics support with HDMI for future tv upgrade, SPDIF out, DVI out.
AMD Cons: Only 2 IDE channels, might mean more for a SATA HDD if adapters dont work.

So what would you go for? Im open to all comments

Thanks

P.S. The picture shows a different mobo, the link is the one im after:

[reven]

i always go for intel, but when i was looking at a new cpu, most of the reviews i read said the duo's were the best cpus on the market (that werent extremely pricey) - but that was about 8months ago.

ive got 3 duos now (e6400, e6550, e6600), and they run great, produce bugger all heat so that helps when trying to make a silent htpc, my htpc is really silent, from a foot away you cant hear the thing.

just my 2 cents.

[StanO]

I think that if you are not overclocking then the AMD's are at a great price point. I got the Gigabyte with the HDMI and use a PCI-E adaptor for additional IDE drives. Mine is a little overclocked (onboard video (ATI) and CPU).

If you are overclocking at all the Pentium Dual Cores are cheap and according to posts on Newegg highly overclockable.

[sub]

I've been using AMD for the last few years, and currently using a AMD X2 4600+ in my main development machine...but... if I was buying today, I'd definitely buy Intel Core 2 Duo or Quad.

[mvallevand]

I've got the Intel E4300 overclocked to 2.4 GHZ since day one. What is great about this chip (I was a die hard AMD fan since K2 day) is it never hits 30 degrees even with this o/c and I'm using the default cooling and thermal compounds etc.

That being said, I now wish I had bought a chip that had virtualization potential.

Martin

[kayleigh]

I read a lot of CPU test results, reviews, the like on TomsHardware.com before I built my last computer. A lot of the results said that the Intel dual & quad cores overclocked like a dream, but they were hotter, less energy efficient and didn't offer the same "bang for the buck" compared to AMD dual cores. I settled on a 5200+ I got for a song (just over US$100). It's been performing MPEG transcoding at about realtime.

[pBS]

there are intel boards with hdmi outs [ati]

basically both cpu families are fine, performance within 5% and cooling on both currently on par..
any core2 should do nicely as well as any x64 for HTPC especially if not usig for video out....but even if using for tv out, both are fine..
amd's 'cool and quiet' fan control is nice, as intel boards fall behind in that respect...
i have e2140 which is a Jr. core2 duo 1.6 and it does HD fine with crap video card..but ultra cool compared to previous generations from both sides...[69$ at fry's with pcie-mb]
the core2's overclock to double! easily..and still don't go nuts heat wise.

and the latest amd stuff is no different..they can't afford for it to be..

[stu8080]

Some reasuring responses! Thanks.

Im leaning towards the AMD simply because of the £20 saving, and extra features of the motherboard, plus the bonus of cool and quiet. I really want the Core 2 Duo as i know its the better chip, but if they are almost equal then the mobo features swing it. Plus i wouldnt use the remote control features of the Intel Mobo as the sytem would be a server, on 24/7.

Mvallevand: Which chips have virtualisation potential, and what are the advantages?

Think i would be able to transcode two different AVI files to two different MVP's without a problem... if it can do that im assured!?

[stustunz]

my vote would be intel i have found them way more reliable as far staying on 24/7 just my 5 cents

plus its the little fan the mother boards taht make the most noise anyway

[Deusxmachina]

For overclocking, I don't know if I've ever heard of a Core2Duo that can't hit at least 2.4ghz without trying. ...assuming the motherboard and memory are capable. Some CPUs have the better multiplier, so you can use a cheaper motherboard and memory with them. A C2D with a low multiplier may need a better motherboard and better memory. It can be hard to expect a big overclock without considering those three parts together.

Both of my C2Ds, one being a lowly e2140, overclock on stock voltage to 2.8ghz and seem to have no problems. My e6300 can do 3.2ghz on stock voltage, but above that it needs more voltage, good memory, a good fan and heatsink, etc. (Haven't tried much having the e2140 higher than 2.8. It's already plenty fast.) You hear a lot of people doing 3+ghz with their C2Ds, but I doubt many are doing it reliably if the rest of the parts or environment (air-conditioning) aren't up to snuff.

If both cpu choices would do the job, I'd look more at what motherboard will do what you want. If that intel motherboard can't do direct TV-out, that might be a dealbreaker right there. Or if one or the other doesn't have SPDIF for some reason, that wouldn't be good, either. Easily fixed with a $5 sound card, but also a PCI slot. Or can always consider other motherboards, too.

A year ago, AMD simply could not compare to the Core2Duos. The power (and potential power from easy overclocking) was just too great for the price. I don't know if that gap has been closed or not. I bought the e2140 a couple months ago not only because I knew what it can do but because I already had another C2D intel machine, so being able to swap parts for testing if something broke was a factor.

I'd mainly make sure the motherboard can do what I want first, because if it can't then you might need to throw more $ at it later via add-on cards.