Expert: Bobbert - 8/20/2007

Question
Would you help me decide which is a better CPU to buy considering my
budget. These are the 2 CPUs available here in our country with almost
similar price range: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 and AMD X2 5000. Please
consider the following: My work is more on multi-media, 3D modeling &
animation, graphic design, video/audio rip & editing, not much with gaming.
Consider also the ventilation, my room is not air conditioned. I'm in a
tropical country, Philippines. Please suggest also the best affordable
mainboard for the suggested CPU. I'll be using WindowsXP or Vista
maybe. I'll be waiting for your response as soon as you can. Thanks in
advance. God bless you.

Answer
Well, both would be good choices, I'm going to say the Core 2 over the AMD, for a few reasons:

Firstly, it runs cooler than the AMD, which will help with the lack of A/C.
Secondly, theres likely more motherboard options available to you.

I'd suggest looking for an LGA 775 mainboard that has the features you want, I'd suggest DDR2, PCI Express, etc

Gigabyte and ASRock offer boards in a good price range (about $60 to $120 USD) for the Core 2 platform, might be worth looking for.

-bob