Topic awaiting preservation: Pentium or AMD ?

I want to upgrade my system. I want a new processor, a new motherboard and new memory. That's all I need.
Currently I have a Pentium III 733MHz, ASUS MB, and I am sort of stuck to the Pentium brand because, I don't know why, because it's a Pentium. But a Pentium 2.8GHz with HT technology, 800MHz bus speed, bla bla, will cost me almost $500 - with an ASUS motherboard, almost best model - not to mention the memory sticks.
With an Athlon, I could save a lot of money.
My question is: is it worth spending more money to have a Pentium?

I'm a big fan of AMD, so I will recommend you to get AMD Athlon processor...

Although, I wouldn't say that AMD will save you money. If you really want to buy the processor in the same class as that spiffy P4 that you've mentioned, you'll need to buy the latest AMD Athlon 64 or Athlon FX, which costs around 500$ Older AMD Athlon XP (Barton or Thoroughbred core) costs much less, though...

I'm in favour of the P4s, they fit nicely onto the mobos, in my experience they're faster, more stable and don't get as hot and you won't save that much money on a similar spec AMD

I've been a fan of AMD Athlons for the longest while....

...won't start a religious fervor by extending on this, though...


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I'm a former Intel addict. But considering the usual needs of computer power, and the 2-3 years life time of a computer due to the fast obsolescence of the components, I go for AMD now for their price/quality ratio. What if your processor is a little hotter ? processors fans are made to cool them down no ? Even if you overclock you computer, unless you go crazy, it won't really hurt it, and after all you know that you'll change your computer or some important components in 2-3 years.

For example, let's check the 2 price ( picked in the price list of october ) from the computer shop where my brother works.
Pentium 4, 3.06Ghz FSB 533 = 429?
Athlon XP 3000+, FSB 333 = 299?

I don't focus on above 500? processors 'coz I find rather useless to waste that much money here, not to mention that you can almost build a complete and descent computer for that price. AMD's processors are not exactly as powerfull as Intel's ones but who cares ? Unless you make a massive use of memory ( which would go along with the buy of a lot of memory ( 1Gb ) and huge hard drives ) I'm pretty sure you won't suffer from the 333 Mhz bus of the AMD.

The advantages of the Pentium are real but they are unnoticeable (?) for most of the users.

You're about to make a jump from 733 Mhz to ~3 Ghz, whatever processor you buy you'll be dazzled by the speed for a while, so why not saving a little money now and spend it in several months to upgrade another component if you feel a need for it or buy some peripherals, softwares ... ?

Mathieu "POÏ" HENRI

[This message has been edited by poi (edited 10-29-2003).]

personally i am an AMD fan, i've had great experiences with their products and the price/performance ratio beats out intel across the board. i also appreciate the way they've done business, they took on a company that most considered untouchable and compete right with them but offering great products at great prices. sure, it might be nice to have a cool 64-bit cpu, but do you really need it?

you might look at what else you want to do with your system too. i mean, glancing thru prices (since i've been looking at upgrading myself) you can get an athlon xp 2500 for under $120 US with a motherboard. as much as cpu speed is hyped up, once you get over a 2 gig cpu you're blazing, anything more is really just overkill for most folks. i'd say go with a lower priced cpu and then buy some more ram, get a printer, new vid card, etc., make your dollars count more in your system.

just my two cents...

chris


KAIROSinteractive

What CPU you get really depends on what you are using it for. High bandwidth things like video editing, 3d modeling, and some sound works are undeniable faster on the P4. And if you have many Dual CPU enabled apps(not many in the low to mid end) the P4 HyperThreading may be a real draw to you.
But many games, office apps, and general computer uses are the same or better on the Athlon XP CPUs. While the older AMD CPUs are copetative to realy clean up you need to go with the new FX, Opteron, or Athlon 64. These are doing well now but expect them to improve even more when they get more 64 bit softwareto run.

So it really depends on what you are doing with the CPU. And if 5-15% on a benchmark isn't the end of the world to but $200 is hard to come by I would go with the AthlonXP.
I recommend that you go check some becnchmarks to see which CPU is best for you, pick the one that has the best performance in the apps you want, and then do some cost comparisions at www.pricewatch.com .

Bechmarks to check http://www17.tomshardware.com/search/search.html?category=all&words=athlon http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030210/index.html http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030923/index.html


On a side note if you just want to upgrade the MB, CPU, and RAM now and don't have a newer video/sound card going with an AthlonXP and nForce2 will also upgrade your video and sound card to good sound and an on board GeForce4 MX for around $160USD for the MB. The nForce series of mother boards are a good chooice for the casual-mid range gamer.

__________________________
"Show me a sane person and I will cure him for you."-Carl Jung
Eagles may fly high, but beavers don't get sucked into get engines.
tj333- the semi-Christ

I would reccomend having at least 2 GHz of CPU, 256 MB RAM, and a 40GB hard drive to keep the computer above the minamal standards for recent apps and usableon the later ones.

Whoops not getting a new harddrive so you can just ignore that part.

But also make sure that if you get an ATX motherboard your case can mount one and that you power supply(PSU) is around 250-350 wattes, preferable around 300 for newer hardware.
__________________________
"Show me a sane person and I will cure him for you."-Carl Jung
Eagles may fly high, but beavers don't get sucked into get engines.
tj333- the semi-Christ

[This message has been edited by tj333 (edited 10-29-2003).]

I switched from an AMD to a Pentium four months ago. I now have a Pentium 3 Ghz 800 fsb with HT. I did not notice any significant change in speed except for 3d apps (of which I rarely use). My bottom line: AMD is the choice if you are looking for speed and value, and Pentium is the choice if you are looking for speed and a fancy hologram on the CPU fan.

I have, however, not had near as many system crashes with multiple open apps. Yet I could attribute that to faster memory. Still, the $800 price tag for the memory and CPU is not fun.

Actually, recently I've been finding my AMD XP 2000+ to be falling behind the times. It runs games ok (though a better video card might help, my Radeon 9000pro is ageing fast), but for a lot of other things it's damn slow.

Flash, Director, Maya, 3D Max etc ect seem to be much much faster on even a P4 1.6 Ghz system. Director is where's I've noticed most fo the speed issues. Apps that run around 30fps on my XP 2000+ run at around 70fps on a P4 1.6, on my brothers P4 2.4 system they run at around 200. I get similar results with flash.

Although I'm still running on crappy PC133 Ram, so that could be slowing me down quite a lot.

I thought most 3D apps ran off the processor more than the RAM. Which is where the Pentium HT technology is so awesome. We've run into this in some of our architectural renderings in Viz and Parenisi. The programs don't use the RAM, they just want processor cycles. The machine tops out at 100% processor use with 512 Mb of RAM in it and the techs say it does the same with a Gb of RAM. Ram is, more like as not, not the bottle neck you think it is.

If i was not doing video editing and 3d and graphics, i would go with AMD... but if you need power.... then well... ya gotta pay for it.

The more you throw out your opinions, the more confused I got. Just kidding.

I do some video editing now and then, but the main reason I want a powerful machine is because I want my 'new' computer to last longer.
I mean, I have this P3-733 since august/2000, and today she (my computer is a she) is able to still do all the work I need, some of them taking hours, though (like converting a DVD into an avi to fit into two CDs). Also, when I edit some personal video, I have to wait sometimes 2 hours for rendering just 25 minutes of final video.
Well, I have the time to wait but of course it would be much better if I had to wait less.

But see, just now I have added a DVD burner to my computer. And the minimum specs says that I need a P3-800 to avoid problems when burning DVDs. So I am at the limit. But according to my first tests, my computer was quite capable in handling the task of burning a DVD, so I can wait a little longer for the update.

But soon I will find something that will just not run properly in my system. So, soon I will need to upgrade. And since I will be going back to my country in about 8 months, and there computer parts are more expensive, I want to take with me some good stuff, so I will know that for the next three years I won't have to worry with changing hardware.

The main kind of programs that require the best hardware is game (and I guess 3-D apps, but I don't deal with them). Well, due to RSI problems, I can't play games anymore, games like first-person shooters, the ones I loved so much. But I still play, rarely, Flight Simulator and some low-hand-movement-demanding games. And Flight Sim, for instance, require the best hardware possible.

I wouldn't really stress over it. Whatever you choose you may end up liking, or you may end up not liking so much. You can't foresee the future; I'd just pick one and run with it. With $500, I myself would get...

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Then I'd have a nice Pentium 4 (2.8 GHz) running on a Soyo mobo complete with a Gig of DDR memory, all for $499.97. But I'm pretty indeferent about most things, you might not be, I don't know. Mhe...

[Cell 1303]