Processors! Argh!

I'm in need of a new PC (my current P4 1.5Ghz has lasted a good 3 years now...), and these days there's too many letters and too much terminology for me to cope :razz: So, as I'm a poor student, I'm looking into these:

• Pentium 4 3Ghz
• Pentium 4E 3Ghz
• Athlon 64bit 3200+

They're all the same price (about ?140, $200), and although I've heard the AMD processor is better it seems that motherboards cost more (about ?60,$90 compared to Pentium motherboards at about ?40,$60). Is it worth the extra money, has anyone bought any new processors/motherboards recently, and any recommendations on particular brands or even particular motherboards? Mainly just after something mid-range that'll last a couple of years. Thanks :smile:

Aren't they supposed to be releasing a new line of them at the same time as Half-Life 2? You might want to wait for those (But that might be just video/graphics cards).

I suggest AMD. You should be able to find them cheaper than the Pentium ones (But thats here in Canada, don't know aboot Europe).

As is widely know

amd=gaming

pentium=office type apps

But personally, I would go for the amd route. The new asus A8V deluxe is out, and its very nice. But costs around ?90-?100

As is widely know

amd=gaming

pentium=office type apps

nonsense.

Agreed.

The A64s are the pick right now. Lots of websites have monthly or weekly buyers guides, and they all seem to be recommending A64. However, no Athlon board has PCI-X yet, and many would say this is something you want for future upgrade purposes. But if you have to upgrade now, it's got to be Intel to get that.

If you decide to go intel, and you overclock, get the Northwood P4, if you don't overclock get the prescott.

Benchmarks usually put the A64 ahead price for price, but normally the differences aren't that big either way.

Can you see PCI-X becoming big in the next 2 years or so? I'm quite happy with my current sound card, hardware modem and TV/radio out card and can't see why it would need to be faster... unless PCI graphics card come back into fashion

PCIX looks as tho' its going to be the next industry standard or at least the manufacturers are talking it up that way, AGP/PCI boards will prolly be around for a while yet so no need to chuck out all your kit just yet :smile:

Hmmm, you don't say which socket that Athlon is, i'm guessing its a 754 for that price. Personally, i would go for an Athlon 64 Socket 939, avoid socket 940 and 754 as they're slower and will prolly be phased out soon-ish. Pentium's are ok but tend to cost more for similar performance.

Can't recommend any particular mobo although MSI boards are usually pretty good. Before buying i would check the manufacturers sites for hardware conflicts - some mobo's don't work or are very flaky with specific brands of memory :sad:

I go for Asus always, and try to avoid anything that says VIA on it. I think it's pretty subjective though.

The graphics card market is definately moving towards PCI-X, but nividia at least have said they will be supporting AGP for a while. My personal thought is that thinking about the system I buy now with a graphics card, by the time I need a new graphics card, it will be time to upgrade the rest anyway, so PCI-X wasn't an issue for me.

I'd go for those too if I had that sort of money right now

scary_jeff said:
I go for Asus always, and try to avoid anything that says VIA on it.

gets breathe back

VIA are great chipsets! I know about 4 other peeps who have mobo's with VIA chipsets and they have had no problems. [ 3 of them have an a7v8x-x and 1 has an a7v8x-mx]

plz don't let this turn into a intel-amd thread, or a via-nforce thread

Biological Component said:

As is widely know

amd=gaming

pentium=office type apps

nonsense.

Everyone knows that AMD chips are better for gaming!

$loth said:

Biological Component said:

As is widely know

amd=gaming

pentium=office type apps

nonsense.

Everyone knows that AMD chips are better for gaming!

er, before you make more random generalizations, what exactly do you mean by "better for gaming" ?

AMD processors are designed with gaming in mind, whilst Intel CELERONS are designed for standard workstations.

Pentiums are a cross

VIA chipsets make the baby Jesus cry.

Personally I'm a fan of the nForce 2/3 chipsets and either a Barton 2500+ or a standard A64. Any other AMD isn't really worth the cost/performance ratio. (The Barton has a 400Mhz BUS and can be OCed easily to 3200+ speeds.)

AMD chips do one process very well, but don't multitask much.

Intel chips do a lot of processes with less oomph but multitask better.

So in a sense, and AMD chip does better for games because it's a more focused type of processor, not necessarily because it's made for games. It's just that when you play you tend to turn most stuff off to leave all resources for your game anyway.

Gorbachev said:
VIA chipsets make the baby Jesus cry.

Personally I'm a fan of the nForce 2/3 chipsets and either a Barton 2500+ or a standard A64. Any other AMD isn't really worth the cost/performance ratio. (The Barton has a 400Mhz BUS and can be OCed easily to 3200+ speeds.)

AMD chips do one process very well, but don't multitask much.

Intel chips do a lot of processes with less oomph but multitask better.

So in a sense, and AMD chip does better for games because it's a more focused type of processor, not necessarily because it's made for games. It's just that when you play you tend to turn most stuff off to leave all resources for your game anyway.

Exactly my point, thats why intel chips are better for office such stuff, because it is better at multi tasking when you have various apps open at one time.

LOL!!EVERYONE KNOWS AMD is designed with gaming in mind!!!11

...Anyway, from my experience, Intel is a bit more stable, which I think is something to consider, but the "equivalent" AMD chip is usually always cheaper. I say go with whatever fits your budget! And, if the intel motherboard is more within your budget, act accordingly- may the AMD gaming gods have mercy upon your soul. I highly doubt that going either way makes a whole lot of difference.

Personally I decide on money more than anything, because when you first
buy the proc, the latest intel or AMD will be super fast and will run
all the current apps of the time.. at super speed.

It's a moot point in a non hardware junkies eyes, but i'd go with the AMD 64 bit chip - for "lastability" as it were.

hmmm i smell another war Athlon vs Intel..... But me being an intel guy I suggest the other side athlon 64 bit...... Its fast, my friend who has one has said that its speedy and relyable.

Biological Component said:
LOL!!EVERYONE KNOWS AMD is designed with gaming in mind!!!11

...Anyway, from my experience, Intel is a bit more stable, which I think is something to consider, but the "equivalent" AMD chip is usually always cheaper. I say go with whatever fits your budget! And, if the intel motherboard is more within your budget, act accordingly- may the AMD gaming gods have mercy upon your soul. I highly doubt that going either way makes a whole lot of difference.

I've yet to see anything past a K6-2 be unstable for AMD chips. Tons of stuff causes issues before a CPU does. If you're smart enough to install a heatsink then you should be just fine. The round peg goes in the round hole.

PCI Express mobos still have normal PCI slots in them; expect legacy support for PCI to be around for quite some time. PCI Express 16 (the replacement for the AGP slot) is super-fast, though, so being able to get a PCX video card is advantageous.

Other things to consider:

BTX mobo/case- better design for cooling/airflow

DDR2 support - yeah ram just keeps getting faster

I think AMD is still generally ahead in the performance game, which is part of the reason Intel is doing this stupid "processor numbers" thing- it makes it more work for a consumer to compare Intel/AMD chips head-on. Though it is nice having all that other info (front side bus, etc) so readily available.

Jinx said:
PCI Express mobos still have normal PCI slots in them; expect legacy support for PCI to be around for quite some time. PCI Express 16 (the replacement for the AGP slot) is super-fast, though, so being able to get a PCX video card is advantageous.

Other things to consider:

BTX mobo/case- better design for cooling/airflow

DDR2 support - yeah ram just keeps getting faster

I think AMD is still generally ahead in the performance game, which is part of the reason Intel is doing this stupid "processor numbers" thing- it makes it more work for a consumer to compare Intel/AMD chips head-on. Though it is nice having all that other info (front side bus, etc) so readily available.

PICX, I don't think that I will be waiting for it to come out if I have the money, its a big waste, because nothing can really take advantage of it atm.

BTX- Made because intel can't keep the temps of thier cpu's down, my amd 2500 is at 45c idle.

I'm sorry '$loth', but as I read these threads, I end up thinking that you should stfu you because you really don't seem to know what you are are talking about, but you are very keen to try and tell others they are wrong.

scary_jeff said:
I'm sorry '$loth', but as I read these threads, I end up thinking that you should stfu you because you really don't seem to know what you are are talking about, but you are very keen to try and tell others they are wrong.

Hehe, im just not an intel man :razz:

scary_jeff said:
I'm sorry '$loth', but as I read these threads, I end up thinking that you should stfu you because you really don't seem to know what you are are talking about, but you are very keen to try and tell others they are wrong.

Give me an example then.

I agree with $loth :smile: PCIX isn't worth it atm, since there's a very
limited range of graphics cards available for it, and the ones that are
available are all over ?250. BTX is an unnecesary and bad redesign, and
it's Intel trying to keep hold of the market.

Having read a very very small amount on the topic, it seems that PCI-X graphics cards don't really give much of a performance increase over their AGP counterparts. That could well change soon enough however, I don't know enough about the topic to speculate.

No, the big thing about PCI-X is the new amount of bandwidth that
graphics cards can use, it doesnt make a PCI-X card faster than the
same card using AGP. But I don't think graphics cards are even using
all of the bandwidth available from AGP 4x, let alone AGP 8x and I
think PCI-X has twice as much bandwidth as AGP 8x.

I didn't say if PCI-X is worth it now or not. I said that if you don't go for PCI-X, and want to keep the same system for a long time, you might become limited as to your choice of graphics card if you feel you want to upgrade your graphics card without upgrading your whole system.

Agreed, but as far as I've seen (and that's admittedly not a lot, and
it's quite likely I'm wrong here :biggrin: ), motherboards with PCI-X are
almost twice as much as those with AGP 8x. You might as well get a
motherboard with AGP 8x now, then buy a new motherboard when you want
to upgrade your graphics card.

My view on PCI Xpress:

If you are going to upgrade now, then you have 3 choices:

• You can buy a motherboard with AGP [ no pci x] and buy a super fast card to last you ages.
• You can but a high priced motherboard with PCI X and get a PCI X graphics card.
• You can wait until PCI X becomes cheaper and then upgrade, although it will probably not become cheaper until more people purchase PCI X motherboards.

For what it's worth I just got my Athlon 64 3000 hooked up and I must say I'm rather happy with it. Webpages load pretty much instantly and steam boots up in seconds as opposed to minutes. Then again I'm upgrading from a pentium 2, so it would be hard not to be impressed.