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LAN Party Forums => Support Group => Started by: Agent4054 on October 11, 2003, 09:48:44 PM
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Ok, I thought I better start a new topic. But is still related to my previous hardware problem. As the topic suggests, I'm trying to decide between Intel or AMD. AMD, of course, is cheaper but I'm not exactly sure how they compare to the Intels. My past experience with Intels weren't too good, but they may have changed since then. My current AMD is good when it doesn't crash my system. :P
But you guys' opinions would be nice. :) I trust most of you know enough about the cpu's. I found a few good mobo cpu combos as of late and (to be redundant) would like your opinion on the brand (of cpu).
Oh! the other thing I was wondering was how do the upgrade paths compare between the two? :sombrero
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It depends how much you wanna spend to be honest.
Intel is faster (AMD just beat them out, but their new FX chip is ridiculously priced). So if you are looking for speed, Intel is the better choice. But of course you pay for that speed.
BUT... AMD's speeds are more accurate. For instance... and AMD 2.4 GHZ is faster than an INTEL 3.0 GHZ.
Intel inflates their stats.
My recommendation, if money is an issue, go AMD
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I agree with Pride, but i'll never see myself purchasing an AMD chip ever again. If someone gives me one, or I "aquire" one... that's the only way... But that's just cause i'm anal..
~Sancho :chef
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i am the same way as Sancho. I have an AMD now, and no complaints, but my next one will be an Intel. I am willing to pay the extra for it.
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ok thanks guys. my next question is about the ddr ram. I can get any ddr that my motherboard supports; ie. 333/400/etc... But do the PC2100/2700 ratings matter? As in, if the motherboard supports 333mhz, can I get 2700 or 2100? Also, I'm guessing, that you'd need unifrom numbers.. Can you combine ddr types? Just for the sake of curiosity.
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PC2100 = DDR266... PC2700 = DDR333, etc....
That's what that means...
~Sancho :chef
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Hrmmm, i read the question wrong..., you already knew that...
~Sancho :chef
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Your smurf scares me.
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I'm da' papa...
~Sancho :chef
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I'm going to go against everyone and say that I will never in a million years buy an intel cpu again unless AMD goes out of business.
Maybe it was just a case of the wrong place at the wrong time but I've had back to back issues with P3's and certain chipsets on the mb. I've been an avid user of the AMD chip for a while and knock on wood I've had the easiest time getting an AMD to work correctly the first time. I think Intel is too high maintenance.
A celeron with a sweet vid card can outpower a p3 with a cheap card so when looking to get the most speed from your system do not bank all your bucks on the latest and greatest cpu's out there. Given a great vid card and non-generic memory you can make your pc come back to life and run with the big dogs.
My hats off to AMD for at least trying to bring the 64 bit processor to the home user. Intel's had the Itanium chip for a long time now but no one with an ordinary budget can invest the money to use it. I think AMD is playing their cards right and proving to the world that Intel is not the only choice in this world for your computer.
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I'd give some kind of honest evaluation of the two chips, but I have 3 AMD systems, so, uh, I'm not even going to pretend that I'm fair and balanced as it regards this topic. :)
I have two systems that are Celerons, but I only used those because they ran cooler and were being put into an enclosed space (my ToolKITT (http://www.fithlan.com/modules.php?set_albumName=minis-tyrone&id=aag&op=modload&name=Gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php)).
The combos break down as follows:
Duron 850 / FIC AZ-11E
Athlon 1.1GHz / Abit KT7-RAID
Athlon XP 2800+ / Asus A7N8X Deluxe
The only system I ever had big time trouble with was the KT7-RAID, but that was due to the fact that the VIA chipset hated SoundBlaster Live! cards - it took several versions of the 4-in-1 drivers and a couple BIOS revisions to get that cleared up.
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I remember back when I got my first computer. It was a 60mhz pentium 1. That was a superfast pc there! It cost $2000 and it was a "screamin'" system. Heh...riiiiiight. I still have the 140mb hard drive that came with it. It came with two games: Myst and Descent. Descent is an awesome game by the way.
The main problem with that purchase was the processor. See, Intel (for some stupid reason) made the 60mhz processors different from all the rest. They were supposed to be "technology that would change everything". Well, yeah. Turned out, we couldn't upgrade. Intel made their 60's with weird architecture that would allow an upgrade up the same cpu type to 66mhz. Yet, they also made 66mhz of a different type. Of course, that type caught on and the 60 didn't. bad luck, huh? Yeah. must be my "bad luck aura".
My next pc was a 400mhz pentium 2 celery. Big jump, but needed considering that the 60mhz couldn't handle a 3d acelerator. Man, that pc was a piece of Crap (mini-tower). The only thing that made it good was that Rage128 16mb All-In-Wonder card i got for it.
Well, thats my bad luck with Intel so far.....
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I've had the good fortune to build both an AMD system and a Pentium system for myself lately. Here is what I find. If you have the money Pentium 4 is a definite plus. The new 800Mhz FSB versions still work best with RDRAM which is getting harder and harder to find. I built mine with dual channels of DDR400 RAM and it works quite nice. The 875 chipset motherboards are really good and come with a lot of extra goodies. (i.e. onboard raid, SATA interface, etc.) However, if the money issue is something you have to be concerned about, the AMD is much more preferable. You can get yourself a good Barton core CPU and a motherboard that will support DDR333 for less than a P4 setup and still get a great response with games.
Unfortunately AMD has been getting kicked around alot since the "hyperthreading" and 3 gig Cpu were unveiled by Intel. But I have to say that for some reason AMD setups always seem to go a little smoother than P4's. It's gotten better, but it seems you always have to tweak the P4's a little to get them were you want them. AMD's work great right out of the box. Slap em together and your off. Hope this helps. :2thumbsup:
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PS Stay away from Celerons!!! They suck suck suck. Geez you'd think I'm a little testy about that. :beadyeyes
Also, in answer to your ram question, I would think the DDR ram scenario would operate under the same fashion as mixing PC100 and PC133. You will only run as fast as the slowest ram that you have on the board. So I wouldn't mix higher with lower. Go for the highest your motherboard can support to get the best advantage out of your FSB.
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Bah to the duck, I don't have any problems with the P4 system setup :)
~Sancho :chef
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Hyperthreading is over-rated. We have it on by default from all the new Dell's we get and they run the exact same speed as the non-hyperthread enabled machines that I got earlier in the year. I was hoping to get better performance on the database stuff but alas Intel comes through with the big goose egg on reliability.
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I'm surprised no one has inquired on OCing capabilities or asked what the system in question is going to be used for.
It is my opionion that if you are going to OC, go with AMD. AMD makes over-clocking monsters. :2thumbsup:
If you are building the system for gaming, again i recommend AMD. If it is going to be exclusively a productivity machine, consider Intel.
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AMD all the way... :2thumbsup:
*note: I'm a major fanboy*
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My original systems were alll PII and PIII based, once I starting building my own, I went AMD mainly for cost concerns (1/2 the price for teh same power, oh hell yes) ... now that I have some cash to spend, I'm looking at moving back to the Intel camp, purely as a second gaming rig tho, nothing will replace my XP3000+ 400FSB barton beast ;)
I'm looking at the new Prescott P4 3.2ghz HT2 Extream CPU's ... a bit expensive at about $700 each, but powerfull as all hell :D
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This topic always seems to spark a huge debate with everyone chipping in their two cents and this thread seems to be no exception. I'm just thankful this hasn't turned into a flaming war with all kinds of name calling and manufacturer bashing (actually, seems kind of unusual for us :argue:
Anyways....
This is Agent we're talking about here, so the system will most definitely be used for gaming. When it comes to gaming performance, nothing touches an Athlon64. You don't need to go wild and get one of the FX series, I'm talking about a regular Athlon64, specifically the 3400 or 3200 varieties. They will give you the best bang for the buck.
So let's assume the P4EE and the AthlonFX are out of the picture due to their high cost...
Look at these gaming scores from Anandtech (http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=2002&p=5). Aquamark is a virtual tie across the board, same with Halo and GunMetal. These are DirectX 9 tests and are most likely video card limited.
On the next page, we see DX8 games and some of the differences start to show through as the video card is no longer a bottleneck. Again, assuming the EE's and FX's are out of the picture, Athlon64's take the top three spots by a pretty significant margin on the Unreal Tournament tests. They also take the top 3 spots in Warcraft III, although not by as big a margin this time.
Moving on to OpenGL performance, the Athlon64's continue to come out on top. First up is Quake III Arena, an old game, but it scales very well and because of its age, isolates CPU performance better than more modern engines, not to mention that there are beaucoup games based on the Q3 engine. Quake III has long been a stronghold of the Intel camp, but with the introduction of the Athlon64 all of that has changed. Still ignoring the EE's and FX's, the Athlon64's take the top 2 spots in this and the top 3 in both Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory.
Regarding your upgrade paths, see this article (http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=2027) about AMD's upcoming core upgrade. It looks like the L2 cache is being cut in half to 512KB, but there will be about a 200MHz core speed update. This can have a negative effect on content creation and encoding, but should not have too much of an impact on gaming performance.
In the end, it comes down to your preference, but given the information above, and the lower price, I think the choice is fairly clear.
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:secret: Someone has WAAAAY too much time on his hands haha
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DUDE.... i started this thread waaaay back. I already decided.
but i guess this turned into a personal preference topic instead... AMD ALL THE WAY!
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I didn't even notice it was an old thread! I thought it was a little odd that it had gotten to two pages of replies before I even got to reply.
And no I don't have enough time on my hands, I just know the subject well enough to write about it pretty effortlessly.
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Just found a bit about AMD's new processor family:
http://www.megagames.com/news/html/hardware/amdhasnewprocessor.shtml
"In a press release deserving an award for obscurity and vagueness, AMD has announced it will introduce a new brand of PC processors to be named AMD Sempron. The AMD Sempron is expected to appeal to value-conscious buyers of desktop and notebook PCs."
"...We will leave you with the smartest, and probably most informative, comment we have managed to find on the Sempron, ...it has the word "pron" in the name, how bad can it be?"
And AMD's new plan for dual-core processors:
http://www.megagames.com/news/html/hardware/amddoublingpoweranddistancefromintel.shtml
"AMD is taking steps in the right direction, in order to gain a further advantage over rival Intel with the introduction of dual-core processors. AMD confirmed it has completed design of its AMD64 dual-core processors and plans to deliver high-performance dual-core products to the x86 server market in mid-2005 and introduce dual-core solutions for high-end client PCs in the second half of 2005. Intel, having cancelled the Pentium 4 in order to concentrate on dual-core processors, will not have a similar product released until at least 2006."
Once again showing that AMD is pushing the industry further. :box2:
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Did agent say something?...I thought heard something. Must be mistaken.
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*picks up rocket launcher*
*aims at kev*
Say cheese!
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You better watch out...your system may not function due to excessive dust contamination
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.....
no comment
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that reminds me.. i'll have to post the pics of my dust filled heatsink. no friggin wonder it was overheating! there was 0% airflow!
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that reminds me.. i'll have to post the pics of my dust filled heatsink. no friggin wonder it was overheating! there was 0% airflow!
AH> :pound: <Kev
______ ^
____ Agent
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AH> :pound: <Kev
______ ^
____ Agent
I'm really not sure what to make of that, but it can't be good for agent ...
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As i said, i will be posting pics. And here they are, compliments of Nimby the server bitch :angel: :
(http://68.52.168.106:8080/agent/100_0966.JPG)
(http://68.52.168.106:8080/agent/100_0968.JPG)
you'll notice the area without dust? yeah thats the fan supports of the bottom of the measly 60mm fan were. and no air got thru that. What amazes me is that i was able to play UT2K4 for hours upon hours at a time with no problem... i go to play a game trailer in quicktime and the damn thing shuts down. Hmm.. well my newly installed thermalright ALX-800 and the Vantec Tornado i just ordered should change some of that.
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holy crap those pics are huge! well at least you get to see all the intricate individual specs of dust... i spose i should resize then send you nimby again... O_O
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i had a fan like that, i was upgrading a friends computer, and his PS's 80mm was caked
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If your gonna go with intel, also make sure your not getting a Intel processor with a Prescott core, they are cheaper, but thats because they are prone to overheating, not a good thing to have in a gaming case.
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lol this is sorta funny... a topic i started when i was about to make the decision with cpu im running for the pc im on now.. ( i went with AMD by the way), i am now making yet another pc. 939 pins of AMD 64 goodness, baby. props to billabond for pointing out the mobo :P. great find. tough to find an agp 939 board.
mobo:
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128263
cpu:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1170060
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Why are you doing agp?
wait untill you can afford an sli or just pcix board ...
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cuz i dont want to pay for another card when i already have my 6800gt. I always by a new grfx card every other family. mainly to save cash (of which i have little of) and nvidia's even numbered families tend to do better off.
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nvidia's even numbered families tend to do better off.
ti4200!!!!! best card ever!!!!
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AMD all the way.
I dont know how you play anything on that ti 4200 bill but it works I dont know y but it works.