Duron Vs. T-bird for OC?

[Guest]

I'm new to the Athlon and I want to buy something that can do me well. Is the duron better to overclock or will I get better performance out of the T-bird since it costs more? What speed would you recommend for under $200 and how fast can I go?<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Street on 02/01/01 07:22 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[wapaaga]

you basicaly overclock both the 800 up to 1ghz the tbird is faster do to the extra chace that it has

 

[flavio321]

this is a very interesting question because the price to performance ration is unbeatable for the duron. sure the t-bird is slightly better in most if not all benchmarks. you could say that the 800 duron is equivalent, performance wise, as a 750 t-bird. some where between 700 and 750mhz t-bird. but based on some of the overclock database i saw, the duron seems to overclock better than the t-birds. maybe because duron owners try to get most bang for their bucks... if i had to build a comp right now i would get the duron. it's so cheap!!! 50 bucks will get you a 650mhz and 70bucks will get you an 800mhz...

If you can't beat 'em kill 'em
athlon "SLOTA" thunderbird 700@1050mhz

 

[phsstpok]

Read the Tbird vs Duron comparison at this link.

http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2000q4/athlon-vs-duron/

It does a great job at showing the effects of overclocking both processors and how they compare to each other.

The conclusion was that the Duron has to spot the Athlon about 100 mhz to match performance, i.e. a Duron at 900 is about equal to and Athlon at 800. However an Athlon at 1000 will be hard to match at all. (Forget about a 1.2 Ghz Athlon. The Duron has no chance.

On a performance basis the Duron wins. (The pricing in article looked several months old but I think the performance ratios still hold up). If you need killer performance Athlon is the way to go. If good performance is good enough then there is nothing cheaper than an overclocked Duron.

My Duron runs at 1008 mhz on a KT7 motherboard. Check out the cool overclocking combos at http://ocz.safeshopper.com. I bought mine there. Their overclocked CPUs have a performance guarantee.

 

[flavio321]

wow! i got all excited and decided that my next system was going to be duron system until i saw the quake3 demo and the 3dmark. obviously the extra cache comes into play when it comes to 3d graphics. right now all i really care is 3d gaming, so i guess i'll stick with the t-bird.

If you can't beat 'em kill 'em
athlon "SLOTA" thunderbird 700@1050mhz

 

[phsstpok]

I came to the same conclusion (although I already have my system). With the low cost of AMD CPUs today if I had it to do over I'd go with a Tbird, not overclocked. Wouldn't need too much extra cooling. Don't have to go crazy huge CPU coolers.

Do yourself a favor and get a good power supply but don't just trust that 300w rating. You can read about power supplies at www.anandtech.com. The article is a little dated but it will enlighten you on power supplies.