Better Setup. Atom 330 or P4 3Ghz with HT?

I have to believe the ATOM will do you better. Newer processors have more instructions per clock (2 on the ATOM vs 1.5 on the P4). It is also Dual Core so a 1.5Ghz Atom should (in theory) run about the same as a 3.75GHz P4.

More importantly in this case is the RAM. 1GB vs 4GB? You will notice more of a slowdown from having only 1GB than you will with any processor.

You should be fine with either though. I have an old P3 from work with 512KB RAM and after a fresh install of XP it runs just fine.

Edit: Oh yea, the ATOM will use much less power and produce less heat saving you some money on energy costs; if you care.

The P4 will almost definitely be faster, but the Atom should be more than sufficient. Also, much of the speed deficit will be made up for by the much larger amount of memory that the Atom system would have. Besides, the power usage and heat will be quite a bit less with the Atom, so there's really no reason not to go for the Atom.

I would go with the Atom without a doubt, it uses less power and produces less heat=less noise from fans, although I still run a second system with p4 3.0ghz @ 3.7ghz and it flies to be fair for what it is, but runs so damn hot and loud (Zalman Flower Cooler) that i would never use it as a netbox.

Besides, you could use a sempron or celeron for the netbox as browsing the net and listening to music is not taxing on any pc since the pIII days.

If you already have the P4 system (or any old system really) use it and don't waste your cash.
Even an old PIII rig would be more than powerful enough to surf the net and play MP3's.

If you are looking at buying and both options are similarly priced, go for the Atom option.
It may not be faster than the P4 but it is still plenty fast enough for what you need it to do.
As an added bonus, it will draw far less power than a P4 rig and, as a result, can be ran nearly silently.

As someone who has both, I'd definitely get the Atom: the P4 is faster but uses much more power, makes much more noise, and you really don't need the extra performance for what you plan on doing. If you get the Intel Atom board you probably will want to replace the standard chipset fan with a silent one though (a five minute job with a screwdriver and about $5 for the fan).

The Intel motherboards only support 2GB, I believe Ion supports 4GB.

However, 2GB should still be plenty for web-surfing and MP3s... that's all my MythTV Atom box has and it does a lot more work than that.

Thank you all. A friend was hard up for money so i stole his Xeon workstation for 50 bucks. Dual 3Ghz Xeons with HT, 4gigs memory and two 10K SCSI's in raid 0. WELL worth the money. I already ordered a pair of 3.8Ghz Xeon's to replace them. Should make a fine netbox.

CJ,

Agreed but the workstation is VERY quiet. Going to modify a few things with it today.

I got to say, a Pentium III for today's internet is not bad, but it's entirely inadequate for high bitrate flash video, such as hulu. Case in point: I built a 1.0GHz/133 bus coppermine P3 on i810e mobo for an inlaw of mine, for free. It's main use is internet, IM, and MP3s with occasional CD burning. Overall it works flawlessly, but it's still too slow for Hulu video, even with a small viewing screen, it drops frames. At this point a 2.0GHz P4 or AMD equivalent is really necessary to enjoy the web 2.0 experience, and something more along the lines of a 2.8-3.0GHz P4, Celeron 420, a current AMD sempron, or an Athlon XP around 2800+ rating is needed for a good daily use computer that will handle everything the internet has to offer. Flash has killed the PIII.

You'll see a larger difference between a standard 7200 RPM hard drive and a solid state drive than a P4 versus Atom.

It has the skyscraper ones now but i'd like to get some decent ones because I had to abort a sandra processor test because temps were 80C and rising and i had no idea the thermal limit's on these chips. I'm just going to put them on water when the 3.8ghz come in.

They run at 60c now so anything would be an improvement

Very true...I'm sitting beside my dual 3.8GHz Xeon box right now, and let me tell you, it is GREAT in the winter and HELL in the summer! Under this desk is the warmest spot in the shop, next to the server racks...and I do believe the old 3.8 box gives a full rack a run for its money, temp wise. Also, you should notice an increase in your power bill...doing the math on this box, it's about $30 a month or so to run 24/7. (But, hey, Flash pages are no problem, and it's getting nostalgic to run an old dual-Nocona box these 'green' days, too...and I love nostalgia!)

I have a 3 GHz P4 w/ HT being utilized as an HTPC right now. No question that it is a hot-running beast and by no means ideal because of that (I'm only using it because its an old PC).

However, it does a great job of playing full-screen flash video (hulu), something that I've read the Atom 330's have trouble with.

I'd love to build some Atom 330 systems: they are cheap enough that I'd build one for every TV in the house. However, the inability to handle full-screen flash video is a deal-breaker.

The Atom 330 will almost certainly not have the raw processing power of the P4, but it won't be a slouch for the purposes you've described either. The amount of RAM and the speed of the HD will be much more important. If you can afford it, get the Atom system with the 4GB RAM, use an Intel SSD for your OS and swap file and a large 7200RPM HDD for data. This will give very good all around performance. Assuming you are using Windows 2000 or newer, also remember to disable executive paging and use a decent video solution (Nvidia 9400 or ATI 790/785G onboard, or any DX10 discrete card).

Optimize your browser with something like FasterFox (if using firefox) or for IE, follow this link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/282402.

I would also recommend installing the K-lite codec pack (Available here: http://www.free-codecs.com/K_lite_codec_pack_download.htm). You can use it with WMP to play all current media formats, or use it with Media Player classic if you prefer.

Hope this helps!