Build on the best - AMD? Intel?

[Guest]

I've never been very good a RTFM so haven't read all of the posts in this topic. Maybe my answer is in there somewhere. Anyway - I'm going to have my son build a system ground up (I'll help). AMD or Intel? I was thinking of going w/ a 1.5 P4 and a motherboard that will take a 2ghz or higher - that way he can eventually upgrade to the 2ghz system that he wants. I'm not so sure that a P4 is the best way to go. A 2ghz system 'sounds' a lot better than an 1800 or whatever.

This system will be used for games and music (and a little homework).

If money were not an issue, what mb and cpu would you go with?

If money is an issue, would that make your decision different?

What are the trade offs? I just want to get him started in the right direction and just can't figure out which system to build on.

Thanks

 

[FatBurger]

There are a lot of positives and negatives. I try to stay out of the Intel vs. AMD wars, but I'll tell you what I'd buy for each side.

Intel: Abit TH7II (expensive), and corresponding Socket 478 CPU (highest you can afford at the end). Make sure you get Socket 478, NOT 423.

AMD: Probably an SiS 735 board. The Leadtek looks good on paper, but I haven't heard any reports on it. Then an XP, again, the best you can get for what cash you have at the end.


I say "at the end" because the video card is more important than the CPU for games, and it'd suck to get a 5400 RPM hard drive just so you can get a 100MHz higher processor, for example.

Anyhow, hope that helps at all. Feel free to PM or email me if you have any more specific questions.

<font color=orange>Quarter</font color=orange> <font color=blue>Pounder</font color=blue> <font color=orange>Inside</font color=orange>

 

[Boondock_Saint]

If money were not an issue, what mb and cpu would you go with?

<A HREF="http://www.msicomputer.com/product/detail_spec/K7T266pro2-RU.htm" target="_new"> MSI K7T266 Pro2-RU </A>

AMD Athlon XP1900+

If money is an issue, would that make your decision different?

Nope.

What are the trade offs?

Well, AMD pretty much has it in the bag for all things right now. Best preformance in most every aspect of computing tasks, from gaming to video editing. The PIV can take the cake for a few apps right now (Quake 3, few MPEG4 encoding), but that is about it. Even then, the Athlon is marginally slower, unnoticably.

You will save a bundle too going with AMD.

:tongue: Have you ever tried cooking an egg on your HSF? Tasty. :tongue:

 

[Guest]

>A 2ghz system 'sounds' a lot better than an 1800 or
>whatever.

Yeah.. but have a look at the Duron 1200 article on this sire, and see what a 1.6 Ghz cpu (Athlon XP1900+) can do compared to a "faster sounding" 2Ghz P4. And if you know its even cheaper, its a no brainer I'd say.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[Kelledin]

AMD is a good choice if you want top speed and are willing to work a little harder for a stable system. It also gives you the most bang for your buck.

Intel is a good choice if you have money to blow, and all you want is an easy build. A Pentium III is also a better choice for a laptop. A Pentium 4 is worthwhile for just about nothing.

If money were no issue, I would build a dual AthlonMP 1800+ on a Tyan Tiger 760MP (mainly because my work can take excellent advantage of multiple CPUs). Or I would wait a little bit for EPoX's 760MPX-based dual Athlon motherboard.

If money were an issue, I would build a single AthlonXP on an EPoX EP-8KHA+.

Kelledin
<A HREF="http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/" target="_new">LFS</A>: "You don't eat or sleep or mow the lawn; you just hack your distro all day long."

 

[Guest]

On Budget: 1. Dual 1.2 ghz MP w a geforce 3 or geforce 2 ultra and lots of ddr (1 gig, 2 512 modules)
2. Athlon XP 1600 or whatever you can afford w a geforce 3 or a geforce 2 ultra and lots of ddr

No Budget: For OpenGL mainly games, i recommend the p4, for directx mainly games i would recommend an athlon.
1. Dual Athlon XP MP 1800+ w a geforce 3 ti500 w a tyan mobo

Sound card and everything else, you can prolly pick urself

 

[mbetea]

on budget or not, for what he described i wouldn't see what dual setup and a gig of ram would do for him? but then, that could just be me.

well if luck is a lady, it explains why i have no luck :frown:

 

[Guest]

Gaming mostly has to do with the vid card, so if he has a vid card and a pretty good cpu, he should get good quality. And so that he gets fast speeds, a dual setup would be nice.

 

[Guest]

Wow - leave a post, go to bed, and wake up to all sorts of good information. You guys are great! I think I'll go w/ an 1800 or 1900

Thanks!!

 

[Copenhagen]

FatBurger, I tend to agree with you, at least on the "money no issue" P4 suggestion.

By the way, have you all seen the benchmarks on my Abit TH7-II RAID ? The mobo is kinda expensive, but the P4 1700 MHz is not so exorbitantly priced. You'll have to overclock it though in order to get some decent performance.


--------------------- P4 1700 MHz ---------------------

Overcloked 1700 MHz P4 Willamette Socket 478 with stock cooling benchmarked using SiSoft Sandra. "Crippled" by a generic Antec 300W power-supply.

CPU Arithmetic.
Dhrystone ALU: 4039
Whetstone FPU/SSE2: 1097/2571 MFLOPS

Multi-Media:
Integer iSSE2: 8304 it/s
Floating-Point iSSE2: 10109 it/s

Memory Bandwidth:
RAM Int MMX: 1950 MB/s
RAM Float FPU: 1957 MB/s

 

[Copenhagen]

Wise decision; No need to use that kind of money a good P4 system will require from what you have told. Also you don't need to overclock the Athlon XP 1800+ to get nearly the same performance as my overclocked P4 1700 MHz.

 

[Guest]

But whats wrong with a 1.
4 boxed?


<font color=orange>Beam</font color=orange><font color=red> me</font color=red><font color=green> up</font color=green><font color=blue> Scotty</font color=blue>

 

[AMD_Man]

Um, how is an Antec PSU generic?

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor

 

[Copenhagen]

AMD_Man wrote: "Um, how is an Antec PSU generic?"


It's not, excuse me, wrong word. I have just observed that especially the 12V supply is far from stable when the juice is needed.