Intel Pentium3 or AMD Thunderbird ?

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I´m going for a new PC next week, but still don´t know which CPU to buy... . I will have a machine with 256 MB PC133 memory (got that already), most probably a GeForce2 GTS graphics adapter (Asus V7700 pure) and Asus mainboard. Now the big question :
WHICH CPU ???
T-Bird (1,2 GHz / 133 MHz FSB) requires an expensive cooler/fan combo, powerful power supply (350 W ?) and additional case cooling.
Pentium3 1 GHz is more expensive, although I won´t need such a sophisticated cooling, so I guess bothj would cost about the same...
At least this is what I heard many conversations. Is this correct ? And what about overall performance ?

I will use this one mainly for gaming...

Please help !



<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by schroep on 07/06/01 08:15 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
dhlucke

dhlucke

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Let's check pricewatch.com...

Lowest prices...(you'll pay more though for each including shipping and/or taxes)

PIII 1 Ghz $172
Tbird 1.2 Ghz 266 FSB $95

For the tbird a $20 cooler will suffice, or even less really. They aren't that expensive unless you're going to be doing some serious overclocking. In that case I'd recommend a 1 Ghz t-bird though. Since you don't have a ton of PCI cards or several hard drives a 300W powersupply will do. Add a couple fans if you need it and that's a couple more bucks. There's virtually no way that the t-bird will cost you more unless you really have a poor ventilated case right now. Even then you could almost just buy a new case w/ powersupply and still be at the same price of the PIII.

The big questions are going to be: What case and P/S do you have (if you're going to buy one, then both will need a 300W), and are you going to overclock?

The t-bird 1.2 also performs better than the 1 Ghz PIII, so that should be another deciding factor.

The PIII will be a dead end system that you won't be able to upgrade either. If you were just going to pop a 1 Ghz PIII into an existing board for a quick upgrade, then I can't complain with that, but it is expensive.

<font color=red>Yeah, I took a crap on your lawn. Whatcha gonna do about it?</font color=red>
 
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jlbigguy

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If you are primarily gaming, then go with the TBird. It has a more powerful FPU, which is heavily used for gaming. You will get more gaming performance from a TBird then you will from a P3.

<font color=blue>This is a Forum, not a playground. Treat it with Respect.</font color=blue>
 
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Stick_e_Mouse

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300watts is enough.
the athlon doesnt require an expensive cooler/fan combo. the stock hsf on a RETAIL athlon will suffice (even enough for a little overclocking)...even cheap hsf like the voclano2($18) or fop32-1($15) is enough
add a pair of $5 intake and exhaust case fans, and your all set...

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Stick_e_Mouse

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better yet...you can buy a $90 1.0ghz athlon and overclock it to 1.4ghz and use the extra money for more RAM or something else....

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F

FatBurger

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Get the Asus A7A266 or A7M266, depending on whether you want the AMD 761 chipset or the AliMagik chipset.

Both are AMD boards.

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My Athlon can beat your Ferrari off the line.
 
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peteb

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with A7M of course then he loses his investment in the PC133 memory he already owns. Of course he can replace it with relative little cost but the package gets more expensive. The A7A - as you suggest - would be good because he can still use his PC133...

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noko

noko

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IWILL KK266 is an outstanding board and picked the best by AnAndTech with the A7V133 board. I have an Alpha cooler and with no case fans, case closed and my 1.2ghz is at 1.4ghz, warm room around 75F, sys temp 29c, cpu 100% for 20 min at 45c. I just ventilate the hot air from the cpu right out of the case. Since then I rehooked up my low flowing 80mm case fan which didn't make any difference to cpu temperature. My system is also very quiet. For the money you get one hell of a bang out of the T-Birds. I cannot see any justification in an Intel system based on the current prices.
 
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Kwonger

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The Asus A7A266 and the Thunderbird 1.2GHz would be a really good choice. If you have a little more cash, then go for the 1.33GHz. It's competitive with even the 1.6GHz P4s.
 
khha4113

khha4113

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<b>A7M266</b> (AMD 760 chipset) only supports <b>DDR-RAM</b>. I think you mistakened the <b>A7A266</b> (Ali Magik chipset) that supports both DDR and SDRAM.

:smile: Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.
 
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peteb

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ass a very annoying teacher used to spout at me ad nauseum -
"when you assume you make an <b>ass</b> out of <b>u</b> and <b>me</b>"



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FatBurger

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I was hoping nobody would say that. It's the oldest, least funny joke possible.

BTW, a friend of mine just bought an A7A266. He hasn't gotten his system totally going yet (we just went and got a processor last night), but it looks like a good motherboard.

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My Athlon can beat your Ferrari off the line.
 
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Pettytheft

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Although Athlons are cheaper, a CUSL2 motherboard is around $40 less than a A7A and $60 less than a A7M. Plus there is no need to buy DDR ram.

Also the A7A and A7M are good motherboards but there are better DDR boards out there, the Epox 8K7A and Gigabyte GA7DX are just as good (and cheaper) than the Asus boards.

Blah, Blah Blahh, Blahh, blahh blah blahh, blah blah.
 
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xxsk8er101xx

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here ya go ... you said you had the memory already right? with this package they will assemble and test it for you for 9 bucks. 9 bucks is worth it to get away with the trouble of having to return it because it was defective.

ABIT KT7A Motherboard Specs BUNDLE W/ COOLING FAN & (AMD T-BIRD 1200(266MHZ); NO MEMORY; ASSEMBLE/TEST BUNDLE) $237.00 $237.00

A02504 ENLIGHT 7237/300 MIDDLE TOWER W/300W ATX POWER SUPPLY 4x5.25" 2x3.5" 1x3.5"(hidden)Detail Specs $60.00 $60.00

Sub Total $297.00

Includes motherboard, chip, heat sink and fan, and case. 300 bucks.. it sounds good to me but... depending where you live no tax so take that into consideration and shipping will be like 40 bucks because the case is heavy.

i don't know of a good pentium board so ask around if you want a pentium. This can be found at www.mwave.com ... for motherboard search for abit bundles ... for the case go under catalog->pc cases->enlight.

So far i have bought 4 of these cases and they are just perfect. Plenty of room to work around in it plenty of vantilation comes with 2 fans (one in power supply and one in the front) aslo has an optional third fan you can place. 4 5-1/4 bays and 3 3-1/2 ... for 60 bucks you can't complain! and no i have not had a problem with the power supply with all 4 cases i have bought.

hope this helps and if it sounds too much please let me know of the online vender where you can get it cheaper!

have fun!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by xxsk8er101xx on 07/10/01 12:56 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
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mjdunn

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Imagine having a motherboard with edo ram and sdram you want more memory...have you priced edo ram lately? You would be happy to know you can buy sdram! I can't see buying a board that doesn't support DDR anymore...Why not have the option to upgrading the ram later.

He also needed to know what motherboard...why not pay the couple of extra bucks for a upgrade path?



96.3 % of Statistics are made up.
 
F

FatBurger

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Wow, my bad. This hasn't been my thread. I think I'll stay away before I say something even stupider.

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My Athlon can beat your Ferrari off the line.
 
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xxsk8er101xx

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?

The one thing I know about the PC business is that you don't force something on to someone who doesn't want it. He has the PC133 RAM already. 256MB to be exact. He'll never have to upgrade his RAM for awhile anyway. Even so SDRAM is so cheap and so cheap to make it will not be like EDO! With EDO you had to PAIR it thats why it was so expensive. SDRAM you do not need to pair. However you do need to place the biggest to smallest starting from DIMM BANK 0. If he says he wants to spend the extra money for DDR-SDRAM (which is a joke as far as i'm concerned. with benchmarks it has been showen that 266FSB with 133mhz SDRAM performs just as good as DDR PC2100) then that is his choice. as far as i know from reading what HE said he said he has PC133 already, which tells me thats the RAM he wants to use. It's his money not yours! Let him choose! he's asking for help i gave him a nice vendor that i have never had a problem with and the prices are much better then at your local store! I gave him a board that i have recommended to my dad and my friend and they love it. Never had a problem with it ever! I recommended the earlier version KT7 to myself and to another problem and they never had a problem. The case i have bought for 4 people including myself and i love that case. lots of room... he's asking for help not to be ridiculed and told not to use his RAM but to buy DDR. which by the way DDR is a joke! (did i mention that already?) They are already talking about DDR II and QDR RAM! DDR is not even standard.
 
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