CPU upgrade, or Video Card Upgrade?

[Guest]

Current System: PIII 500, Tekram P6Pro-A+ Mainboard, Creative Annihilator Pro, 320mb of RAM.

What would be the better upgrade:

A.)New PIII 866 processor (and if so, what's the best mainboard?)

B.)ANNIHILATOR II ULTRA 64MB DDR

C.)Something else all-together.

D.)Don't upgrade. Nothing will give me that big of a performance increase from my current specs.

 

[CowGod2134]

A) your graphics card is really nice, but you can alwase get better benchmarks with a faster CPU, if u are going to get a new MOBO u might as well look into getting a AMD chip u could get a 1gighz Tbird for the price of that 866 Intel p3

 

[Flyboy]

I'd have to agree with Cowgod...be patient and wait for the new DDR mobos and get yourself an AMD CPU!!! Why spend all that money on an overpriced Intel chip?

 

[Guest]

I've had many recommend going the AMD route. Is AMD as reliable as Intel when it comes to high-end applications like 3d Graphics Apps? I'm not just a gamer, and in general, I've found that Intel chips lead to more general "computer goodness" than other chips.

 

[Cirrocco]

I agree, go AMD. I swear by them ppl, they rock.
great product with great performance, at an awesome price, I've never even looked at Intel since I got my k6-2 500

Y0u 7h1nk 7h@7 y0u c@n fr0n7 wh3n r3v31@710n c0m35?

 

[Guest]

C, because of D.

Right now, it seems like your CPU is what's holding you back the most. If you must upgrade now, then don't get an Athlon or you'll need to buy a new motherboard as well. Try verclocking a Pentium III 600 (The one with a 100MHz FSB will allow a much larger gain in overclocking) or a 733. Or even better yet, hold your cash now and wait for a wider selection of DDR motherboards to become available, 128MB DDR RAM, Thunderbird 900 or whatever looks like a good deal on www.pricewatch.com, and a GeForce 2 32MB or NV20, depending on when you buy.

 

[Guest]

As far as 3D professional software is concerned check out the benchmarks with the T-bird as compared to the P3. T-bird leads by far in the benchmarks and its a hullava lot less expensive. Nice vid card!

"There is no spoon!"

 

[LTJLover]

I totally recommend the AMD route. I have lived and died by AMD since I got my K6-2 300 back in the day. If you want a comparison, my bro has a P3 700 (~$180) and my friend just got a duron 700 (~$60). The duron kicks the P3 for less than half the cost. 3D apps run better on AMD stuff. Check the benchmarks. I am waiting for DDR boards myself, but I know I can still rely on my trusty K6-3 400 until they are out.

Jon
"Water-Cooled CPU Runner"

 

[Guest]

give me option E pls.

E.)change the mobo and o/c the cpu.

<font color=orange>What do you think? </font color=orange>

 

[Guest]

I would suggest the Intel route if you are getting paid for what you are doing n the machine. ASUS CUSL2 is a good bet for the mobo. This cofiguration does not win in the "benchmarks", but then again, you don't get "paid" for running benchmarks!

 

[Grizely1]

That doesn't even make sense. AMD is the way to go if your getting paid or not. (LOL)

 

[Guest]

If you are getting paid to do something on your pc, then you need stability stability stability. AMD makes a great processor, but the chipsets out there are very picky (too picky) as to the rest of your configuration. You could spend hours, if not days just getting it to run somewhat stable. That's time spent not being productive (i.e. not making money).

 

[Bubba]

Incorrect thinking such as this is the only thing that has kept Intel from going out of business.
I understand that people are very resistant to change but I also don't feel bad when people have to return their processors due to recall, when people have to return their motherboards due to recall, and when people have to pay three times as much for a processor that is actually slower than it should be.
You are not getting any more stability or speed with an Intel, all you are doing is paying for the name on the chip simply because Intel has been around for a while.
Three years ago, Intel was the best with the fastest chips and the most reliability, that just isn't true today.

 

[Guest]

I think the man was looking for stability in his chips over speed. Which AMD still holds with the Athlon/Thunderbird or duron.I run 3D Studio Max on my p!!! 450 and can't wait to get my Micron DDR computer. This will be my first ATX computer I didn't build myself.

 

[Grizely1]

Stability? You want to talk about <i>stability</i>?! Who's the one that had to recall two chipsets and a CPU? <b>INTEL!</b>

In my opinion, right now AMD is far more stable and Intel. (cept those good ol' BX mobos)
Most Socket A boards aren't too picky. It's the Slot A ones that suck.

 

[DSutcliffe]

I am in agreeance with Bubba on this issue. Only if you've had your head in a hole for a few months would you make a statement like this.

I built myself an Athlon system 3 months ago using the same high quality components that I would have used to build any computer. I play intense 3D games on almost a daily basis and have yet to even use the reset button (i.e. not one lock-up to speak of). And to top it off I am using WinME!

I also have built Athlon clonse servers here at work to perform various necessary tasks (some are already more than a year old) and they are just as stable as my Compaq servers.

Last but not least, I would like to talk about getting paid.

I built my company's Payroll server with an AMD Athlon on a Gigabyte KT-133 chipset about six months ago. It runs a database containing all pay information, benefits information and 401K information for approx. 1200-1400 people. If this computer did not run properly, I would be out of a job. But I selected AMD because I knew it would do the job and not cost my company a fortune.

So in the wake of my arguments, what can be said about AMD not being a stable platform as long as you use the same quality parts that any educated computer professional would use in any other situation?

I look forward to your reply.

 

[Take_Out]

What games are you having trouble with, most would kill for a system like that. Seriously, there are no games that you cannot play at 60 fps out now, that I know of. Just bide your time for a great upgrade to a DDR motherboard and a PIV or a Athlon. And get a NV-20 when they come out in a few months. Then you will be able to double your framerates and resolution like I think you are looking for. Good Luck, Take-Out.

 

[JoeHead]

Graphics card will give best results in Games. GF2 Pro is the best value by teh way.

Otherwise a CPU.

<b> Fragg at will!!! </b>

 

[Grizely1]

If you have a NV-20, framerates will be 5 - 10 tiems faster

 

[Guest]

There is NO problem with AMD products. I'm not even an expert, and I was able to put together a system in a few hours and had it running that same night. I have not seen any stability problems at all.

I cannot in good conscience recommend Intel CPUs as they are way over priced and under-performing. I had an Intel SE440-BX mobo and a Celeron-433. I thought about upgrading to a Katmai P3-600, but was shocked to find that Intel still wants $160 (with 2-year mfg. warranty. $175 with cooler) for a product that's already a year old running on a motherboard that has ZERO FURTHER UPGRADE POSSIBILITY and zero overclockability (thanks, Intel).

I plunked down an extra $50 and got myself Tbird-700 (a MUCH better processor than the Katmai P3) and a FDI AK-74 Mobo that will support AMD processors up to 1.2GHz. The $50 buys me at least another 1.5 year's worth of upgrade path, a path that will cost me a lot less money with each upgrade using AMD Tbirds rather than Intel P3s.

Intel should spend less money on Blue Man Group advertising and use the savings to give their customers a price break.

 

[Grizely1]

So you mean you paid $210 for your 700MHz TBird?

 

[Guest]

When i bought a k6-2 500 on a asus p5a-b, with a voodoo 3 3000 agp, i got terrible results, i then, just for fun plugged in my old p 233mmx just to see what would happen, i got better frame rates in UT and stayed the same/better in every other game. I then bought a abitVT6X4 and a celeron 500, i got 3 to 4 times the performance! I have never looked back, and, the other thing, the stupid k6-2 ran hot as hell. If you want stability and speed, GO INTEL, amd isn't bad or anything now-a-days, but i think many of you just like routing for the underdog.... now on the other subject, i do think that that vid card is more than enough right now, go get that p!!! 866, i'd go with the asus p3v4x or the i815 board they make, i can't remember the name, or you can take a chance and buy an amd system, by the way, anyone ever heard of the amd760? it is having a lot of stability problems, lol, same with almost any slot A board

Intel Forever

 

[Grizely1]

Yes everyone has heard of the AMD760 chip. They are not having stability problems. Where do you get your news from?

It's only Gigabyte that screwed up their AMD 760 board. Sorry, no 760 problems.

 

[Guest]

Yes, the price's in that neighborhood, a little over $200. The point is that that extra $50 bought me a new generation of technology not just in a faster CPU with a better FPU and on-chip L2 cache, but also the faster IDE transfer rate and the newer AGPx4 on the new mobo.

I wouldn't pay $175 for a Katmai P3 with its L2 cache on the Slot 1 card. Why buy dead-end technology. It's a different story if you had the Slot1 CPU for a year already, then at least you got some use out of it while it was still reasonably new technology, but to buy it now way at the tail end of Slot 1 technology is just throwing good money after bad money.

 

[Guest]

Dave, your post doesn't make sense. We are not talking about the K6-2. The 20 or so previous posts should have made that plain as day. Then you go on to admit that present AMD products don't have any stability problem. Yet you insist that for stability (the stability of what, Intel stock price?), go with an Intel product. Intel just loves people like you who base their purchases on what was, not what is. Big companies euphemistically call this the momentum factor, and that's what the companies call their own paying customers. You can imagine that what the rest of us call customers like that.

The AMD 760 was released a month a go by AMD to the board manufacturers. It takes more than 20 working days to design, test, and debug a 4-level motherboard.

If you really want to talk about chip sets and boards, just look at Intel and its RDRAM "effort". Not only did Intel make a huge mistake in choosing RDRAM in its effort to corner the market, Intel also got humiliated when VIA released their RDRAM board ahead of Intel, despite Intel's interference on bus specs and processor information. Now that's humiliation.

And no, the AMD supporters are not just rallying around the underdog -- if you can call a surging company such as AMD the underdog. We just value our money differently than you do. We use our money to buy products that offer the best price-performance ratio at this moment, not to support a technological priesthood so that we can proclaim "long live AMD." All we care about is whether AMD keeps coming out with good products at good prices. If they are able to deliver that consistently, they'll get my money. If they fail, then it's bye bye, just like we said to Intel products.