advice on new computer

[Guest]

Hi, (this is a question about motherboards and processors rearly)
I want to build a new (hi-spec) pc in then next one or two months. I'm having dificulty in deciding what is the best hardware. At the moment I am not even sure whether to go AMD or Intel. At present, the latest pentium is a bit out of my price range, so im thinking of either getting a 1.8 - 2.0GHz intel P4, or an AMD Athlon XP 2000+. these seem to compare relativly well and the Athlon is cheaper. So with just this in mind, i would be inclined towards the athlon.

However i dont want to be buying a whole new system for a very long time so i would like something that is lickly to be very upgradable.

If i get the pentium, there are 2 Asus motherboards that seem quite good. the P4B266 and the P4S333 though I've spent more time looking at the former of these. The latter appears more compliant with standards that are comming into play now and the former appears to be very overclockable.

So far as the Athlon, I havn't spent much time looking at motherboards for this as i've only recently considered getting an athlon however, overclockers.co.uk (usurally good at recomendations) recomend the ABIT KR7A RAID and provide links to reviews of both this motherboard and the p4b266.

so far as usage, i'll be using it for the usural stuff, office etc. but also games and 3d modeling.

Any advice?
Thanks
A Smith

 

[ANGEL14]

for ur first question AMD or INTEL i would definitely suggest go for AMD i first used to use PENTIUM but than i found out that AMD was a better performer at a cheaper price. so ans is AMD.
and if u would like to wait than i would insist you wait till the AMD Hammer comes along its gonna beat the [-peep-] outta everyone. else for general purposes ATHLON XP1700+ to XP2000 is more than enough for ur applications mentioned. so dont drool and waste your money for no reason.
and in mobo.. ofcourse ASUS has some good mobos for athlon and so does ABIT,GIGABYTE,TYAN and so many others the criteria over here is how much money u wanna spend. i use ECS K7AMA with ATHLON XP 1600+ cheaper and stable which is more than enough for my purposes like extreme 3d gaming and all the high-end softwares so for u i guess wait for the best or go for something reasonable coz there too many choices... so dont buy what the whole world does but buy what u need.

THE MAIN CAUSE FOR GLOBAL WARMING- MY KICK ASS ATHLON XP

 

[FiL]

i'd agree with this, although if you look at all the problems people have with systems it's usually with AMD systems, and Intel ones seem to be more stable.

having said that I myself have a AthlonXP 1900+ and after a few bugs were ironed out i have to say the performance is amazing.

The new Northwood Intel P4's are decent too.

If you have the money to buy a AthlonXP or Northwood P4 you can't really go wrong either way.

 

[cellbiogeek]

You won't have too many problems with an AMD system if you pick a stable motherboard. The processors work fine, it's the chipset and motherboard companies that have compatibility problems.

 

[HeavyMetal]

what video card do you have because it could be a real bottleneck. Anyways, heres 2 set-ups that have comparable performance.

$131 AMD 1700+ Retail
$107 Soltek SL-75DRV4(VIA 266A)
$107 256MB Crucial PC 2100

$146 P4 1.6A Retail
$169 ASUS P4T-E
$105 256MB Samsung RDRAM

$75 Price difference

if im not mistaken you have to buy RDRAM in pairs but both set ups have comparable prices. also you have to overclock the P4 a little to get the same performance as AXP. To get big overclocks then your going to have to buy an OEM processor(no warranty, no HSF) and buy a 3rd party HSF like an Alpha PAL8045($40) and a fan(~$20). IMHO overclocking an AXP isnt worth the costs, it performs great and overclocking can only cause headaches in the future. just remember, with either of these set ups your biggest bottleneck will most likely be your video card...i recommend a Radeon 8500 or a Geforce 3 Ti 200

EDIT:
all prices are off of newegg.com except for the samsung RDRAM and thats off pricewatch<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by HeavyMetal on 03/06/02 03:19 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[o1die]

I just switched to the p4 1.6a (only $139 at newegg), and have no desire to go back to athlons until AMD puts a real thermal diode in their chips. The P4 runs at least 5 degrees or more cooler than the athlon even when overclocked. I used athlons for 3 years before going back to the pentium. I'm running my 1.6a at 2.2 gigs (138 fsb with 1 stick of elixr and 1 stick of pc2100 micron memory 256 megs each). If you don't plan on overclocking, definately go amd, but wait just a few more days for the .13 thoroughbred. It's due out about March 13th or 20th. It may run cooler. As for mobos, I use the epox ep-4sda+, but you may prefer asus. The only real complaint about the epox is the onboard sound quality and the lack of hardware monitoring while running windows (mobo monitor 5 doesn't work with the sis 645 chipset).

 

[Tiberius13]

<<...so im thinking of either getting a 1.8 - 2.0GHz intel P4, or an AMD Athlon XP 2000+. these seem to compare relativly well and the Athlon is cheaper. >>

If by compare relatively well you mean that the AMD XP2000+ wins hands down in every way - you are correct. Not to mention that the money you'll save with the XP2000+ you can put towards additional RAM or a better graphics card to boost your systems performance even more...

From a price performance perspective, the sweet spot seems to be at the XP1800+ and 1.6a for the AMD and Intel cpus respectively at this point in time. The overclockability of the 1.6a makes it a decent alternative to an AMD system if you have a preference for Intel for some reason and are willing to plan the rest of your system around heavy duty overclocking (I personally have an XP1800+).

There are many decent motherboards for AMD systems. I suggest you check out the review Tom did here recently of various motherboards using the KT266A chipset as a solid starting point.

 

[oymd]

i wont get into the AMD/Intel decision...u'll find more help than u need here on that point.
What i want to point out is, if u go with a P4 rig u'd be better off with a 850 chipset coupled with RDRAM