Intel and AMD...

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d3ano

Original Poster:

7,408 posts

260 months

Wednesday 23rd July 2003
quotequote all
This may have been done before but i can't find it.

I have always used Intel chips. Mainly because its a solid company that i have always know about and never really heard many problems from their chips since the first Pentiums.
They run cool and normally have a higher FP than the AMD chips. But i am now thinking about the AMD in terms of cost.

Now with AMD i have only ever really used their chips when they first started out (when Cyrix were about) and their chips kept over heating and i was getting many "blue screen of death" with them and i have never used them since then.

First of all how have AMD advanced now?
2nd thing: I am after a Pentium 4 3GHz chip with a 833FSB. Does AMD have anything that can compare to this inc the FSB?

Lastly what are your experiances of both these chips. I don't really want to go out and buy an AMD as personally i think that Intel are better, but if i am wrong please tell me.

Oh, the PC will mainly be used for games, burning CD, acting as a MP3 sound server for the house. And i will be watching DivX and maybe DVDs though the future PC.

Cheers all

bodo

12,415 posts

273 months

Wednesday 23rd July 2003
quotequote all
If you're after high performance, go for a Pentium, if you're after good value, buy an AMD. If money's no object, go for a UNIX workstation

I never buy the latest (fastest) hardware, because the price drops dramatically in the first six months.

CPU retail prices range between € 0,03/MHz Athlon XP 2000 (=1.66GHz) and € 0,20/MHz Intel Pentium 4 3.20GHz.

IMHO best value longtermed is between € 0,05 and 0,08/MHz

>> Edited by bodo on Wednesday 23 July 16:57

chris watton

22,478 posts

267 months

Wednesday 23rd July 2003
quotequote all
I was very tempted to buy a system based on the new 3GHz Intel with 800MHz fsb, however, I have stuck with AMD and now have an Athlon XP3200+.
What you have to take into account are the other peices of hardware that go into the system, I have seen benchmarks that put a 'lowly' AMD system on par, and in some cases, ahead of the new Intel monster,,, but, overall, the Intel CPU has the edge at the moment, without a doubt.
I spent £2500 upgrading my PC, and the best upgrade with the only noticable difference in overall speed (without having to rely on benchmark figures to see the difference), is installing SATA drives in a RAID0 configuration,,, if you install that, you will see a big difference, more so than changing from , say, a 1GHz CPU to 2.5/3GHz.

smeagol

1,947 posts

291 months

Thursday 24th July 2003
quotequote all
AMD still run hotter so cooling is vital or you will fry the chip. As has been said here already given choice I would go Intel as I have found those machines more reliable but I also know people with AMD that say that they don't have problems.

d3ano

Original Poster:

7,408 posts

260 months

Thursday 24th July 2003
quotequote all
chris watton said:
I was very tempted to buy a system based on the new 3GHz Intel with 800MHz fsb, however, I have stuck with AMD and now have an Athlon XP3200+.
What you have to take into account are the other peices of hardware that go into the system, I have seen benchmarks that put a 'lowly' AMD system on par, and in some cases, ahead of the new Intel monster,,, but, overall, the Intel CPU has the edge at the moment, without a doubt.
I spent £2500 upgrading my PC, and the best upgrade with the only noticable difference in overall speed (without having to rely on benchmark figures to see the difference), is installing SATA drives in a RAID0 configuration,,, if you install that, you will see a big difference, more so than changing from , say, a 1GHz CPU to 2.5/3GHz.


Chris, would you care to explain to me what a SATA drive is? I have never heard of this before, but i do, well kinda, know about the RAID configs though.

cheers

Liszt

4,330 posts

277 months

Thursday 24th July 2003
quotequote all
I am an AMD person now. Only reason is on price. When upgrading I tend to spend the lions share of the budget on the graphcs card as that is what is most noticable. The chips are much of a muchness and if you need a benchmark to tell you've got too much time on your hands.

I always fit a case fan, having been an overclocker in an earlier life, and old habits die hard, so overheating is never a problem

GregE240

10,857 posts

274 months

Thursday 24th July 2003
quotequote all
Serial ATA - much higer performance than current ATA disk technology - (1.5Gb/sec throughput). About 50% faster than other hard drive technology (IDE). Still not as fast as the best SCSI devices, but damn quick nevertheless.

ftp://download.intel.com/technology/serialATA/pdf/25179001.pdf

Good whitepaper on SATA as an emerging technology.

Hope this helps.

Greg

annodomini2

6,908 posts

258 months

Thursday 24th July 2003
quotequote all
The FSB clock speed is NOT a comparison to the speed of processing between chips of different origin, the only acutal way to compare processors is to run various programs (actual programs not dhrystone comparators!) that calculate how fast (usually games as they are the most processor intensive home use).

The thing is there are so many other factors that can affect the machines performance based upon it's application.

I tend to go for AMD, overheating is not a problem unless you're overclocking and in a shuttle sized case or have a cheap fan.

The price per performance, so outweighs intel all it appears with intel is that you're paying for the brand name.

if you're playing games get an nForce2 MB has a built in GeForce 4, or you can usually add something newer.

ErnestM

11,621 posts

274 months

Thursday 24th July 2003
quotequote all
FWIW, the only problems I have ever had with AMD is the supporting chipsets. USB not working properly, IRQ's not configuring correct, etc....

My rule of thumb:

Business Critical=Intel

Gaming Supersystem=AMD

ErnestM