SaltPork

I'm going to be buying a new computer very soon. I've nailed everything down except the processor. I'm torn between:

Intel® Pentium 4 Prescott Processor w/HT-Technology at 3.0GHz (1MB Cache)

and

AMD Althon™ XP Processor at 3200+

Which way do I go? I'm leaning toward the Intel.

__________________
It was like that when I got here....I swear.

ToolBag

if price were no consideration, Id go with the Pentium as well. Actually if price was no problem, Athlon 64 may be my choice but thats just me. Also if you want to wait a few months or so I would really checkout the new Prescott processor. You can read more here

__________________
Jesus was a ruffies victim!

Dan 3:20

Destrox

This has been covered time and time again.. but anyways.

It depends on a few things:
-Amount of money you feel like spending.
-Type of activities you will be doing.
-Overclocking?

__________________
You bore me.... next.

nanofever

If you tell us what you want it to do we can give you a recomendation, otherwise any answer you get is just brand bias.

__________________
I'm leaving for the University of California: Santa Barbara in 5 hours, give me your best college advice - things I need, good ideas, bad ideas, nooky, ect.

Originally Posted by Norseman on another forum:
"Yeah, the problem with the world is the stupid people are all cocksure of themselves and the intellectuals are full of doubt."

steveincolumbus

home pc, i go with amd, busness or server is always intel....
Stablility is key with intel, vs. performance with amd....

God of Thunder

Every PC that I have built in the last 8 years has had an AMD chip in it, business or personal. I've not had a single problem with compatability or stability.

In my personal opinion they are faster, just as stable and (the best part) cheaper.


/my $.02

__________________
I reject your reality, and substitute my own

-- Adam Savage

yakimushi

Those Prescotts are torches! I'm going to say this without looking it up first but I do believe that the new Prescotts are even hotter than AMD XP's, and definitely hotter than AMD64's. So if you're looking for a quiet box, might want to look at AMD.

Also, Prescott is actually being beaten by its predecessor at these speeds. A Prescott 3.0Ghz is currently slower than a P4 C at the same speed. Prescott isn't going to gain a performance advantage until they ramp the speeds up.

As far as prices for performance, you're most likely better off going with an AMD64 system. A better performing AMD64 will cost ya about $220 where the P4 processor runs about $289.

~springrain

ditto to that... i won't go back to Intel again unless AMD starting majorly crapping out...

SaltPork

Thanks for all the info.

The PC is mostly going to be used for games, some programming, etc., basically light home use and games. Did I mention games?

__________________
It was like that when I got here....I swear.

Lasereth

I'd go for the Athlon XP. It's cheaper, it holds its own in most of the tests against the 3.0 Prescott, and the Prescott itself has a somewhat interesting reputation now...

If you're gonna go Intel, at least get the regular 3.0 C core and save money. I still recommend the 3200+, however...in pure gaming, it'll outperform any 3.0 P4 in most circumstances. The raw clock speed will help the P4 in media programs (DVD ripping, encoding, etc), but I don't think it's worth it if you're gonna play games.

-Lasereth

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

ToolBag

Good call Lasereth, Im glad I read that about the Prescott, not as I were going to buy one any time soon though, good info none the less. That is horse shit though, good thing I went with the AMD XP. Im quite tickeled with mine! ROCK!

__________________
Jesus was a ruffies victim!

Dan 3:20

nanofever

Gaming the Athlon XP is still the king of the hill when you look at price vs. performance.

Lasereth is on the money with his(?) post

__________________
I'm leaving for the University of California: Santa Barbara in 5 hours, give me your best college advice - things I need, good ideas, bad ideas, nooky, ect.

Originally Posted by Norseman on another forum:
"Yeah, the problem with the world is the stupid people are all cocksure of themselves and the intellectuals are full of doubt."

saltfish

Quick Question:

I am aware that Intel chips have thermal proctection on board, to AMD's still lack this thermal control?

-SF

Lasereth

What do you mean by thermal protection? I've never seen an Athlon XP motherboard without a CPU shutdown temp control. Athlon XPs did run hotter than the first batch of P4s, but now it's balanced due to higher clockspeed P4's and HT support. Of course, I could be completely missing your question, so please explain!

-Lasereth

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

Wyodiver33

If you mean will the computer auto-shut down if there is a sudden cooling issue, yes. At least my setup does. I had a fan spin down and the computer shut down. Later I upgraded my CPU, used a shim between the HS and fan, computer failed to boot. Turns out the shim was too thick. I think the XP CPU's and I'm sure Athlon 64 chips are protected either at CPU level, or Motherboard level, or both. That ten dollar shim could have popped my then-shiny Barton 2500+.

__________________
I like stuff.

eatav8

company bought 22 amd's for work> 11 of them are still running. I go with Intel for reliability.

ToolBag

OUCH! I have never heard of such a thing, what were you doing to them? How long have you had them?

__________________
Jesus was a ruffies victim!

Dan 3:20

saltfish

Glad that you said something..

I was leaning more toward actuall, automatic, throttleing by the processor itself. As far as I am aware, AMD's do not have an 'on proc' way of preventing thermal meltdown. (I know that the bios can make the proc shutdown by temp control) But Pentium's are set up so that the processor will prevent itself from overheating.

Lets see if I can be a bit clearer. If a Intel CPU had a problem where the heatsink were to fall off, the processor would detect a rise in temp and throttle itself back and eventually shutdown, keeping it from nuking.

Whereas, if an AMD chips has a heatsink fall off, all hell breaks loose. The die will rise to 600F, and your out a proc and mobo.

Am I correct in this thinking?

-SF

Lasereth

I think it depends on the motherboard for the most part. Let's take the well-received Abit NF7-S 2.0 for example! In BIOS, there's a setting that is basically "do you want the PC to turn off if the CPU fan fails?" I tried it out last night, and it works VERY well. The moment the CPU fan is getting no power, the PC shuts down.

Now, if the CPU HSF were to fall off and remain plugged in, that could be a problem. I've never heard of a processor-based thermal shutdown (even on P4's), so that's new to me. I really don't think Athlons have it. But like I said before, I didn't even know P4's had an onboard thermal shutdown.

Either way, in most motherboards, there's a thermal shutdown temp AND a CPU failure safety kill switch, so I see that as adequate thermal protection. If the processor gets too high, it shuts down. If the CPU fan breaks, it shuts down. If the CPU fan falls off and remains plugged in, then the heat will probably kick in the BIOS temp thing and it'll shutdown as well.

I usually make thermal shutdown temp at 70-75 celsius. The default on mine is 110 celsius, but I think that's a bit too high.

So basically, the only way the absence of a non-processor thermal control is if the motherboard thermal shutdown didn't work. And from my experiences, they work very well.

-Lasereth

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

saltfish

Well, I decided to get off my ass..

Click this and download the movie.
http://www12.tomshardware.com/images...PU_Cooling.zip

While it's downloading go to this site.
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20010917/index.html

I don't want to spoil it.. ..So my mouth is gonna stay shut.

-SF

Let's just say.. ..magic smoke.

meembo

both are great products! Unless your NEEDS (as opposed to WANTS) are high, I think that your budget and feature set of the motherboard will help make the decision for you

budgets are always a concern of mine. therefore, the Athlons are in my machines, and I've been very happy with them (especially as an overclocker).

__________________
less I say, smarter I am

cheesemoney

Yeah, if you know how to put a heatsink on, I always figure its a good idea to just OC a 2500+ Barton XP and spend the money on girls, beer, strippers, or whatever your vice is.

Just my take.

It really IS just as easy to OC an athlon as to put a 3200 in it. You just have to buy good ram, a decent 30$ heatsink (some use retail heatsinks, but I wouldn't), make sure you have case fans and ventillation, and everything else is done in software anyway.

Oh, and if you are *worried* about your overclocked chip dying in a year, you will be able to buy a new one in a year for about 30 bucks or so anyway.

Or a 3200+ for about 50, probably, by that point.

No reason to get a 3200+ when 90 bucks get you everything you need.

BTW, a 2500+ overclocked to 3200+ w/ good CAS 2.5 or Cas 2 ram should beat a 3200+ stock (isn't really an overclockable chip) with generic ram anyway. Both are running at 400mhz fsb.

My rec.... whatever you do, go AMD if gaming is your concern.

If what you need to do is encode media constantly, get Intel.

I DO want to do a lot of media encoding/ripping, but I'm still going w/ 2500+ Barton due to the fact that it is so cheap and can easily hit 3200+ for 90 bucks.

For the record, the only probs I've ever had w/ AMD had more to do w/ the crappy motherboards I was using than the cpu itself.

Destrox

Worrying about meltdowns or overheating like that is worrying that you will be shot by a stray bullet that got shot into the sky 2 counties over.

Doesnt take much to put a heatsink on correctly, and never have to worry about heat. The old AMD vs Intel heat debate is old and outdated, to the point of when people continue to bring it up its annoying.

I say buy the AMD, lose maybe 4-6% performance on various task (note: not overall), and spend the spare 150~$ on somthing else.

__________________
You bore me.... next.

heyal256

I have not actually seen the video, but I do know that there is a controversy that this was staged. I know that a LOT of tech sites can prove that Toms hardware is a biased site (like the benchmarks that he shows does not match his conclusion, or using tests that favor one processor over the other, amd vs intel).

If I remember correctly, the video was staged because you would never get to the point of seeing flames from a processor overheating. This is not to say that you won't cause severe damage/melting in the extreme case that is presented by that article/video. The whole controvesy was that he "rigged" the system to overheat in a way that would not be seen if this was an actual system (turned off the motherboard auto-shutoff, ranning the chip without the heatsink and fan, instead of just showing what happens when the fan dies but the heat sink still works).

As to your question about clock throttling, the Athlon 64 does do this, I believe that it now has an internal (on chip) thermal diode, like the intel chips.

If I can dig up some links about the "controversy" surrounding the tom's hardware video I'll post it here.

Edit: here are some links regarding this controversy. I think that they show enough doubt as to whether or not the testing was completely accurate
http://www.tech-report.com/news_reply.x/3057/0/
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/20...1029008570.htm
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread....threadid=60929

wraithhibn

Tom really has been a jackass to a number of the AMD sites out there. I know he pissed a lot of people off in the AMD community and lost a lot of readership.

__________________
If you won't dress like the Victoria Secret girls, don't expect us to act like soap opera guys.

Lasereth

Yeah, when it comes to processor reviews, you really have to look out on Tom's. They'll do a lot of interesting things to make it seem like Intel always wins. Every now and then they can't get around it, but usually they'll trick the readers into thinking that that Intel processors are *always* better. For instance, I've read a few reviews where Tom's will OC a P4 until it's better than the new AMD chip that came out, and then not change the color on the graph so it looks like a regular P4, just so the P4 is on top. Umm, the Athlon is at stock and the P4 is OC'ed...of course the P4 is gonna win.

Oh, and while those videos were pretty damn funny (I'm almost wondering if they were a joke ), nothing like that EVER happens. I've been a computer dork for years now, and I've never, not even ONCE heard of a heatsink fan simply falling off. If it does, it's your fault for installing it wrong. In that article, just about everything was completely biased without reasoning. Oh well, Tom's is a lot better in the more recent articles. Their videocard tests are VERY reliable as well.

-Lasereth

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

SaltPork

Well, I went with the Intel processor based on some research and some IT guys I talked to. There were some compelling arguments for both, but what it came down to was compatibility between components. Not only that, but I had to be careful about what optical drives I chose and how many I wanted. I found that the more I wanted for "accessories" the more it was costing me to go with AMD vs. Intel. What ended up costing me $2700 for an Intel based PC would have cost me over $3000 for the same AMD box.

Thanks for all your input.

__________________
It was like that when I got here....I swear.

DEI37

I've never had a problem with using AMD chips in my systems. I currently have three AMD systems, one a K6/2 400. That is my server. Heather's computer is an old Slot 1 Athlon 700, and my machine is an Athlon XP 2000+ running at 2.20GHz. Runs nice and cool at that. Paired with a GF3 Ti200, it actually performs quite nicely. Doesn't miss a beat doing what I need it to do. I paid $58 for the retail 2000+, and a comparable Intel proc was around $120. I already had the AMD motherboard, but you get the idea.

__________________
Generally speaking, if you were to get what you really deserve, you might be unpleasantly surprised.

Destrox

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning on why the intel would be cheaper... but whatever.

You'd be happy with which ever you pick.

__________________
You bore me.... next.

cheesemoney

3000 freakin' dollars? What the hell do you plan on buying? And what are you talking about? Are you gonna go in and buy a CD Burner that is somehow aimed at working with Intel but won't even work with AMD? Does that even exist?

For everyone else, I think its pretty simple.

Encoding/Ripping ... Intel
Value ... AMD
Gaming ... AMD (for same price as intel generally much faster framerate)
High End have money to burn ... Intel w/ hyperthreading and overclock the crap out of it since you should be able to afford another one if you can burn this much money in the first place.

Stability... both... buy a good freakin' motherboard and heatsink... you idiots talking about amd's lighting on fire have to be retarded to actually disable your motherboard monitoring, heatsink, etc. Buy lots of fans... both are very good chips and very stable.

Your typical user is gonna get much more out of AMD for general use, since 90 bucks gets you either a Peintium IV 1.5 or an AMD 2500+ 333 mhz FSB Barton.

AMD is a VALUE, which is why people buy it.
It is the 99 cent whopper of the cpu world--it is Burger King, whereas the average consumer knows the name MacDonalds and consumes there, even though the Big Mac costs 2x as much.
They both get you the same amount of calories, just taste a little different.

saltfish

Motherboard monitoring has nothing to do with preventing an AMD from spontanious meltdown.

-SF

Crack

How do have EVERYthing nailed down except the processer? The Mobo you choose really depends on your choice here, or did I miss something?

__________________
Crack, you and I are long overdue for a vicious bout of mansex.

~Halx

Embic

depending on how much you want to spend id reccomed(for gaming):

athlon 64 fx-51
p4 2.6c-3.2c - if you get one of these oc the hell out of it (3.4ghz+)

Lasereth

Ever since the Tom's Hardware video of the Athlon XP versus the P4 without a CPU cooler, you've been acting like Athlon XP's just blow up in everyone's computer. This rarely happens in any system. If the CPU heatsink fan falls off, it's the users fault. AMD even gives you a warning with EVERY single processor they sell: "Do not assemble PC unless the CPU fan is installed correctly. Failure to do so will result in the loss of the chip. Do not turn on the computer without the fan on. Do not turn on the computer unless you are sure the CPU fan is installed correctly."

It's basically written all over everything that comes with the Athlon XP. It's like selling a car and telling the user to wear their seatbelt so if they have a wreck they won't be hurt. Put on the heatsink fan so when you turn on the computer the processor won't be hurt.

I said this before, and I'll say it again: I've never heard of a heatsink fan falling off. If it does, your motherboard came broke, or your heatsink fan came broke. That's not AMD's fault. AMD designs great processors, and with their processing power comes heat, just as all processors have. We wouldn't have the power we have now for so little of money from AMD if they didn't get hot. Install the heatsink fan correctly and this will never be an issue. This should not be an issue when buying AMD processors, and it definitely shouldn't be the reason to buy Intel over AMD.

That video has a fault to it: it was made when the Athlon XP just came out (1400+) and when the P4 just came out (low end 1.+'s). Now, Pentium 4's come with Hyper-Threading technology and damn high front-side buses. Guess what that results in? Yes, the latest Pentium 4's run just as hot (if not hotter) than Athlon XP's. If the heatsink fan simply falls off, it's gonna nuke it just like in that video. The heat prevention device will be enacted, but nothing is gonna stop the spontaneous combustion of a processor putting out 100 watts of power.

We can argue about Intel vs AMD for years to come. Both have advantages and disadvantages, and both are great companies...but the fact that an Athlon XP will fry if the heatsink fan falls off is just a ridiculous point of argument. It's like saying a car will overheat without its radiator...cars don't just have their radiators fall off, and neither do Athlon XP's.

-Lasereth

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

cheesemoney

Just think of the Intel chip as having an airbag that costs you an extra 100 bucks or so.

SaltPork

Well, since I knew that most of the important options, video card, HD, RAM, were going to work for either chip, the rest is just academic. So I would say, yes, you did miss something.

__________________
It was like that when I got here....I swear.

SiphonX

didn't read anything but go with Intel.

__________________
/Knowledge is Power/

Lasereth

At least give a reason.

-Lasereth

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert