(Warning, long post ahead)
Athlon all the way, at least for now. Granted, I've tried everything. First "PC" machine was a Cyrix PR133 (it was CHEAP!), then moved to an AMD K6II-200 and noticed "Wow, Windows is crashing MUCH LESS"
Was planning on going to a first generation Athlon, but a lightning storm killed the computer a month before their release. So, I went to the shop and got a 600mhz P3 (OEM). This turned out to be a nightmare. It was totally unstable, and had to be clocked to 500mhz in order to work. I argued with them on the point, but because I removed the stupid plastic cover to examine the core for damage and mashed a plastic pin that held it on, they wouldn't exchange my CPU. Last time I ever bought from them.
A few months later, I shoved the thing into my girlfriend's machine and bought an Intel P3 550 (Retail BOX) on an ABit botherboard with an Intel chipset. This ran perfectly. I never had a problem with it. Amazingly stable. I'll never buy an OEM processor again. With a retail CPU, it has a 3 yr warrenty, and heatsink included. If it overheats, burns out, etc, the manufacturer will replace it, few if any questions asked.
Time to upgrade, I went back with AMD because I saw they really stormed Intel's parade with the Athlon. I wasn't dissappointed. I got a 1.2Ghz Thunderbird on an IWill motherboard with an Ali Magik-1 chipset. At first, I had some lockups and stability problems, then I upgraded the motherboard's drivers, and all ran fine.
I gave that machine to my sister, and now have an AMD 1700+ Palamino (XP). I put it on an ABit KR266-RAID motherboard with a VIA 266 chipset (REALLY NICE). Same problem as with the Iwill, but as soon as I upgraded to latest VIA drivers, it is now impervious to crashes. I run Windows 2000 Pro. My uptime right now is three weeks. I never shut it down. Three weeks ago, I updated some drivers and had to reboot it. Before that, I think it was running two weeks solid.
Here are some pointers:
1) Always buy a Retail Box processor. You never know if a 3rd party heatsink is crap or not. I've bought $30 heatsinks that didn't perform as well as stock ones (The "SuperOrb" sinks come to mind) . They have a 3 year warenty with the maker (AMD or Intel), and they only cost like $15 more at most (heck, heatsinks alone cost that much!). If it overheats with the stock heatsink, it's replaceable by the manufacturer because THEY provided the sink!
2) Go AMD. They're faster because they have better archetecture. This has been proved through technical studys and performance tests. They do more operations per-cycle than the P4s. In fact, P4s do LESS operations per cycle than the P3s. Tom's Hardware
http://www.tomshardware.com reveals this. Seems Intel planned on marketing "WE GOT THE GHZ! THEREFORE WE MUST BE FASTER!!". Thus, stupid, blind consumers who know only that one number is bigger than another, bought P4s.
Sick of loosing market share due to a play on consumer incompetance, AMD now markets their CPUs as "####+". It is through a speed rating system developed by a third party company. You can read all about it on AMD's site.
Some people buy a car with a V6 engine because they think it's fast because it's bigger and has more displacement, then they get creamed by a little Japanese car with a twin-turbo four cylinder with 1/3rd less displacement but has 80 more horsepower than the V6. This is the same analysis of Intel vs. AMD.
AMD's are also cheaper. They also don't rape customers as hard for thier high end stuff like Intel still does. They still charge a lot for their top end stuff though, so buy a CPU about 2 or 3 grades down from the current "top" for the best bang for the buck.
If cash isn't a factor, go Intel. Yup, go Intel. because the fastest P4's are still the fastest PC CPUs in the world, if only by a tiny bit. Sure you want to spend the extra $400 for that extra smidgen of performance? If you wern't a smart shopper, you wouldn't be posting here with your question, now would you?
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