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pentium or athlon?
Frobozz:
(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? ;)
(message too long, cutting it in two :P )
Frobozz:
3) If you go AMD, be VERY CAREFUL when mounting the heat sink! I can't stress this enough! Make SURE, you don't rock the sink back and forth across the little ceramic core! You WILL crack it on the edges! I've done this! (Before I got the 1.2mhz BOX, I got a 1.33mhz OEM with a junk heatsink, and ruined it because of this! User error - no refunds - $250 down the drain.) Make sure the sink is oriented the right direction (they DO have a proper direction). Make sure it's flat to the surface. Make sure, the little plastic protection slip over the thermal transfer pad has been removed (if there is one). Use a screwdriver, and clip it home while keeping a hand firmly on the sink to avoid it rocking and smashing the corners of the core.
And whetever you do, don't EVER, EVER turn the machine on without the heatsink attached. The core will die within 1/2 a second. I'M SERIOUS ABOUT THIS FACT. IT WILL DIE BEFORE IT EVEN HITS POST! AMD doesn't include a bright red slip of paper with their CPU stating this fact for nothing! Oh yea, remember to read the installation instructions as well with the CPU. Even an "expert" like me, who's assembled dozens of systems have ruined a CPU because we thought we were too good to read the f*cking manual. ;)
4) (and lastly! WOW, long post!) Buy a good motherboard. I can't stress this enough either. Buy a GOOD motherboard, from ABit, ASUS, FIC, Biostar, Iwill, Tyan... (did I leave any out? I hear Epox is good to, but have never used them)
Make sure it has a GOOD chipset on it. This means either an Ali MAGIK-1 or a VIA KT266. The AMD7xx/VIA combo boards are pretty good too, but with the other two chipsets out, you'd be a fool to buy anything other than these. I've recently worked on systems with AMD Athlons and odd chipsets (like the SiS, the VIA KT133, etc...) and I don't like their performance, stability, or both. If you has experience with using various AMD chipsets, please post, since I'm always willing to listen to stories and evaluations from real users.
Get a board with DDR RAM. You'll have 2 advantages. #1 is that it's pretty darn fast. #2 is that you won't have to update for the furture since DDR will be around for a while. Make sure it's "PC2100" or better. If you want the BEST ram, go to http://www.mushkin.com and get some "DDR High Performance" ram (2-2-2 timing). They have an excellent FAQ on their site as well about the bottleneck of RAM and why good RAM is really important. It's what I run, and I swear by it.
I havn't found a MAME game that didn't run at full FPS yet (besides those with known speed bugs like Gorf).
I hope my primer on "Computer Core" selection helps.
Trenchbroom:
Just a quick word about Athlon motherboards: MSI (Microstar) is an excellent brand name. Really good performance for the pricing and they are known for their Gibraltar-like stability. I would recommend them highly as a cheaper alternative to the top-of-the-line ASUS and Abit boards. In my experience Epox and FIC boards have been great board makers as well.
Frobozz:
YES! Forgot them, thank you! Gigabyte is also pretty good from what I've seen.
Mike:
I'd buy what I can get the best deal on. Generally it's Athlons but I've seen some cheap deals on p4's lately. If your looking for a complete system check out dell's refurb section. They have complete p4 1.6ghz rambus machines for $500(Pentium 4 is much faster with rambus and usually goes toe to toe with athlons problem is because rdram is more the want to compare P4's using ddr which it wasn't originally designed for). If your just looking for a motherboard, processor and memory athlon will probably be cheaper just go to price watch and find it. Also I differ from most people here I wouldn't spend a fortune on a motherboard. I personally would get the cheapest one and here is why because all of them you buy usually come with a one year warranty. If it croaks after a year it's usually out of date by then anyways so with the money you saved to start with you can go get a newer board. With short life spans of computers you have to weigh quality versus price. If you can get a motherboard for $40 or $120 I'd buy the crappy one for $40. If you go with something like 1.6ghz no matter if it's amd or intel you should be able to play about anything.
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