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need a little help choosing a cpu
elvis:
--- Quote from: Layer01 on January 12, 2005, 03:25:44 am ---2.8C ? what does the C stand for? and what type of chip is it?
--- End quote ---
The "C" means it's an 800MHz FSB Northwood chip:
http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/processors/pentium4/
--- Quote from: Layer01 on January 12, 2005, 03:25:44 am ---the sempron 2400+ what is that ghz wise? roughly
--- End quote ---
The Sempron 2400+ is a 1.667GHz part with 256KB of Level2 cache:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_11599_11604,00.html
It's amazing what you'll find when you plug common questions into google! :)
Layer01:
shucks :-[ :-X sorry elvis my bad i should've given Google a go, it is the all knowing god of our time after all hehehe :angel:
But will the 1.66 ghz "amd style" be good enough, i seem to remember their 2400 and such numbers were supposed to be indicitive of their "if-they-were-intel" speed or some marketing tripe like that lol.
{EDIT}well as my last attempt at a reply was long winded and didnt say anything i'll try again:
i would like a CPU powerfull enough to be able to run what can be run atm in terms of 3d emulation , like in zinc, n64 emu's epsxe etc... (but not so powerful that its breaks the bank)
i have no list of games i am trying to get running i just want a cpu that will let me run the games that can run. in fact if any of you want to make recomendatons on what games i should be on the look out for that would be great, as i havent started really looking into that matter yet :)
so a good mid range chip that will cover most bases...
Flinkly:
i'm sorry to come off mean, but it sounds like you need someone to justify getting a nice chip. go ahead and choose a number of dollars your willing to spend on the chip and then go find the best one for what you want to spend. since i wanted the relative best for my cab, but also not to waste money, i went with a 2.8 p4 also since it's not the 1000 dollar top of the line, but aso not slow...
it's mostly up to you what you want, because like everyone has said, it depends on what you want to play, but some games you wont even be able to play for some time with the available technology. just get the best you can and don't look back.
pointdablame:
Semprons are AMDs low end chip. I don't have a mathmatical equation or anything, but just know that you shoudln't use the "equivalent to Intel" with these chips. ie. a sempron 2400+ will not quite be on par with a 2.4 Intel chip. I've read only a little on them, but I DO believe they are "better" than Celerons, for what that's worth.
AthlonXP's are the AMD chip that best adhere to the "same as Intel" marketing ploy. As a general idea, you could say a 2600+ would be roughly equivalent to a 2.6 P4. This is just a general rule though, read some reviews when you need to choose between a few chips.
Athlon64 also uses the rule fairly well. You can get the same rough idea of an Intel equivalent by looking at the numbers i.e. Athlon64 3000+ = 3.0 P4
In all honesty though, that's marketing and not a whole lot more. Read reviews if you really wanna know if a 2400+ or a 2.4 P4 is faster for what you want. Each chip excels and falls short in different areas.
BOTTOM LINE: If you want to build a system on a budget... I'd go AthlonXP. I have a 2500+ system in my house that runs any game in MAME besides those few that don't run well on anything. It does N64 and everything below just fine. I've run a few PSX games on it with litlte problems as well, but honestly, I've only played with ePSXe for a few hours.
If you want a bit more power, get an Athlon64. I just built a 3000+ system and I am LOVING it. it's great... faster than the 3.0 P4 i've used in the past by far IMHO.
Mid range CPUs: AthlonXP 2500+ - 2800+
Athlon64 2800+ - 3200+
Hope that helps.
elvis:
John IV (MAME32 author) and myself both maintain MAME benchmarking pages. See my sig for my site (mostly older CPUs) and John's site is here:
http://www.classicgaming.com/mame32qa/bench.htm
He compares some newer higher-end CPUs there. The P4's have a much longer instruction pipeline, and scale higher in raw clockspeed. This makes them favour the newer and more complex games, especially those with 3D. Where raw clockspeed isn't a concern (eg: older games, or drivers that have had time to mature and be optimised well over time), the Athlon64 will win out with its superior bandwidth.
Neither of those statements are a hard and fast rule, however. There are hundreds of unique drivers in MAME, and each one performs differently. "Benchmarking" MAME is nearly impossible, simply because it's just a framework for emulation drivers of unique hardware, and as such you'd have to benchmark every single game to truly show what's going on. That is a task I'm attempting to do with some MAME code hacking (removing warnings and whatnot) and some clever scripting, but free time isn't something I have a lot of these days. :)
Back on topic, I think Flinkly has given you the right advice. Pick a budget first. Give yourself the maximum amount of dollars you want to spend on an entire system. From there, juggle the components around and see what you can build. There will always be a faster CPU around the corner, and you can always spend just a few more dollars to get the next model up. Set yourself a ceiling, and stick by it.
If 3D games really are your thing, look at PSX emulators, or something like zINC. Playing 3D games in MAME currently is difficult without bleeding edge hardware.
And besides... who plays anything released after 1990 anyway? ;)
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