Dual P3 1.7ghz or P4 2.0ghz... not sure which would be best?

[gatordad]

I need some advice,

My kids want their gaming computer back.
So.......... I was planning on moving my current mame setup to an (older) pc.

I have 2 choices and was wondering which would give the best results.


1st is a dual  P3 1.7ghz server with scsi hard drives and apg slot and 2gig of ram

2nd is a P4 2.0ghz compaq evo 310 tower 256ram, ide HD, agp slot



Which would give me the most bang with mame 114.

Does the P4 give a substantial boost or would the dual P3 be better?
Thanks
GD

[massive88]

My first instinct is GHZ is king, and Id go with 2 over 1.7, but Im not familiar with those flavors of pentium to offer any advice other than that.

Can you move the ram around betwixt them?

[amadama]

I never knew there was a 1.7Ghz version of the P3 (I thought 1.4Ghz wa the fastest).
Clock for clock, the P3 is faster than a P4. (P3 core went on to become the Pentium M and then CoreDuo/Core2Duo while the P4 core was ultimately dropped. Last iteration of P4 core was the previous Xeon MP ).
That being said, you can get better performance with the dual P3 system (most likely). I don't know if Mame uses SIMD calls like SSE2, P3 will only support SSE.
Good luck,
Alex

[Jdurg]

Also keep in mind that servers are really built more for data transfer speeds and reliability than pure processing power.

[amadama]

Forgot to ask a couple of other things...
Check what kind of video card you are using and if it will work on those systems. The P3 may only have a 2x/4x AGP slot and the P4 may have a 4x/8x AGP slot. If your video card is 8x AGP it may not work on the P3.
Another issue is the noise. The server enclosure may be a lot louder than a Compaq EVO!

[gatordad]

I never knew there was a 1.7Ghz version of the P3 (I thought 1.4Ghz wa the fastest).
Clock for clock, the P3 is faster than a P4. (P3 core went on to become the Pentium M and then CoreDuo/Core2Duo while the P4 core was ultimately dropped. Last iteration of P4 core was the previous Xeon MP ).
That being said, you can get better performance with the dual P3 system (most likely). I don't know if Mame uses SIMD calls like SSE2, P3 will only support SSE.
Good luck,
Alex

You are correct it is a P3 1.4 but has been overclocked in bios to 1.7 (I forgot about the overclock)
It also only has a 4x agp slot
It is quite loud

Excellent thinking points

I'll be using the evo310

Thanks
GD

[massive88]

If you really want to set your mind at ease, you could put together a batch file to benchmark mame on several titles and copy it all to a cd, put it on each computer, and see the results.

Thats what I did when I was testing out different OS's and mame versions when I upgraded my machine.

[amadama]

If you really want to set your mind at ease, you could put together a batch file to benchmark mame on several titles and copy it all to a cd, put it on each computer, and see the results.

Thats what I did when I was testing out different OS's and mame versions when I upgraded my machine.

Yup, this will ultimately be the best way to see for yourself.