AMD vs Intel

[Jorath Calar]

I was vondering if any of you could tell me if AMD is worth getting, I'm going to upgrade my *very* old computer next week and I can choose between Intel p4 1.7 ghz or 1700 XP AMD Athlon...?

Anyone knows which would be a better purchase, I'm so conservative I immideatly thought I should get Intel, but seriously is Amd any good...?

By the way now I have a Intel Celeron ... don't laugh, 300 mhz... [img]smile.gif[/img] bought it in 1998... it was a good machine back in those days... [img]smile.gif[/img]

But hey... I'll finally be able to play NWN... yey

[andrewas]

At the high end Intel are more powerful, AMD are more cost effective. Both are equally stable, provided you keep *evil* VIA chipsets out of the equation.

The AMD has more power per clock, but the athlons are described in terms of the equivalently powerful pentium - in other words the XP1700 is slower then the P4 1.7, but equally powerful. In theory at least.

[Animal]

AMD uses a more effecient technology than does Intel, so they have a performance advantage based upon a straight clockspeed to clockspeed comparison. Unfortunately AMD has pretty much hit a wall with the current Athlon XP technology won't be able to puch it much past 2.5GHZ whereas the Intel P4 has already hit over 3.0GHZ and is still going strong. Most people believe that the P4 platform should be able to clock well over 4.0GHZ and beyond.

Intel has recently released a feature called Hyper Threading into their new CPU's, which in essence makes a compatible OS think that the CPU is actually 2 seperate processors. This is little use though, unless your OS and applications support multi processor capabilities. Intel has also released an 800MHZ FSB speed for their P4's also, twice as fast as AMD and couple that with Intel's support for dual channel DDR, it's the better of the two breeds.

Having said that, I would go with Intel just for sheer upgradability right now. The Athlon XP is dying a slow and painful death, while Intel releases faster and faster processors almost daily.

Price wise, AMD may be a little cheaper, but in the long run...Intel is your best bet right now.

Not so you think I'm biased, I've got 4 machines. A P4 2.53, Athlon Barton 3000+, Athlon XP 2100+ and an Athlon Thunderbird 1.2. My next machine will be Intel.

[Harkoliar]

well most have been said now.. but my friend told me that there is a 200mhz difference between intel and amd so if you have a 1.5 intel then you need a speed of 1.7 athlon to make it even. but i dont know about the recent ones. personally a 200mhz difference wont make much differenc to me

oh yeah..

posted by animal ---------------------- Not so you think I'm biased, I've got 4 machines. A P4 2.53, Athlon Barton 3000+, Athlon XP 2100+ and an Athlon Thunderbird 1.2. My next machine will be Intel.

coul you explain that athlon barton 3000+ you have?? its the first time ive heard of it. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Animal]

Originally posted by Harkoliar: well most have been said now.. but my friend told me that there is a 200mhz difference between intel and amd so if you have a 1.5 intel then you need a speed of 1.7 athlon to make it even. but i dont know about the recent ones. personally a 200mhz difference wont make much differenc to me oh yeah.. quote: posted by animal ---------------------- Not so you think I'm biased, I've got 4 machines. A P4 2.53, Athlon Barton 3000+, Athlon XP 2100+ and an Athlon Thunderbird 1.2. My next machine will be Intel.

coul you explain that athlon barton 3000+ you have?? its the first time ive heard of it. [img]smile.gif[/img] [/QUOTE]Double the L2 with a 333MHZ bus. Probably never heard of the 3200+ either then. Honestly not a real big improvement.

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,109580,00.asp

[TheCrimsomBlade]

Differences between a Pentium and Celeron processor


Q. What is the difference between a Pentium processor and a Celeron processor?

A. Both microprocessors are made by Intel. Pentium IV is the premium product. Currently, its highest speed is 3.06 gigahertz. Celeron is used in budget machines; it has a Pentium IV core and runs as high as 2.2 GHz. The other difference is in secondary (L2) memory cache. Pentium has 512 kilobytes; Celeron, 128 KB. L2 cache stores commands in an effort to predict what you will do next. So, the machine runs faster. With four times the memory, Pentium IV would seem more likely to run faster. But in the real world, Celeron works well with most applications and the Internet. As for gaming applacations Pentium 4 is far in the lead of every other processer in performance and speed and pulling away from the pack daily including the AMD processor that is stuck at a stand still at 2.5GHZ and pentium is already said that A 4.6GHZ and faster is in development.

from PC WORLD magizine
__________________________________________________ ______________________________________

I had a celeron a few years back and up graded the first time to the pent 3 and now I have a number of different computers and three have pent 4 with 2.6GHZ processors or faster and 90% of the time I use them only for Gaming so I'll never go back to celeron or AMD athlon for Gaming but this is my choice. The pentium seem to be more in tune with the game industry and perform better with the new High powered 3D accelerators and within the next few years I think most games will be 3D at least the good ones will be.

I hope we helped you! [img]graemlins/twocents.gif[/img]

[Albromor]

Go to www.tomshardware.com and read their new article about the new 600 Intel chipset series motherboards. Tom's Hardware is pretty balanced, but they say that AMD is in trouble with what Intel is offering. They confirm what Animal has said about AMD hitting a wall. Don't get me wrong, AMD make good quality chips and they are needed to keep the market from being totally dominated by Intel. Competition is a good thing. One other thing about AMD is the size of the heatsink needed because they produce a great deal of heat. However, I have heard that the newer chips produce less heat.

How much do you want to spend Jorath? Look under the Morrowind Forum and Oruborus (sp?) and I am sure you can get some ideas. His thread is entitled Hardware Help.

[Luvian]

Personally, I consider a game that would require more than 2 ghz to run at optimal performance to be a piece of garbage. The day a 2 ghz is not good enough to play video games is the day I will quit computer gaming. 2 ghz is more than powerfull enough to run a good 3d engine, any engine that would require more than that is crappy work, in my opinion. What's next? Games will require 5 ghz to run?

Personally, I would go with the AMD since it's cheaper. It's doing as good a job as an intel computer, and you'll be able to use that spare money to buy better hardware, or maybe some videogames.

[ 05-24-2003, 08:37 AM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

[robertthebard]

I am currently running an AMD Athlon XP, 2400+ @ 2.0 GHz, with a GeForce4 MX Integrated(whatever that means)video card with 64mb ram, and 512 mb of ddr sdram, on WinXP Home edition. NWN looks like a TV show, and I have had no performance hits, even after a couple of hours of continuous play. I have to agree with Luvian, if I can't run games at 2 GHz, why buy them? I ran NWN on a P3 system with 256mb ram, and a 32mb GeForce2 card, and it looked ok, and ran ok for awhile, only a 600mhz processor though. Not a fair comparison. It just depends on what you want to spend.

Personal Opinion: Stay with Intel. Microsoft plays better with them.
I have used both AMD and Intel..I liked the AMD pricing but always did experience strange intermittant problems with hardware and software (usually due to *EVIL* VIA chipsets)...in the end, the money wasn't worth the hassel for me so I stayed with Intel.