My mom wants me to build a cheap system for her. I am debating between AMD and Intel. Its been a while since I have been in this market, so Im completely out of touch. A couple of my moms friends that work on computers for a living have told her that AMD has a lot of problems and has gone downhill. Computer fanatics have been telling me that AMD is the way to go. Also, Im told the P4's strictly use the Rambus. I heard Rambus has a lot of latency and the DDR is a much better choice. Can I get some non-biased suggestions?
I would recomend AMD and if you are looking to save money the P4 is NOT the way to go b/c they are far more expensive and so is the ram you have to use with them. The Athlon 1700+ or 1800+ are probably the best value.
I myself like AMD. I believe that Intel is overrated. These are just opinions and not based on any facts.
I have only read good stuff about the AMD Athlon XP chips. They are not as "fast" as Intel P4 chips Gigahertz wise but they seem to benchmark about the same. The Athlon XP chips have labels 1700,1800,1900,2000, etc. that are basically their equivilant in Intel terms. They are actually slower Ghz wise. Great article on www.tomshardware.com comparing the two: http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/02q1/020107/index.html Basically the AMD chip is 100-200$ cheaper and the same performance if you ask me. It all depends on what you surround the AMD with. If you put it in a similar system it compares similar to the Intel chip. Intel has a faster Front Side Bus (400mhz vs 266 for AMD) that helps it in memory benchmarks, but the AMD chips outperform intel in most Video benchmarks. Pick your poison... Intel does have a new "Northwood" chip with some components (512KB L2 Cache and 0.13 µm process) that may allow it to pull further ahead of AMD though. Just get a sweet Video Card and a butt load of RAM and it doesn't matter what chip you use. For what it is worth, I am building a system myself right now and will be using the AMD chip.
AMD is better value. Although the newest P4 chips overclock like a mutha! I've seen reports of 3.6 Ghz . . . I recommend the Athlon XP. Any of the Athlon XPs will do, but I think the 1800 is the one that is at the best value right now, although I could be wrong. I have the 1800 and I love it. The P4 is a good chip, and definitely a very solid performer that can hold its own, but it's just too darned expensive comparitively.
I like Buy.com they are big and usually one of the cheaper stores out there but they are also very reliable.
Since no one else has corrected this big ol' fat error : Yes, P4 mobos can now use DDR. I'm an AMD fan. I can't help but be biased. Screw Intel. ... and with that, I'm off!
Oh damn, gotta correct one more glaring error. Tell your mom's friends they don't know squat about computers. Tell 'em Doctor of Dunk said so. AMD is alive and well and stronger than ever. They've gone uphill over the past few years. My last 3 or 4 processors have been AMD's. I've been using them since around 1994 or 1995. Your mom's friends are feeding you BS. ... ok, now with THAT I'm OFF!
DoD. You cannot simply fade into the horizon. You have a gift, a gift man. A gift for helping people. How long can you ignore tech support emails and look yourself in the mirror every morning? You cant. You will return, you must return...
haha DoD. I totally agree. Like I said, I've been out of touch with all the hardware. I keep track of prices and thats about it. I wasn't sure if I was behind. I was waiting for yours, Vengence, and The Cat to give me the advice I needed Unforuately, I don't live near my mom and I only visit once every few months. The time I spend there is hanging out with my buds, not fixing computers. She has a guy that works on it, and the amusing thing is he put together her an AMDK6 a couples ago, which IMO, is a pile of crap. Now that when I suggest putting in an AMD, he thinks Intel are the gods and AMD's are bad buys. And then she tells me he has plenty of time to work on it because his job let him go today "without an explanation". I think that swayed her back to the AMD side. Thanks for the advice and resassurence guys!!
www.newegg.com ( I think DOD told me about this one) www.tomshardware.com - they will compare many sites and give you a best price with shipping figured in.
AMD. Intel fell behind AMD, they still charge more, as all agree. I know an Intel chip designer and Intel frets over AMD's Athlon; they are very impressed. I have a dual Athlon 1800+. It is absolutely unbelievable.
I wouldn't totally discount the "AMD has problems" argument. Granted, they rock, and AMD is stronger than ever, but, <a href="http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/24/1910227&mode=thread">There is an athlon bug</a>, however it's not with the athlon itself, and it doens't affect Windows users. It appears to be a motherboard spec bug that AMD released patches for in Windows 2K and XP, but not in Linux. But that's the ONLY real issue that AMD has had, and it's hardly an issue for most people. Besides, there's already a fix for it in Linux now.
While I see some good things about the Athlon. personally I have always liked Intels stability. I build both for people alot and AMD's Athlon XP is not a bad chip. But niether is Intel. Prices have been coming down on Intel chips (check Newegg.com) The only time there is really a huge difference in price is when you hit Intels 2+ Ghz chips. Intel does make boards that use DDR like the i845D chipset its just that if you want a P4 go with the fastst ram available for it-RDRAM. There isnt a big difference in RDRAM Vs. DDR pricewise anyway. That has evened out a bit-RAMBUS used to be way more. Northwood is one bad-a** chip. Both have their highs and lows.
I agree Scary. The big knock I have with the Athlon is that it's not <i>quite</i> as good of quality as Intel. Not to say that the Athlon is bad quality at all, it's awesome, but I've never seen a bad Intel processor. From AMD, I've seen one bad Athlon, and a host of bad K6-2s. However, I think the Athlon XP is the first chip from AMD that I would put the quality on par with Intel. I've not seen or heard (from anyone I know) of any cracked cores, any burn-ups, anything. When the Athlon XP temp monitor specs are implemented in motherboards, it'll even add to its reliability. That Northwood is one bad mamma-jamma though . . . Get that 1.6 Ghz and overclock it to 3 Ghz The prices are becoming more competitive, but Athlon is still the better value.
And don't ask me which is better for games. Intel (cough..cough) And AMD is far from OK D.O.D, they have closed 2 of their 3 processor plants here in Austin and the one that remains open they are retooling for use as a FLASH memory plant. AMD is doing ok, but they are still 2nd banana to Intel. DaDakota
The two plants being closed in Austin are not PC processor plants. They are 2 of the oldest plants that AMD has and were usually used to contract out fabrication work to other companies. One of the reasons they're closing down those plants is they've built a bad-ass one in Dresden, Germany which, from what I recall, is where the latest-technology processors are being fab'd. They've had layoffs last year like pretty much everyone in the tech sector. They're selling more processors than ever. Without them, we wouldn't have cheap processors like we do now. AMD is second-fiddle to Intel mostly due to people still being in the dark and believing that megahertz really mean that much... Apple and AMD know better... Intel wants you to keep thinking the same BS (bigger MHz must mean better and faster).
