AMD vs Pentium

[apax999]

In my ongoing adventure to buy a topnotch gaming computer, I recently discovered this hurdle to overcome -- AMD or Pentium. I was 99% sure I was gonna get a P4 2.53gHz, which has a 533 bus speed. Then I read on sharkyextreme's review that the new AMD 2600 XP competes with, and pretty much "beats" the P4 2.53ghz. Doesn't the AMD only have a 333 bus speed? Not being a computer-hardware genius, I'm just curious how AMD's processor competes with Pentium, and which you reccommend for gaming/speed... Thanks!

apax999@yahoo.com

 

[Pete]

Only the 2700+ and 2800+ are officially 333FSB. If you can wait for them, and an nForce 2 motherboard to pair them with, you should compare favorably to even PC1066 RDRAM P4's. You won't find the nF2 for a few more weeks, and the 2700+/2800+ probably won't show before December.

 

[Nagorak]

AMD is betta'.

 

[RaolinDarksbane]

AMD also tend to overheat more if you don't have sufficient cooling.... something that P4 aren't troubled with. I have 3 Athlon equiped computers, and one P4. On a really hot day, the Athlon system would overheat.

 

[Nite_Hawk]

CPU overheating really has a lot to do with case temperature too though. You also haven't mentioned what kind of heatsinks you are using on all the systems. (Are the AMD heatsinks aftermarket? Is the P4's stock? )

AMD cpus seem to run about 10 degrees C over P4s on average from what I've seen (for similar performance values) but at the same time are rated to go about 10 degrees C higher as well.

Once I got my case up to snuff, my athlon system at home was fine this last winter, and that was through 90-100 degree F days in the middle of summer with no air conditioning!

Nite_Hawk

 

[MGD]

maybe one day the speed of the memory will go as the exact speed of the computer bus. as it is one of the two is always left waiting with their fingers twiddling waiting for the other to catch up.

 

[BRiT]

maybe one day the speed of the memory will go as the exact speed of the computer bus.

You had that back in the day of the Pentium-60 and EDO memory. Do you want to return to that day?

--|BRiT|

 

[Nite_Hawk]

Brit: Well, for what it's worth, MS operating systems don't really seem to run any faster than they did back then....

Nite_Hawk

 

[Johnny Rotten]

AMD's cpu's actually perform remarkably close to their PR rating.Right now AMD's biggest hurdle is shipping product thaat matches intel's high end. An intel P4 2.53gig + 1066mhz rdram is going to be very slightly faster than AMD's just arriving 2400XP. AMD's 2800XP and 333mhz ddr is essentially neck and neck with intels 2.8 gig p4 + 1066 rdram. The problem being of course you can get intel system today and you wont be able to get the amd version until sometime around xmas. By which time of course intel will be rolling out their 3.06 ghz P4 + hyperthreading.

Of course not to be overlooked through all this is the fact that athlons + ddr memory are significantly cheaper than P4's + high speed rdram.

 

[Tagrineth]

maybe one day the speed of the memory will go as the exact speed of the computer bus. as it is one of the two is always left waiting with their fingers twiddling waiting for the other to catch up.

Pentium 4.

FSB 400MHz 64-bit, RAM 800MHz 32-bit. Effectively the same.

FSB 533MHz 64-bit, RAM 1066MHz 32-bit. Again effectively the same