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AMD 64 or P4 advice.

J

JoeMango

Junior Member
Hey Guys.

I'm spending quite a lot of money on my PC at the moment with an upgrade. I already know which graphics card i will be buying but im puzzled on which kind of CPU and motherboard to buy 😕

The main purpose for my upgrade is basicaly to be able to play the up coming games such as Doom III and Half-Life 2 with nice framerates. It seems that the AMD64 CPU's are supposed to be much better for gamers than the Pentium 4's. But for it to be better, do i need the 64bit Windows or should the AMD64 perform better than than the P4 without having to do much more than just install the hardware?

I already had in mind getting a P4 3.4 Northwood chip with the IC7Max 3 motherboard, but after reading lots of benchmark results with the AMD64 and P4, the AMD64 always looks the best for games. So if this is true, could you help me in finding the right Motherboard for an AMD64. I had in mind the 3400 as its round about the same price as the P4 3.4.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. 🙂

Thanks.
 
AMD64 is best for gaming regardless of your OS. As far as a mobo goes, the MSI K8N seems to be very en vouge right now. Personally, I have a budget ASRock K8S8X that is great if you don't need a lot of features. It'll even spank most of the newer boards. If you want to OC though, I'd get the MSI.
 
Besides showing slightly better FPS than the comparable P4 in most titles, the other compelling reason to go A64 for a gaming rig is that FarCry and Ut2k4 are already developing 64bit versions, and other titles will do so as well. Hence, if building now and you don't have a short upgrade cycle it's the best bet for gaming now and in the near future.
 
Definitely an A64. A 3200+ would be a much better value than a 3400+ though, as it gives you nearly identical performance for over $100 less. As for a mobo, it'll depend on what features you need and whether or not you'll be overclocking. Peruse Anand's Generation 2 S754 roundup for that. If you want maximum upgradeability and have cash to burn, you could consider Socket 939, but that's about the only real advantage the platform offers at the moment.
 
I know that A64 is better for gaming but how much better?

Its not a big 15% increase in performance by going AMD, maybe more like 4-5%.
Conversely Intel beats AMD in video rendering benchmarks by 15-20%.

I know it those rendering benchmarks might be tuned for SSE2/SSE3 thus giving Intel an advantage but I would think the higher clock speeds of Intel might be a factor too.

EDIT: The point is that I think Intel or AMD is good, you're not going to cry over 4% of performance since both platforms cost very similar unlike the old days. The bigger factor might be the 64bit thingy which is going to take a while to mature anyway.
 
with socket 939, amd beats intel in encoding and rendering benchmarks by a pretty good margin, but for socket 754, intel beats them on that.
 
I would recommend an Athlon 64 2800+ and a MSI K8N Neo Platinum. I get 2250mhz @default voltage, stock HSF. you will also save money on ram with Socket 754 because you dont have to buy dual channel ram.
 
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