AMD fanboy maybe switching to Intel ... suggestions?

[joecool]

folks,

as a former member of the AMD processer design team in Austin I've always been pretty loyal to the brand. (it didn't hurt that for years i could get free procs from my buddies there!). in fact, the only intel proc i've ever owned was a celeron 400. right now i have three amd-based comps at home. i'm currently specing out a box for a friend and figure i should give intel another look. the price differential seems largely gone and amd's "preformance rating" kind of bugs me. why buy a 2400+ that only runs at 2GHz when you can by a p4 2.4 that REALLY runs at 2.4GHz?!

anyway, i'm completely ignorant on intel mobo's. for comparision, i'm looking at the abit nf7-s for $125 as the amd mobo. what would be a good, comperable intel mobo with similar features and performance?

thanks in advance,

joe

 

[Intelman07]

Are you wanting a 800mhz front side bus or 400/533. I think this board here looks pretty nice.


ASUS Motherboard for Intel Pentium 4 / Celeron Processors, 800Mhz FSB Model# P4C800 Retail
Specifications:
Supported CPU: P478 Pentium 4 / Celeron
Chipset: Canterwood 865PE + ICH5
FSB:800/533/400 MHz
RAM:2 Channel DDR400/333/266 Support Max 2GB
IDE: Dual Ultra DMA ATA100/66 up to 4 Devices
RAID: RAID 0 Support on SATA Channels
Slots:1x AGP (8X) 5x PCI
Ports:2xPS2, 1xCOM,1xLPT,1x Audio, 1xLAN,2x IEEE, 8xUSB20
Onboard Audio:AD 1985 6 Channel Codec
Onboard LAN:3COM Gigabit LAN 1000/100/10 802.11b
Onboard SATA: Dual Channel Serial ATA up to 150MBs Model#: P4P800

Featurewise anyways. Other people can commet on this. Supports all busses too. Btw this is straight from newegg.com

 

[Megatomic]

The Abit IS7 is a Springdale-based board that goes for $109 shipped at NewEgg. If I was going to go Intel today that's the board I'd get, or maybe the Albatron Px865PE PRO, also a Springdale-based board. This one goes for $106 at NewEgg but costs $5 to ship. So the Abit is actually less expensive by a whole $2.

 

[joecool]

Originally posted by: Intelman07
Are you wanting a 800mhz front side bus or 400/533. I think this board here looks pretty nice.

obviously i'd prefer the higher perf. system, but i'd also like something that's comparable in price to the abit setup:

mobo - $125
cpu - $100 (amd 2500+)
ram - $150 (2x512 pc2700)

 

[Megatomic]

Did you even see my post joecool? :frown:

 

[Idoxash]

Originally posted by: joecool
folks,

as a former member of the AMD processer design team in Austin I've always been pretty loyal to the brand. (it didn't hurt that for years i could get free procs from my buddies there!). in fact, the only intel proc i've ever owned was a celeron 400. right now i have three amd-based comps at home. i'm currently specing out a box for a friend and figure i should give intel another look. the price differential seems largely gone and amd's "preformance rating" kind of bugs me. why buy a 2400+ that only runs at 2GHz when you can by a p4 2.4 that REALLY runs at 2.4GHz?!

anyway, i'm completely ignorant on intel mobo's. for comparision, i'm looking at the abit nf7-s for $125 as the amd mobo. what would be a good, comperable intel mobo with similar features and performance?

thanks in advance,

joe

Let me get this right ... you are a former member of the AMD processer design team but yet you do not understand why and how a 2ghz Athlon beats out a 2.4ghz P4? Is this why you are a former member? Don't get me wrong I'm not say you never were a member nor I'm saying your opinion sucks! What I'm saying is if you know their CPUs at all then you would have never said what you just said!

I smell something fishy in thoes words you said but I'm sure most if anyone else be them Intel fans or AMD fans can see it

--IDD

 

[Megatomic]

I really don't care if he/she was or wasn't on the AMD processor design team, I was just trying to help. That's what this forum is for after all.

 

[joecool]

Originally posted by: Idoxash

Originally posted by: joecool
folks,

as a former member of the AMD processer design team in Austin I've always been pretty loyal to the brand. (it didn't hurt that for years i could get free procs from my buddies there!). in fact, the only intel proc i've ever owned was a celeron 400. right now i have three amd-based comps at home. i'm currently specing out a box for a friend and figure i should give intel another look. the price differential seems largely gone and amd's "preformance rating" kind of bugs me. why buy a 2400+ that only runs at 2GHz when you can by a p4 2.4 that REALLY runs at 2.4GHz?!

anyway, i'm completely ignorant on intel mobo's. for comparision, i'm looking at the abit nf7-s for $125 as the amd mobo. what would be a good, comperable intel mobo with similar features and performance?

thanks in advance,

joe

Let me get this right ... you are a former member of the AMD processer design team but yet you do not understand why and how a 2ghz Athlon beats out a 2.4ghz P4? Is this why you are a former member? Don't get me wrong I'm not say you never were a member nor I'm saying your opinion sucks! What I'm saying is if you know their CPUs at all then you would have never said what you just said!

I smell something fishy in thoes words you said but I'm sure most if anyone else be them Intel fans or AMD fans can see it

--IDD

OK, I'll try to use small words so you get it ... I never said I don't understand why a 2ghz athlon could beat a 2.4ghz p4, what i said was that "the performance rating bugs me". sure, an athlon 2400+ can match a p4 2.4 in some benchies, but we all know benchies have only a passing resemblance to the real world. my own experience running p4 2.4's, 2,8's, and 3.0's at my current job is that they kind of kick amd's butt in practice. still, i'm not saying i'm convinced that the performance ratings are bogus, i'm just suspicious of them.

having said that, i'll probably still buy a barton 2500+ for myself - i'm just kind of hooked on amd. however, for my buddy i figured i should at least check out the competition.

megatomic, thanks, you must have posted while i was writing my reply to intelman. i'm checking out that abit board now!

joe

 

[Politik]

Why not just retract the statement about the performance ratings? Any performance difference is a result of the relative op-throughput of the processors, not GHz, so while it is valid to challenge the PERFORMANCE of the AMD processor (you're right, it loses in several benches) the PR rating has nothing to do with it. What do you say when a lower-clocked AMD beats an intel chip? "I hate those fake GHz ratings from Intel, what a joke."

 

[joecool]

Originally posted by: Politik
Why not just retract the statement about the performance ratings? Any performance difference is a result of the relative op-throughput of the processors, not GHz, so while it is valid to challenge the PERFORMANCE of the AMD processor (you're right, it loses in several benches) the PR rating has nothing to do with it. What do you say when a lower-clocked AMD beats an intel chip? "I hate those fake GHz ratings from Intel, what a joke."

good point - intel made a lot of design trade-offs to hit the astronomical speeds, and those trade-offs had to have some negative performance side-effects. it's the classic chip design equation - higher IPC with a slower clock, or lower IPC with a faster clock. still, amd's ploy is to me particularly misleading. they clearly hope for most buyers to associate the PR rating with speed and assume that an amd 2400+ is actually running at 2400GHz. on top of that, amd has really pushed the envelope in some of their PR claims. my hands-on experience, and what i see a lot of people saying around the web, is that a p4 is observably faster than the corresponding PR rated athlon. which isn't to say that athlons suck - i'm still a fan and can't wait to upgrade my 1800+ for a barton 2500+. i just wish amd would be a little more honest about it.

now, getting back to the subject at hand - any other intel mobo recommendations?

 

[CraigRT]

Don't switch.... I took a speed hit to go back to AMD and I couldn't be happier..

 

[Underclocker]

If I remember correctly, the AMD rating system was introduced because people were assuming that MHz equalled performance, while in reality much lower clocked AMDs outperformed Intel P3/P4s. The rating system was designed to give an idea as to what Intel Mhz CPU to compare to. The system was highly controversial at first, but was gradually accepted because it worked-an Athlon 2000+ would match a P4 2.0 in performance, more or less. Eventually, the rating system was scaled not to 'Intel performance' but to earlier AMD chips with established ratings.
In recent times however, AMD has chosen to put all their innovation efforts into new chips (Hammers, Opteron) while Intel started plowing back more significant new technology into their current line (HT, FSB improvements, PAT). So while AMD mainly increased their own clock speed, Intel chips have become more efficient compared to earlier P4s as well as achieving higher clockspeeds. So the newer Intel chips have started to outstrip the AMD rating system.

If Intel had kept the P4A architecture than the AMD 3200 part would probably have matched the P4A 3.2 too.

I'm afraid AMD are making a big mistake putting ALL their eggs into the 64-bit basket. 64-bit computing will not be a viable option for a long time (until mainstream software catches up-which will take a couple of years) so it will likely have to rely on the server market for some time to come. Meanwhile, they are losing the enthusiast/gamer market and eventually may lose the mass market too, if they're not careful. In the high end, Intel is now cheaper than AMD especially since the new P4C series are proving to be great overclockers. At the low/medium end, AMD is still on top but already losing out as Intel pricing is coming down.

The point is not the rating, or even performance that counts, it's price/performance and I'm seeing Intel outstrip AMD more and more, working themselves from the high end on down. AMD may hold on for a while in the low/medium end for a while, but will that be enough?

Well, that's my view anyway. Of course, this concerns the desktop CPU's only-in other areas (servers, mobile computing, etc. it may turn out to be different story yet.

I do have an Athlon XP 2100+ system, I think AMD did great and I would love to see them competing head-to-head with Intel but I think they should have put more effort into the Athlon series to keep up; so now that I have to make the upgrade decision, I'm seeing that it's more affordable to get a i875P/P4C combo than to get an nForce2/Barton system.

 

[RideFree]

Here is the answer to everything you always wanted to know.

If your focus is office apps, don't look past the current AMD "Tbred Bs" or Bartons (especially the 1700 or the 2500 if you are on a strict budget)...

If you are a game player first, and that is your focus, then by all means, go with Intel PIV (the "B" or "Cs").
? one caveat ? ...even on the AMDs, the gaming difference between XP+ and PIV may not be noticible to the naked eye...
It takes a difference of <10% to begin to perceive any difference.
(Of course, if the game is against another player on another machine, then you'll notice the differences when you get beaten.)
(Also, bragging rights come at a price...don't forget the difference between men and boys - the price of their toys.)

Eventually, however, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs becomes pre-emptive and Intel loses. :sun:

 

[joecool]

I do have an Athlon XP 2100+ system, I think AMD did great and I would love to see them competing head-to-head with Intel but I think they should have put more effort into the Athlon series to keep up; so now that I have to make the upgrade decision, I'm seeing that it's more affordable to get a i875P/P4C combo than to get an nForce2/Barton system.

so how do i know if i'm getting a "c" p4 and not and "a" or "b"?

 

[Underclocker]

Originally posted by: joecool

I do have an Athlon XP 2100+ system, I think AMD did great and I would love to see them competing head-to-head with Intel but I think they should have put more effort into the Athlon series to keep up; so now that I have to make the upgrade decision, I'm seeing that it's more affordable to get a i875P/P4C combo than to get an nForce2/Barton system.

so how do i know if i'm getting a "c" p4 and not and "a" or "b"?

Fact is I don't know what you are getting, Joe-That's just what me-myself-I am getting!

 

[joecool]

Fact is I don't know what you are getting, Joe-That's just what me-myself-I am getting!

har har har ....

now that you've boosted your post count, how about a REAL answer ... like, if i order a p4 how can i tell which one i'm getting?

 

[Wurrmm]

Best perfroming P4s are the P4Cs. Best perfroming chipsets are the Canterwood and Sprindale. Canterwood is faster but also more expensive and geared toward entheusiast and workstations. As far as actual mobos go for the price you are looking at, the Abit IS7-G and the IS7 are great. Look at Anand's review for more info. P4Cs start at the 2.4GHz and go up to 3.2GGHz. It would be good to match this stuff with PC3200 or PC3500.

 

[Megatomic]

joecool, the P4Cs are advertised as such, just look for a P4 chip with 800MHz FSB and that's your P4C chip.

 

[joecool]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
joecool, the P4Cs are advertised as such, just look for a P4 chip with 800MHz FSB and that's your P4C chip.

Thanks! now i'm starting to get it ... !

 

[cmdrdredd]

P4C = 800Mhz FSB
P4B = 533Mhz FSB
P4A = 400Mhz FSB

 

[cmdrdredd]

I'd recommend the Abit IS7 I have it and the 2.4C is a good combo or if he can swing the 2.6 price...

My abit IS7 will be here with a 2.6C P4 on Tuesday morn if you can wait till I have it up I can give you some benches with 2 sticks Corair XMS3200 512MB running dual channel

 

[joecool]

sure, thanks, that'd be great!

 

[cmdrdredd]

is the one whom you're building the system for an overclocker? cause I can include my results in that category if you wish

 

[joecool]

no, he just wants a relatively high performing box at a reasonable price. something that isn't yesterdays news a week after he buys it!

 

[cmdrdredd]

i c