AMD Thunderbird vs. PIII

[Scubadude]

Hey everyone -

I know there's a lot of debate flying around the web regarding the merits of AMD and Intel chips. I would like to upgrade the P-III 500 and abit BE-6 motherboard i've had for about a year and a half. Do any of you have a cpu/motherboard combination approx. 900mhz-1.2 ghz that's really stable and easy to overclock(slightly)? I'm hoping to spend about $400 for the upgrade.

Thanks for your help!

Matt

 

[Guilty]

http://www.monarchcomputer.com/AMD_Combos/body_amd_combos.html

AMD Athlon T-Bird 1000 MHz Combo - AMD Athlon T-Bird 1000 MHz, MSI K7T Pro2-A Athlon 200 MHz Motherboard, Tai-sol (CEK733092) heatsink and ballbearing fan

$327.00


I have that combo and it's excellent for stability and decent FSB overclocking, I'm at 107x10 right now, 110x10 is stable but the needed increased voltage makes my CPU too hot for my liking.

 

[Mule]

Actually the best thing to do would be a combination of multiplyer and fsb overclocking if you're going with the athlon. Bump up the multiplyer until it doesn't go any higher, then bump up the fsb until it becomes unstable.

The MSI K7T Pro2a is highly recommended. However most high speed athlon chips have the same max around 1200-1300 mhz. So a 900 and a 1000 would probably overclock about the same. Also the 1.1 and 1.2 ghz chips aren't that expensive anymore, just don't plan to overclock much.

I wouldn't really go for an INTEL chip right now, unless your mobo can handle coppermines in which you could get an 700e and possibly overclock to 900+ maybe even 1000+ if you get a pretested chip. If your motherboard does allow coppermines, then you can have a ~ghz system for under 200.

 

[cvlegion]

At the overclockerz store:
http://ocz.safeshopper.com/43/5985.htm?384
there is an overclocked combo for a 1300MHz T-Bird w/ Abit KT7 w/ 128Mb OCZ Select RAM. This all for $429.99. If you don't need RAM you can get it for cheaper and also you can upgrade to KT7-RAID for $20.