AMD vs. Intel?

[hpkeeper]

What is the deal with the speed?

I was on pricewatch.com floating around because I'm looking to upgrade my CPU

it seems that the P4 chips are like 1 Ghz faster than the AMD chips... is that just the conversion that is throwing me off? or what?

I'm just really confused looking to upgrade and I have a Gigabyte K7 Triton series (GA-7DXE) MoBo that supports AMD chips. So I'm wondering if I can:

1. survive by just upgrading my CPU
2. if I can't, is it better to get an Intel MoBo and CPU or AMD MoBo and CPU


anyone that can help me sort through my jumbled confusion, your help would be greatly appreciated.

~ThE KeEp~

 

[Bozono]

Since the fastest FSB for that board is 266 the highest Athlon you can use is an XP 2400. The XP 2700 needs a 333 bus. Stolen reply from here.

Intel wins in raw speed, but Ghz speed alone doesn't make a CPU fast. If you want to rebuild cheaply, I suggest a decent overclockable Socket 754 mobo and a Sempron 2800+. If you can afford an extra $50-75 I'd get a decent nForce4 Socket 939 mobo and an AMD64 3000.

 

[Markfw]

Whats the budget ? Do you game or encode a lot ? Whichever way, AMD is faster, cheaper, runs cooler. Just depends on which one you should get.

 

[Hard Ball]

Originally posted by: hpkeeper
it seems that the P4 chips are like 1 Ghz faster than the AMD chips... is that just the conversion that is throwing me off? or what?

But also realize that IPC (instruction per cycle) on the P4 and PD's are a lot lower than A64, so in general, the Athlon64 will be faster, for a given price; it will vary from application to application though.

 

[hpkeeper]

Originally posted by: Bozono
Since the fastest FSB for that board is 266 the highest Athlon you can use is an XP 2400. The XP 2700 needs a 333 bus. Stolen reply from here.

Intel wins in raw speed, but Ghz speed alone doesn't make a CPU fast. If you want to rebuild cheaply, I suggest a decent overclockable Socket 754 mobo and a Sempron 2800+. If you can afford an extra $50-75 I'd get a decent nForce4 Socket 939 mobo and an AMD64 3000.

Being that I haven't built my own machine in a while, i'm used to comparison through Ghz... which I always thought was the best straight up way to do it. But the AMD's I'm having a tough time determining how comparable it would be in Ghz form. Which is why I'm so confused.

what about 64-bit vs. 32-bit processors?

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Whats the budget ? Do you game or encode a lot ? Whichever way, AMD is faster, cheaper, runs cooler. Just depends on which one you should get.

my budget is probably like $300 for like a CPU, and for a MoBo and CPU I'm willing to spend about $500... but I'd like to avoid that if possible... ...I'm a college kid with a low budget. I have a 32-bit board right now.

 

[sandorski]

Weird, your greater than sign seems to have fallen over: AMD>Intel

fixed it for ya.

read previous posts for details.

 

[Markfw]

Well, you still didn;t answer what you do with it, so I will go with the "do it all" cpu, Athlon64 X2 3800+ for ~322, and motherboard, ~85 for just a shade or $400. If you mild oc, you are almost guaranteed 2400, probably 2500-2600.

And don;t worry about 32 vs 64 right now, the Athlon64's do just great in 32-bit mode, better than Intel at the moment.

And you will need some new memory possibly, although with dividers, you can use PC2700 DDR if thats what you have. You may also need a PSU, depending on the MOBO you pick.

 

[hpkeeper]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Well, you still didn;t answer what you do with it, so I will go with the "do it all" cpu, Athlon64 X2 3800+ for ~322, and motherboard, ~85 for just a shade or $400. If you mild oc, you are almost guaranteed 2400, probably 2500-2600.

And don;t worry about 32 vs 64 right now, the Athlon64's do just great in 32-bit mode, better than Intel at the moment.

Sorry, I didn't notice that you asked specifically what I wanted to do. I am a photo major at my college, so Ideally I would like to run Photoshop CS2 without a problem, and I'm not having a real problem with that. I'm an avid gamer too, so I like having my graphics cranked...

hope that clears a little up for ya.

EDIT: I am not a fan of overclocking.

 

[Markfw]

Well, then I stand by my recommenddataion. If mechbgon replies, he uses that a lot, and loves his X2 3800+, Photoshop CS is multi-threaded, wait untill you play with it. Find his thread if you are curious.

 

[hpkeeper]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Well, then I stand by my recommenddataion. If mechbgon replies, he uses that a lot, and loves his X2 3800+, Photoshop CS is multi-threaded, wait untill you play with it. Find his thread if you are curious.

Can I use my current MoBo with that CPU?

 

[Markfw]

no
And here is mechbgon's thread, a Photoshop user I think

 

[hpkeeper]

Just out of curiousity what would be the Ghz equivalency of that CPU?

or to put it in simpler terms:

what speed would this CPU be in Intel terms?

 

[Zebo]

Speed does'nt matter when comparing two different chips.. Go look at toms where overclocked 2.6Ghz PentiumM puts smackdown on 3.8Ghz P4... similarly so will a A64. It's more about efficiency. A64's and PentiumM's have it P4 don't. It was designed as a marketing gimmick.

 

[Markfw]

Zebo is right, but the best I could say is the same as TWO 3400-4400 ghz chips in one chip (depending on overclocking)

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: hpkeeper
Just out of curiousity what would be the Ghz equivalency of that CPU?

or to put it in simpler terms:

what speed would this CPU be in Intel terms?

AMD dual cores speed x 1.75 = P4 dual core

AMD single cores speed x 1.55 = P4 single core

So a 3800+ X2 which runs 2000Mhz x 1.75 = needs a 3500Mhz Pentium dually to match.


You can probably use you existing ram but you do need a new mobo... not bad though..costs $65 for Asrock Sata2