buying new comp - intel or amd? help!!!

[SEOTAIJI]

im planning to buy a new comp and this time i want something top of the line

you guys tell me.. which one would you get?
intel 1ghz or athlon 1.2ghz?

and whats the difference between these two? as in stability wise, compatability, and performance?
cause i've seen benchmark scores of athlon's and p3's of equal speeds and the athlon seems to win on every case.
so which one should i get?

also
if intel - cusl2-c
if amd - asus a7v
ram - 512mb crucial pc133 cl2
gf2 gts pro
pioneer dvd 16x 105s
good choices?

oh.. i also need help choosing a harddrive.. ibm desktar 30 gig ata100? or 40gig maxtor diamond max plus ata100?

thanx a grip people.. you guys are the bomb

 

[psykohog]

Are you trying to start WWW3? By the way I would go with the AMD.

 

[Lockers]

I'd be going with an AMD. Better for overclocking, (Note : do not get a motherboard that does not have multiplier adjust) Is more likely to be upgradeable later. P3s are just about at their limit. P4s are highly overpriced and athlons outperform then anyhow.

I have an A7V and while I think that it is a fantastic board, I'd be looking at a KT133A board. Perhaps the Asus A7V133 is a good option. Either that or one of the new MSI or Abit KT133A boards.

Another alternative are the new DDR boards that will be coming out soon. (Asus A7M266 or Iwill xxx266 - can't recall name). But they will require DDR ram and I imagine 512 mb of pc-2100 could be costly.

I'm a fan of IBM drives myself. Ultra-quiet, Ultra fast and very reliable, I've never heard of anyone with one that died. I'd go with the IBM.

 

[MCS]

Stability wise and compatibility wise they are on a par.

Performance wise a TBird 1.2 will seriously kick a P3 1Ghz, and with the potential to o/c to the 1.3/1.4 range or more, if you choose, and if you're lucky most 1.2s are unlocked from the factory.

Motherboard wise I would say go for any of the KT133A boards, these will support the next generation AMD chips too, if you go P3 then its the end of the line, as Lockers said.

I also 2nd you Lockers on IBM drives. In my opinion they are the best. I have a 75GXP ATA-100 and it FLIES.

 

[barlav]

Go AMD. You will get a faster system for less money.

 

[jamesbond007]

SEOTAIJI, I'm having the same debate. I can't decide too easily between the Pentium 3 1Ghz and AMD 1.2Ghz 266Mhz bus. I want to build my new machine, even though I'm currently running and AMD 1Ghz on the Asus A7V I'd get the Asus A7V133 and the 1.2Ghz 266Mhz bus CPU, but I can't find the retail version yet.. Makes me mad. I've heard excellent results about both CPUs. Also, if I were to go Intel, I'd get the 1Ghz CPU and the Asus CUSL2, non -C version, mainly for the extra USB ports, unless you get the Black Pearl version of the CUSL2-C. The Asus A7V133 comes with onboard ATA100 RAID 0 controller functions, enabling 8 devices right off the bat. I LOVE that feature. The CUSL2 would require the Promise ATA100 FastTrak RAID card, about another $85. I think that the "Wintel" really does exist and that Intel CPUs run more stable than AMD on Windows platforms, mainly because of VIA drivers and that AMDs are very new to having close/better clock speeds with Intel. I don't plan to overclock, just because it would defeat the whole purpose of having a retail 3-Year warranty, but also, you run the risk of damaging CPUs. The CPU won't last as long when it's OCed, that's my other reason. I think it's blainly stupid to OC, but that's just my opinion. Seriously, when running at the already insane clock speeds of over 1Ghz, who's going to notice a miniscule time frame that's barely even clockable when you open My Computer!!!??? Who's going to notice a difference in Quake 3, while already achieving 100+ fps, another 3-10fps? Looks the same to me, once you get up to a certain speed. The ONLY, and ONLY reason I could ever see someone trying to get more out of their CPU is if they are rendering 3D Animation or other programs like Adobe Photoshop. My friend does graphic design for a company, uses Photoshop at work...some of his rendering scenes take 15+ hours to do, since most of the pictures range 4-25GB in size. He's got some serious hardware there, as well. ANYHOO! I'm personally suggesting the Intel P3 1Ghz and the Asus CUSL2 along with the Alpha PAL6035 to cool, but that's just my recommendation. I have ran AMD forever, since my old AMD 486/DX2 120Mhz...my first computer, to the system I got before this AMD 1Ghz, the AMD K6-300Mhz, which has to be restarted at least every 3 days. None of these machines run Windows extremely well, but they are somewhat stable, but yet they are ALL fast. Win2k runs alright, but not the best. I've seen better stability with my friend's CUSL2 and his Celery 566Mhz. My ONLY Intel machine, 133Mhz, has run Win2k now for over 3 weeks without a lockup or restart, but puts VERY slowly , with only 48MB of RAM. My mom uses that machine for the Internet, sparingly, and I save my personal files on there as well. For those reasons, I have decided to go Intel. I am getting (2) IBM 45GB ATA100 7200rpm drives to start, but will get two more later on, because they currently have the best value for the number of GBs you get.

~Please note that these are MY experiences and MY personal opinions. No flame war intended. Just my 2 cents.

Thank You.