Difference between Thunderbird 1.4 and XP 1600+

[ep66]

I'm planning an upgrade, and was wondering there was a performance gap between those two CPUs (enough to justify a $35 (CDN) price difference from where I'm buying from)

AMD ATHLON T-BIRD 1.4GHZ 256K FSB266 OEM

AMD ATHLON XP 1600+ 1.4GHZ 256K FSB266 OEM

I'm planning to use the ECS K7S5A mobo. In case you haven't noticed, the theme of my upgrade is "cheap"

Also, right now I only have a stick of 128mb PC-133 SDRAM. How much of a performance hit will I take with sticking to this ram instead of buying new DDR... and a followup, so is this a good time to purchase DDR ram, and if so where should I get it from?

Thanks for your help.

 

[MrTux]

If I were you, I would pay the extra money and get the XP 1600+. The fact of the matter is that AMD will soon be retiring the Thunderbird line. I am sure there is a performance diference too- whether you would notice it or not is a different story. As for the DDR RAM, you might notice the performance difference and then again you might not. Just make sure if you decide to go for DDR to get a motherboard that is made for it.

 

[John]

XP uses the Palomino core.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1469

 

[mboy]

The XP uses less power (20%) runs a bit cooler, has the SSE instructions and a data pre-fetch that kinda guesses what you are going to do right before you do it. I would say go for the XP for sure. They are phasing out the Thunderbird line and went to the XP for a reason, it's better. If upgrading now I would go for it.
As far as the DDR goes, I would stick with the PC133 for the very immediate furture. You will without a doubt notice a difference with the DDr, but the price has tripled in past couple of months, so wait till mid Jan or Feb and the price will (HOPEFULLY) come down a bit. Since you are getting the k7S5A, you can use either.
Save your money for a good video card right now

 

[Migroo]

Yes I would definately go with an Athlon XP. A higher speed one doesnt matter, but as mboy pointed out, apart from the performance increase the useful thing is the cooler running temperatures.

I have a 1500+ XP at the office. It is simply magnificent

 

[SnowPunk98]

yea get the xp

 

[veryape]

The xp is an overall better processor and I would recommend you get it over the t-bird, ,mainly because it runs cooler which means the world to a processor.

 

[Athlon4all]

Another vote for XP, the 1600+ is supposed to perform like a 1.6GHz T-Bird

EDIT: About DDR, I'd go for it. You will never be running a XP 1600+ or a T-Bird 1.4 at full capacity without it. Just wait for prices to come down on the DDR

 

[AlucardBelmont]

Get XP 1600+.

 

[AlucardBelmont]

Get XP 1600+.

 

[smp]

XP + DDR

Don't buy ram twice.... I mean, don't buy SDram now and then DDR later.. you'll be buying twice and even if the DDR is more, it's still less than buying twice. DDR is better anyways.

 

[soulm4tter]

Go all out.......Athlon XP and DDR. Check out NCIX.

 

[neutralizer]

Use ur current SDRAM and wait for DDR prices to fall, but do get the XP 1600+, it blows away the TB 1.4