Help Differing Intel and AMD!

[Targon]

When AMD went to socket 939, they broke the ratings a bit. Socket 939 processors have a dual-bank memory controller compared to the single bank socket 754. While this provides an increase in performance, it's not worth the 200 rating points or so they give it.

A socket 754 Athlon 3200+ runs at 2.2GHz while it takes a 3500+ rating to give you that 2.2GHz processor frequency. As a result, you will find that the socket 754 setups run many things a bit faster at the same or similar ratings. On the other hand, since socket 939 will be supported by dual-core processors, if you are the type of person to upgrade your CPU every year instead of just buying a new computer, it may be worth it to get a 3500+ now, accept the slightly inflated price/rating for socket 939 and then upgrade your CPU next year without doing a complete system upgrade.

For hard drives, the transition to SATA as the defacto standard for hard drives is in the works. The down side is that since the SATA hard drive controllers are still "new", older Windows XP install CDs don't necessarily know how to deal with these. Dell customers have run into this if they need to re-install from the original WinXP CD since many Dell computers no longer come with a floppy drive and the floppy isn't included anyway. Picture needing to hit F6 while booting from the install CD so you can install the SATA drivers only to find you can't because WinNT/2000/XP only read drivers from a 1.44MB floppy drive.

 

[Aenslead]

Originally posted by: Targon

For hard drives, the transition to SATA as the defacto standard for hard drives is in the works. The down side is that since the SATA hard drive controllers are still "new", older Windows XP install CDs don't necessarily know how to deal with these. Dell customers have run into this if they need to re-install from the original WinXP CD since many Dell computers no longer come with a floppy drive and the floppy isn't included anyway. Picture needing to hit F6 while booting from the install CD so you can install the SATA drivers only to find you can't because WinNT/2000/XP only read drivers from a 1.44MB floppy drive.

THAT is the most stupid thing MS has done. Seriously, WHAT ON HEAVENS NAME ARE THEY THINKING?! Also, is there a way to pre-install the Serial ATA controller on the WinXP Install CD? I was very pissed when I installed WXPSP2 on my new computer w/SATA and found it did not recognize it automaticly (like the Intel chipsets) and had to look for a friggin floppy all over my beadroom! My computer hasn't used a floppy drive for almost 2 and a half years! Sheesh.