Help me out building my computer...

[CrazyBob]

Which is faster a Thunderbird 800 or an Athlon 850? Also should I get a 32 meg Geforce 256 DDR or a 32 meg Geforce2 mx SDR?

Thanks..

 

[Maverick]

1.Thunderbird 800 since it has on-die cache
2.Get the MX

 

[shiznut123]

thunderbird and the mx

 

[CrazyBob]

I found this on anandtech...

DDR / MX benchmarks..

The DDR GF 256 is clearly faster, whats the advantage of buying the MX when their the same price?

 

[CrazyBob]

also how much memory do I need, 128?? 256?? 512?? all I want to do really is play Half Life and maybe some Tribes II...

 

[LXi]

I'd get DDR, its faster than MX. Go for 256MB since RAM is very cheap now.

 

[mrbios]

Get the Thunderbird. That way you have upgrade potential in the future. Also, 256MB RAM is more than you need, but get it anyway, since it is so cheap. Frankly, I'd go for a Geforce DDR, but for the most part, it depends on what games you play. Some, the MX will be faster, while others, the MX's higher fill rate will suffice. If heat is a concern at all, the MX is definately your choice.

Russell "Mr.Bios" Sampson

 

[viper007]

I will have to dissagree with everybody here. I remember when the Tbird had just been released and I saw many benchmarks showing that the Tbird core was only about 2-5% quicker in most cases then the K75 core. So the K75 core could actually be slighty faster then the Tbird Athlon. The reason for this is because AMD's memory has a very high latency compared with what Intel use on the P3's, that is why there is a huge diffference between the Katmai and the Coppermine core, speed wise!

Cheers...

 

[LXi]

Uh... not quite. The Tbirds have intergrated 256KB cache running full CPU speed compare to K75's external cache running 1/2 or 1/3 the CPU speed. The K75 cant possibly be faster than Tbird, just like Katmai wont be faster than Coppermines.

 

[viper007]

Yes I complety agree with you there 'LXi' but I am talking real world performance. The P4 should kick some serious butt, right! That's what the specs say..But it's pretty pathetic in real world performance. So an extra 50Mhz K75 core compared with a Tbird core is most probably quicker...

Review
It's in a different language but it still has some benchmarks to prove my point.

 

[MetalCat]

Rule 1 : Set a spec or a budget , then build the spec for the lowest price or the best machine to the budget.

Rule 2 : Shiny toys now, shiny toys later