How high will the PIII go? --Upgrade opinions needed

[NaughtyusMaximus]

As some of you know, I am thinking of buying a PIII700 to replace my aging Celeron 333@450. I use my computer to design web pages (fireworks, dreamweaver, photoshop, flash, are commonly found on at the same time), and am finding some things a little too slow with this CPU. Its nothing I can't deal with if I found out that I could save a $100 by buying in a month, or get 500Mhz more speed.

What I want to know, is how high do you expect the PIII compatable series to go, and how long will it take to get there? Also, if anyone has any information on the date of Intel's next price cut, it would be appreciated as well. I am planning on overclocking as well, so would want a chip that runs on the 100Mhz bus, and not 133Mhz. I would assume that Intel will be sticking with 133Mhz busses over 1Ghz. My motherboard is an AOpen AX63 Pro, and I do not want to have to replace it simply to upgrade (If I have to replace my motherboard, I will be buying AMD).

 

[Eli]

Heh, well, 1.13GHz will be the last .18um P3 .. If they go to .13um, we could see 1.2GHz+ P3s, but I think they'll require a new motherboard.. (correct me if i'm wrong)

 

[Rigoletto]

I think I can kick the PIII at least 50ft in the air.

 

[JimMc]

Price cuts are expected at the end of October when the P4 launches. Intel's attempt to hit 1.13 Ghz got recalled, so I think we are close to seeing the limit of that core. You should be able to hit around a Gig if you're lucky. I think 850 is the fastest 100 Mhz FSB PIII.

 

[John]

Most CuMine cb0 700's do 933MHz.

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

I think I can probably only get my Celeron around 40 feet if I kick it. But then I'm Canadian, so isn't that around 13 meters. Working in imperial is evil.

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

Any clue how much the PIII's are expected to drop in price? Also, how high do most 850's overclock; would I be better off to wait till they come down in price and buy one of them?

 

[Eli]

You know, You could get a Duron 600 and a MSI K7T Pro for less than the cost of a P3/700 ... Including shipping..

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

Which would overclock faster?
I'm *guessing* that I'd be able to get a PIII700 further than a Duron, although the future upgradability of the Duron is something to consider.

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

Hrmm, according to most of Anand's benchmarks, a Duron @900 is still a tad slower than a PIII800 at some things... Would this be a wise choice?

 

[Eli]

Hehe, I was just doing some pricechecking, and I thought i'd add some controversy to the thread

I'm not sure, it's your call. You know what you do with your computer better than I do With DDR boards on the horizon, even a Duron system may be not worth it. I just thought it was funny that you could get a Duron and board for about the same price as a P3/700

If you did go the Duron route, you could always upgrade to a Thunderbird later..

Even though the P3 is more expensive, it still might be worth it in your case, because you wouldn't have to buy a brand new motherboard. And your right, the P3 would outperform the Duron clock for clock in most things.

You would have to get the slightly more expensive Abit or Asus board to (easily) be able to overclock the Duron ..

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

Future Thunderbirds will support non DDR, correct? No matter what, I wont be able to afford new RAM (DDR) till next summer, so other than for price drops, there's no point in that for me. What I could do is buy a Duron/motherboard (A7V? KT7?) now, and technically, I should be able to upgrade the CPU to ~50Ghz ( or whatever's available at the time...) without buying a new motherboard and RAM. However, I will be stuck with an underperforming piece of junk without DDR. At high speeds, I fully expect that without the bandwidth added by higher bus speeds and DDR RAM, Duron/Thunderbird's will not perform admirably.

hrmm. The Dilemma.
(Although I suppose it isn't a choice between two unfavorable things )

 

[obeseotron]

If you're gonna go intel, now is fine. It's gonna be a while before the p4 is all worked out, and at that point you still won't be able to afford one. The new .13 p3's aren't gonna be a big deal. With a 200Mhz FSB, DDR RAM, and a solid chipset, they could own the market, but Intel wouldn't dare push them that hard, because then the cheap cpu would be faster than their new one.

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

I've done some local price checking, and it turns out that to buy a Duron600/A7V, it will cost me $40 more CDN than to buy a PIII700. My problem now is deciding on whether I really need to upgrade now, or if I should wait, and for how long. As always, in the computer industry, new things are on the horizon, my main question now is, if I were to wait 6 months, what would I be able to get for the same money (all speculation...).

Can anyone lend some insight?

 

[EMAN]

I say go for the duron and save yourself some money for your next upgrade. Most people can overclock the durons to @ least 850mhz and some of them do 950mhz.

I've got 1 that does 1 gigahertz with air cooling but that is luck of the draw. You can also overclock the duron with higher fsb and higher memory bandwidth.

I overclock this
600@ 112fsb @ 8.5x multiplier = 955mhz
In reality 224fsb X 4.25x multiplier

The good thing about KT133 boards is that your PCI is in spec and so is your AGP even though I overclock FSB.

My memory bandwidth is @ 168mhz (Sandra reports this) It's almost 66% faster than RIMMS with 820 boards.

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

My current motherboard runs 133bus in spec as well. It is based on the Apollo Pro chipset if I remember correctly. The problem is, buying a duron doesn't save me any money at all.

 

[KarsinTheHutt]

obseotron - I agree with you as far as desktops are concerned, but I think Intel will push the P!!! to its very limits in the mobile segment, simply beacuse it eats way less power than P4.

 

[EMAN]

If you have Via board then your screwed because the memory is basically crippled considered to bx or 815 boards.

Clock for clock Apollo Pro chipsets will be similar to the performance of duron on kt133 board.

It's a tough call. But if you sell your board you might make something back or you can get rid of that board and get a bx chip or 815....

This is my first AMD system and I'm very satisfied with it. Windows and applications couldn't be faster. Games like unreal T. loves my little duron because of 224 fsb.

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

It isn't that crippled. When quoting the duron at 900, and the PIII at 800, the PIII was based on the VIA chipset.

 

[EMAN]

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1264&p=6

You will see that via boards with p3 733 is slower than duron 700 with kt133 board.

I said similar...

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

Hrmm. I'd like some more opinions in here as to which would be the most sensible choice for me.

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

I just updated one of my previous posts. Apparently, it will cost me ~$40 (before tax) CDN more to buy an A7V and Duron 600 than to buy a 700Mhz PIII. I may be able to afford this, but I still need to figure out what will be the most economical thing to do.

--Also, currently, my Power Supply is a generic (I'll try and figure out the brand) 250Watt, will that be enough to run a Duron, or will I have to upgrade that as well. My RAM is PC133 Micron, so that should be okay.

 

[Eli]

Hmm. Well. I'd say it's up to you. Consider it like this, the Duron would be the more adventurous route.. The P3 would be the easiest. If you want to spend a little extra money, and get a board that could take virtually all of AMD's future socket-A processors, then I'd definately go with the Duron.

Consider the Duron to be a temporary solution.. You could upgrade to a Tbird anytime your budget allows, once you have the motherboard.


I am slightly biased though, It hurts me inside to see people buy Intel CPUs at this point in time..

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

I'm biased as well, its my pocketbook that isn't.
I've taken a few looks at the For Sale forum, and it looks like I can get some fairly good deals on PIII's, as well as durons, but after the exchange is factored in, it ends up being close to what I'm looking at retail as well.

 

[Eli]

Nod, thats what kinda sucks about things like that. Even buying online, with a lot of things, after you factor in shipping and handling, it's not really that much cheaper than buying locally.. and definately not worth the week wait, sometimes..

I think it would be cheaper in the longrun to save up a few more bucks and go Duron.. You should be able to get at least 850 out of your Duron if you get a motherboard that allows multiplier changes.. At least..

You could also think of it this way.. You're putting money into a dead end.. You'll have to junk (Well not really, but ya know..) the P3 and board next time you upgrade, nomatter if you go Intel or AMD.. So yeah, in the longrun, buying a Socket-A board is probably the better deal.