Intel vs AMD: speed AND longevity?

[lung]

I'm not wanting to start any kind of flame war here, but I have a serious question.

If the price differences were not taken into account, what platform would you go for if you were to buy a new PC right now? I am concerened obviously with the speed and power of the system right now, but I am also concerned with the longevity of the system as far as where the technology is expected to be going. Like, is it worth it to put the extra money into an Intel system with what is on the horizon or is it just throwing money away when I could get a comprable system that is AMD based?

Please try to keep the platform bashing to a minimum and actually give reasons why one platform is better in the long run. Thanks.

 

[dexvx]

I have no idea how long you mean by longevity, but I have an Intel Pentium 133 overclocked to 166 still running, maybe 5-6 years now? Heck I even had an Intel 80286 thats 12 years old and still running.

But you ask where the technology is expected to be going... I dont think anyone knows that answer (5+ years from now is too volatile).

 

[jm0ris0n]

Well...I really hate what I'm about to say. if you don't mind a stable overclock then I'd look for a 1.6a P4 with ddr and overclock it to a 133mhz fsb. Now as far as longevity...I believe the market is going to be a VERY interesting place in the next 18~24 months. Up is going to be down and well I think it is highly unpredictable. I do know in 5 years we'll most likely still have desktops, but thats all I'll really bet on.

The reason I recommend the P4 today is it will scale better (theoretically) with future applications designed with sse2 in mind than the athlonxp will.

Remember that I'm a raving lunatic and get a general idea from mine and others responses

Also, if I misinterpreted your Q and you were asking more along the lines of "is there a need to spend more than 225 USD on a processor in today's market", then the answer to that question would be NO. Get a better videocard, raid hardrives or something else with the extra money

 

[spanner]

Umm, at this instant the best performing single processor system is a P4A but AMD is not so far behind. As for longevity, Socket A will be replaced with the hammer line over the next couple of years, As for intel I am not sure their next chip, possibly prescott, will use the same socket. I wouldn't worry so much about that because motherboards are not as expensive as they used to be. If you ask me buying a PC based on the long run is a waste of time because things get faster on a monthly basis, either get a value system and upgrade as needed or buy an expensive system and upgrade less often, I think on average I spend $300 a year on upgrades. If i were to buy a system now I would probably go with a dual processor AMD system

 

[DaveSimmons]

Since I work (supposed to be working now ) and have more money than free time I now buy partly based on ease of setup -- I don't really care whether a P4A 2 GHz is 5% faster or slower than an XP 2100+, especially since for games the videocard will be the bottleneck anyway.

So if I had a good reason to replace my p3-933 + ASUS Cusl2-C + gf3 I'd probably keep things simple and get an intel cpu / intel RDRAM motherboard / gf4 4200 or 4400. The intel / intel system I set up for my parents was a snap to set up, none of the tweaking many people need to do to get their Athlon XP systems working.

Now if I were still a student with more time than money, I'd go with Athlon for the better value, or try overclocking the p4 1.6a to 133 FSB for a cheap 2.1 system.

 

[sandorski]

<<<Intel vs AMD: speed AND longevity?>>>

Same

 

[rudder]

Even if you bought a used p3 500mhz system you could use it for quite some time. Our office just replaced some 533mhz with some 1ghz dell (before I got here otherwise I would have just bought RAM). They only us the PC's for office apps so I imagine they will not need to upgrade any time soon.

If you are worried about spending tons of money on something and having it be "slow" in a year, just buy on the backside of the technology curve. Heck you can get a 1.3ghz duron for dirt cheap and that will run any game coupled with a decent vid card. And if you get a motherboard that supports XP cpus as well, in a year you can pop in more ram and a brand new 2000xp cpu for $50.

So if I had a good reason to replace my p3-933 + ASUS Cusl2-C + gf3 I'd probably keep things simple and get an intel cpu / intel RDRAM motherboard / gf4 4200 or 4400. The intel / intel system I set up for my parents was a snap to set up, none of the tweaking many people need to do to get their Athlon XP systems working.

I recently bought an amd combo of someone here on the fs/ft forum. I popped out my p3 via mobo and put this combo in (also via). Did not do squat to the os except let it detect the new devices. rebooted and it worked like a charm. This tweaking you hear about with AMD systems is just enthusiasts trying to get maximum performance.

 

[lung]

Thanks for the input guys. I guess I should have made sure to state clearly that I am not looking to put together the cheapest system possible. I don't really care the cost of it to a degree. What I care about is how viable will the tech that I buy today be in the next year or so. For example, DDR vs RDRam. Should I be more concerned with either in particular, that sort of thinking. I guess what I am really looking for here is this: what technologies that are existing or are coming up in the near future should I be concerned with? What things should I be particularly looking for in supported features from a motherboard/chipset/cpu?

 

[billyjak]

Anything you buy today will be outdated in 1 year as far as upgrading goes, the Hammer will use a different socket and faster ram.
Intel would probably be the choice if pentium 4 is involved, but their new chips will start running at 533 bus and you'll need a motherboard that supports it, not to mention higher clocked ram.

I would just go for the best bang for the buck now and not worry about an upgrade path, as it is ever changing too fast to give a specific path in which to go by.

 

[Athlon4all]

Well, in terms of the things on the horizion, its difficult to say in terms of the entire system. CPU wise, Intel. AMD is on the verge of the passing on to a new Generation (K8/Hammer) and Socket A won't necessarily be a dead end for a while but still. Intel on the other hand, Socket 478 will stay at least until the Prescott launch, and I would not be suprised to see Socket 478 stay for Prescott as well. So, but I think a factor that you must keep in mind si what's on the horizion overall. The K7 isn't the only generation that will be falling. NV20 and R200 will be passing the torch this fall to NV30 and R300 and the thing that comes with NV30/R300 is DX9. Now, as for DDR vs RDRAM. DDR will be the memory used for ClawHammer, and DDR will likely remain the mainstream product for the P4. RDRAM's future is somewhat uncertain. 850E right now it seems will be Intel's last RDRAM chipset, but SiS has support for its upcoming RDRAM chipsert, really though, the only thing on the horizion that could best RDRAM for the P4 is Intel's Dual Channel DDR chipsets slated for a Q1'03 release. These could outperform 850E, its difficult to predict. The other thing on the horizion is Serial ATA, but there will be no real world performance difference so I wouldn't worry about that. I hope this answers your question.

 

[grant2]

I'm not sure what you mean by how "viable" the technology will be during the next year, but whatever you buy now will work just as good in a year. If Rambus goes bankrupt, will your p4 motherboard suddenly blow up? Of course not.