Is AMD still unstable?

[Jumpem]

I will be building a new box in January. The P4 and AMD Mustang (or whatever it will be)out by then so I may just get one of them. Hopefully DDR motherboards hurry up. Anyway, I am still leaning towards Intel due to their relatively more stable platform. I've read athousand posts about X-hardware doesn't work with Y-Athlon board. Is it still that way, or are the newer boards, such as an ASUS A7V, compatible with all of the new hardware?

 

[Jonny]

They are stable indeed, however, you just have to work a little harder to get thigns working.

Iam running AMD, but if you dont want much trouble (like new drivers,etc) I would recommend Intel, but, you pay a little more for it.

 

[AfterBurn]

I think it also very much depends on the quality of the other parts you are using in your PC. (this ofcourse also applies to intel based systems). I use only quality brand names in my puter for all parts and i have had no problems. I replaced my P3 last week for an Athlon 800, and all i did was swap the mobo/cpu and power up. I did a precautionary repair install of W2K to force correct redetection of all hardware, as it is a lil notorious for giving headaches when changing chipsets, but other than that, boot, install appropiate chipset drivers and have a blast. Its been running since, no tweaking or hassles needed.

 

[merlocka]

Here's my track record so ya know where I'm coming from...
k6 200 on Intel TX mobo... loved it, no problems
k6-2 300 on VIA MVP3 mobo... hated it, major problems, didn't last long.
Celeron 300a@450 (and then Celeron 533@800) on Intel BX mobo... loved it, minor problems (the BH6 was a little unstable)

Just upgraded to an Asus A7V / Tbird 800. I haven't had a single problems and after a month of abuse I am willing to say this platform is more stable than my Abit BH6 / Celeron's ever was. I am using a Geforce at 4x AGP and I can't get this thing to lock up. And that's using win98 mind you.

I am very very impressed and AMD / VIA have again earned my trust. I've heard some horror stories about the platform but I am taking them lightly because I remember how flakey my Abit BH6 was at 100MHz with the *bleeding edge* AGP TnT card.

 

[Valhalla2000]

It's fairly stable. I run my own server 24 hours a day and has no problem with that.
However there's GeForce card problem before. But its fixed now

 

[Napalm]

Paulson:

Its no wonder your machine is stable - Mr. Compaq put it all together for you...

Napalm

 

[Charles]

AMD is always stable!

 

[AngelOfDeath]

<< after a month of abuse I am willing to say this platform is more stable than my Abit BH6 / Celeron's ever was >>

That might be a little to fast but I hope you are right.

If you don't mind playing around with your hardware then go for AMD. I'm almost certain that my next upgrade is going to be AMD 'cause I don't mind playing a bit to get the hardware working

AoD

 

[Hardware]

The problem is Via suxxs!
The AGP from KX133/KT133 is near brocken!

 

[Sunner]

Duron 600@900 here.
Had one problem initially, but that was due to an older BIOD version, oce I updated, the problems went away.

 

[Czar]

AMD Athlon 550@750-800 (depends on my mood)

Perfectly stable, that is after AMD released the best fix ever, a singler .reg file that fixes some AGP problem in Win2000. When I bought the cpu and all it was perfectly stable in win2000 but then just recently it went unstable, no idea why, then AMD fixes some problem that Microsoft was supposed to fix because it was their foult. Now its 100% stable.

 

[Phuz]

Rock Solid

 

[Noriaki]

I put together this system in January, I had a few minor troubles with Win95OSR2.1, but Win98SE runs great.
My roommate put together a very sismilar system and he's had a problem with his cheap assed soundcard in WinME, but it's an Ensoniq 64 PCI and they are known for being picky about drivers.

We also put together a 3rd machine that is almost exactly like mine but with a G400 instead of a Voodoo3 and a 27Gig maxtor HDD, and the guy hasn't complained once. And he would...be was one of those picky people that b1tched about the 2D quality on a TNT...

Just so you know me and my roommate both have our same 250Watt PSUs we had before, and we both had our plain generic RAM (i upgraded to Micron RAM cuz I got it at cost difference between my old RAM) and that was even fine.

Tthe MSi K7T Pro is near flawless from what I've read go for it for non-OC stability, and if you want multiplier adjustments try ABit KT7, it's nicer to be able to adjust in the BIOS rather than with jumpers/dips

Anandtech uses Thunderbirds on MSi K7T Pros for their webservers. If it's good enough for AT's servers, it's good enough for me

Edit: Just to make that clear, I have never personally used a K7TPro, but reading reviews from Anand and others people are very impressed with most of MSi's new boards, the K7T Pro and Master among them.

 

[jor888]

What make u think intel is stable? And what make u think u can get a p4 cpu?

 

[Imported]

My system has been rock solid once I put my Live! card in it. I agree that the quality of the parts going into it will definately contribute to the stability of your PC.

 

[NFS4]

AMD is VERY stable for me

 

[Dark4ng3l]

The p4 wil be VERY expensive and wil probably be slower than today's cpu's in 32 bit applications. It wil probably be too slow when 64 bit becomes the norm(16 bit was stil widely used when the original pentiums were the best cpu's so much for 386 32 bit)and the 850 probably has bugs in it(+ rambus = expensive and slow)so mustang and ddr is the way to go

 

[Jumpem]

Thanks everyone! I've built my P2-450 system a while back, but I don't have alot of experience with numerous systems. I'm going to wait for the P4 and the next AMD cpu. Also, one of eithers new chipsets. Hopefully this stuff will be out by the end of the year, or early next.

 

[formulav8]

Amd has never really been unstable. Its the people messing with them. Mine is rock hard even overclocked. And still plenty more left in this processer.