Long time INTELian... thinking of actually putthing together an AMD system....????

[Cybordolphin]

Never thought this day would come.....

But after looking at the price difference... the day has come. Will a new Athlon do everything INTEL's do.... and not let me down? Should I go with the 200mhz or the 266mhz flavor (since DDR is running about the same $$ as SDRAM)?

The price difference is just too great to ignore now.

Thanks.

 

[Muerto]

An Athlon is just as fast as a PIII clock for clock, and in some cases faster. The Athlon also comes in higher clock speeds, 1.4GHz compared to the 1GHz PIIIs.

Defintely get a 266MHz one, there's no point in the 200HMz ones if you're building a new system. You get more for less with an Athlon. It's that simple.

Read Anand's 1.33GHz Athlon review.




EDIT: BTW, this will degrade into a massive Intel vs. AMD flame war.

 

[sohcrates]

definitely get a 266 FSB one

i hear ya though, i mean, only a year ago i would NEVER EVER buy an AMD and here i am typing this on my new 1.2 ghz tbird setup. at these prices and performance, there's no way intel is going to stay afloat

i ran sisoft sandra on my new setup, and i my cpu benchmarks beat out a 1.4 ghz p4. (of course, with it's rambus, it blew away my pc133 memory scores) but it's a fair trade-off considering the PRICE of rambus!

you can't go wrong with AMD these days, hop on the bandwagon! heheh

 

[Cybordolphin]

I feel so dirty.

 

[Hanpan]

I have never had a problem with AMD. IN fact i quite like it when they do well. My problem is with via. However since the 760 chipset seems to be made by amd i would go for the Msi k7 master or the epox board. Some nice ddr from crucial and your set. And yes it will do everything intel's do and faster to boot. Just make sure you have proper thermal management.

 

[MGMorden]

Actually, aside from my SB Live! crackling I don't even have a problem with Via. AMD has done everything necessary to become an actual viable alternative. It has the speed of Intel. It has the reliability than Intel. Now with Palomino and nForce it should even run as cool and have equally capable chipsets as Intel. The only difference is that they cost less. Now who wants to pay more JUST to say they have Intel. Not me.

 

[Cybordolphin]

I like MSI's boards..... well except the latest MSI 815epR that I have (nothing but hassles setting up). Would probably go with the K7 Master. I'll have to start researching. How's that Asus A7M266? Hmmmmmm......

I still get excited about building new setups (every other month...lol).... "My name is Cybordolphin..... I am a computerholic".

 

[Cybordolphin]

Ahh.... I'm just about ready to take a hammer to my SBlive anyway. I have had it for years....
but it just causes too many conflicts with all the new stuff I am runnning. Way too much hassle if you ask me. Not into the "ultimate 5.1" sound as I used to be (not on my computer anyway).
The $14 Montego II's work just fine for me now.

SBlive... got too out of control with their software/driver garb.... Almost as bad as MS if you ask me. They want to do too much with your system. I really liked the old days.. when you just installed everything on the motherboard... booted and you were off and flying... now it can be hours of reinstalls to eleviate the conflicts. And just when you think you have it all kickin...... BAM!! more trouble.

Sooo.... what do the AMD setups like in the sound card/video card arena? Like I say... I can live without my SBlive!

 

[MGMorden]

I haven't heard anything about problems with the latest video cards. Any of them should work. For sound though the current card to get seems to be the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. Works flawlessy on AMD/Via setups and works better than Live! even on Intel setups.

 

[guitronics]

Get the 266 Bus,and a raid board, with two IBM 7200 Rpm's interleaved.With the low price of Silicon these days,the most expensive things, and the hardest to pick will be your Video Accelerator Card and Monitor.

I don't know about the new Vid Cards,I'm waiting 'til they settle down a bit.But I do know that you can't go wrong with a big Sony Monitor,80 Hz. refresh rate....it is breathtaking.Back to the vidCard,Geforce 3 if you can afford...but you will have to wait for gaming software to catch up.You won't outgrow it in 6 mos.

I'm assuming you are a gamer....otherwise your choices are much,much greater,and much cheaper.