Need Advice Between These Two

[chrisralston]

I am thinking of a new system, and have narrowed between these:

P4 530 w/ Soltek SL-915GPro-FGR

- or -

Athalon 64 3000+ w/ Chaintech ZNF3 -250 or the VNF-250.

I have the rest of the system hardware already. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[jpeyton]

Athlon 64 3000+ w/ Chaintech ZNF3-250 or the VNF-250.

 

[Stangs55]

If you're gaming...go w/#2. And, if you can, bump it up to a 3200+...it's not much more, but you get a lot for your money.

 

[DaveSimmons]

For gaming, A64 is the better choice.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: chrisralston
I am thinking of a new system, and have narrowed between these:
P4 530 w/ Soltek SL-915GPro-FGR
- or -
Athalon 64 3000+ w/ Chaintech ZNF3 -250 or the VNF-250.
I have the rest of the system hardware already. Any advice would be appreciated.

The Soltek uses a PCI-E video card and the other two Chaintech's use AGP cards.
Do you have both types of video cards? :roll:

 

[chrisralston]

I have an AGP card, but the Soltek has on board video.

I am not looking to game really (although a nice side benefit). I want a set up that will be good for a few years down the road. The main things I will be doing are burning CDs and DVDs, photo editing, and video editing, aside form internet and word processing.

From what I can find, the P4 and the PCI-E are likely better than the A64 for these kinds of things. Is that true or does it depend on who you ask?

 

[Blain]

The 530 is the CPU for you if you're into video editing.

The Video Guys...
"WARNING: We do NOT recommend motherboards based on the nVidia chipsets."

 

[Rike]

Originally posted by: Blain
The 530 is the CPU for you if you're into video editing.

The Video Guys...
"WARNING: We do NOT recommend motherboards based on the nVidia chipsets."

Blain is right about the video editing, P4's are faster. All the bench marks I've seen confirm that. However, the link Blain gave you also says:
We are getting good results with Athlon systems running on 133Mhz or faster bus speed motherboards. We have not yet tested any 64 bit Athlons.

Depending on how long you plan on running this system, you might consider the A64 even if it's a bit slower in the short term for the advantage of being able to move to a 64-bit OS and programs in early 2006. But that's all dependent on your upgrade cycle.

Edit: Almost forgot, you do not want on-board graphics! Even a cheap $50 vid card will out perform any on-board solution I've ever seen.