ok which is the better choice to make?

[otispunkmeyer]

obviously i would be lookin to overclock the 2500, seen alot of you guys gettin great speeds!.....but doesnt overvolting and overclocking reduce the life of the cpu.....dont wanna be replacing in a years time! lol

or would the 3000+ be a better bet?

 

[TheVoid]

If you are more the build it and forget it type or if you won't upgrade for awhile, I'd get the 3000+. If you like tweaking every your system for every last bit of performance and upgrade every year or two, get the mobile.

If you overclock the mobile to around 2.5GHz at 1.75v or less, with good cooling it will probably last several years at least. Still alot longer than you would probably be using it. By the time it died, it wouldn't be worth anything anymore.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

what would perform better tho.....athlons have the good old FSB, and well not sure what the A64's have is it a hyper transport bus or sumthing?

 

[alexXx]

"athlons have the good old FSB"??
the A64 have more cache. It can run 64bit applications.

 

[dguy6789]

depends on yourt budget, an athlon xp 2000+ will still last a few more years as a good cpu for things, while not the best, paired with a good video card(it would hold it back, but still run awesome) it would last a few years.

But to tell you the truth, an athlon 64 2800+ is faster then a 2.5Ghz barton. So a 3000+ would do even better. Get the 3000+ if it is in your budget.

 

[Avalon]

From where are you seeing that a 1.8ghz A64 chip is faster than a 2.5ghz barton, and faster in what respects? Links please.

 

[Corporate Thug]

dollar for dollar, the 2500+

 

[djm68]

Hey Otis,

Interesting question...I just built two new systems: an A64 3200+ and an Athlon XP-M barton 2500+. The A64 was for me, the mobile barton for my son. I already had a 22" Diamondtron monitor for myself and a 19" Sony trinitron for my son.

I went all out with the A64 -- 1Gb OCZ 3700EB, radeon 9800 pro ultimate with zalman cooler, Enermax PS, Audigy 2, nice case, SATA drive, etc. I think I put nearly $1200 into this system. So, then my son saw how awesome my system ran games and his celeron 566@850 w/gefore3 ti-200 jsut did not cut it anymore. So, he had a $400 dollar budget with which we bought:

MSI K7N2 Delta-L $66 newegg
Mobile Barton 2500+ $88 newegg
2x256 Corsair VS $103 newegg
Thermalright alx-800 $20 svc.com
Sapphire 9800 128mb OEM $135 newegg
This card was a refurb from newegg...and get this, the card comes and it is a 9800 pro!

I had an spare Enermax 365 that I donated to him plus a generic 80mm fan for the heatsink; he reused his IBM ATA.100 hard drive and Asus CD-ROM, plus his existing boring, but function case.

So, figure about $100 for those spare parts and the cost comes to about $515 -- far less than what I paid for my system. So, we assembled the system, bumped his cpu to 11x200 @1.625 --- Barton 3200+ speeds.

Sure, my machine play 1280x1204 in bascially all games totally smooth (22" monitor), but with his 19" sony he usualy plays everything in 1024x768...and at the resolution his system is very fast! I certainly stopped for a moment and wondered why I spent so much!

So, if you are on a budget, I think OCing a mobile athlon is an excellent choice...

Cheers,
Dominic

 

[dguy6789]

Im not talkin some site's benches, i saw the difference in person.


my bud just upgraded from a 2500+ mobile @2.5Ghz to an athlon 64 2800+ shuttle xpc and the diff in fps is pretty big with his 9700. In c&c generals zero hour, he can have almost 2X the units without the fps going below 30 as he could before, and in ut2k3, with vsync off, his fps is like 15 above. although farcry isnt much of a difference. and in general windows use, his programs just zip open, and it overall feels smoother and quicker.

other parts include pc3200 1GB, 2X120GB 7200RPM sata drives in raid, rad 9700 np.

he could install win xp in just under 8 minutes on the mobile2500 rig, and a little above 7 with his athlon 64 2800+

but doller for doller, the mobile 2500 is much better deal, although the 64 was faster, it was not worth the $400+ he spent to get it.

 

[Lyfer]

If you can afford I would get the A64 3000. If you CAN'T afford it, I would opt for the low voltage 35W XP-M 2400.

 

[myocardia]

A link for anyone who's wondering how a 2.5ghz mobile Barton compares to an FX-53 (and killing a 3.2ghz Prescott): link.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

well here in england.....the 2500 mobile is hovering round the £80 mark, the A64 2800 is 120 and the A64 3000 is only 130.......the 3000 is what £50 more? but its newer tech, having thought about it i think im the kinda guy who would rather buy and forget bout it, jus put it in an leave it, no faffing with OC'ing

way i see it, the 3000 is a little more future proof, its got better memory performance, and is 64bit i think id rather hand over the extra 50 for those attributes, and the fact that i dont have to mess on with overclocking, i know im buying something fast right out of the box

 

[Cardio]

I agree! You can also get some extra with the A64 like the no run bit and a hardware firewall on the MB for not much extra. And perhaps, a nice speed increase with 64 bit OS and apps. My A64 3000+ is alot faster than my P4 3.06 it replaced, alot! I am very pleased with it and the MSI K8n neo Plat MBoard.
The 3000+ runs nicely at 2.2 G also! Did not try with stock heatsink but with the Monster GygaByte all copper HS it runs about 52c under load. That's the highest I have seen. Usually about 46-48c. That combo cost for CPU & MB about $341.
IMHO

 

[CraigRT]

I'd go for the A64.

 

[Quino]

I have had both and I can tell you that once you use an athlon 64 you would not want to go back to anything else. I had an Athlon 64 3200 oc to 2.4 and I sold it and used an XP oc to 2.4 gigs too. And let me tell you that it was a huge difference. I do not do anything intensive besides gaming. For windows use there was no diference but for gaming there was a huge difference. In ut2k3 whentere were a lot of players the computer would slow too much as oposed to the Athlon 64. So if you game the Athlon 64 is a much stronger CPU. I do not care about benchmarks and I never benchmark my computers (I do not play and run benchmarks everyday) so I compare with the stuff I use and for me it made a big dirference. I just got my new rig. MSI Neo Platinum with a mobile Athlon 64 2800 running at 2.0 gigs (until MSI gets a new bios so I can increase the voltage). Even at only 2 gigs (250*8) It is way faster than the xp at 2.4 gigs for gaiming and a lot cooler since I can only give it 1.4 volts and it would not take more even if I chnge it in the bios. It is cool to see that the cpu temp is lower than the case temp I am talking about how smooth the game plays and if I feel some lag or not (which I do not feel any). So in short I would greatly recommend the athlon 64 even the 2800 would be a great option. You can oc it too and it will give you better performance than the xp for gaming and some other tasks. A 2800 will be like 180 and the Chaintek mobo would be like $77 from mwave and that would make a really good system

 

[3LEMENT0]

depends on your needs and your budget. Best for Gaming A64 and you don't even have to OC it, for price/perf get the AXP-M 2xxx and OC it. OCing to 2.4-2.6Ghz takes a while to get stable too, lot of trial and error, unless you're ok with 2.0 to 2.2 which I think athlon xp mobile will hit with no problems at all. Good luck on your choice.

 

[Quino]

Well i messed up with the volts and I can get the 2.0 gigs with only 1.35 volts completely stable. I am really happy with this mobile 2800. Iam pretty sure that it still has a lot of juice in it