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P4 Nortwood 1.8 or Athlon XP 2000+

S

Siniz

Junior Member
Hi there!
I've got a little question that I thought you hardware guys could answer.
Should I go for a P4 Nortwood 1.8 or Athlon XP 2000+ if you take the future and the present into consideration?
Which configuration is the best at the moment (considering mobos available to these cards and different RAMs).
I'm going to purchase one of these configurations today, so I would appreciate a good answer right now.
Btw, the mobos would probably be Abit TH7II i850 5PCI 1AGP 4RIMM Audio Socket478 ATX for the Northwood and
ASUS A7V333 KT333 5PCI 1AGP 3DDR-DIMM USB2 SocketA ATX for the Athlon.
Thanks a lot for your answer, I really appreciate it in the jungle of hardware.
Regards,
Tobias H
 
Are you gonna overclock?

If not, the Athlon is clearly the faster solution.
If you're planning to overclock, the tables turn, and the Woody comes out on top.
 
Agreed...go with the Athlon if you want a faster stock solution. However if you are willing to o/c than that 1.8a at 2.4ghz should leave the athlon in the dust.
 
RD-ram would set you back abit..+ the fact that Intel is starting the stay go away from it...get DDR..get amd Athlon Xp.......
That A7V333 is one of the most feature rich MB i have seen around...
6 USB ports included + fire wire..
 
From what I've read, Intel is only moving away from Rambus /w their server processors, not desktop processors..

That being said, I'd go with that Abit TH7II motherboard /w RDRAM and a Northy without a doubt..
 
I have the 2000+ and it is overclocked to 1750 with stock voltage and my Sandra benchmarks are faster than a P4 that Hard OCP tested at 2500 so I would go with the AMD but I am sure the P4s are ok also but stay with DDR memory and get some good PC2700 Memory no matter which way you go. I have Samsung PC2700 in my machine and it is great. Oh I have the Alpha 8045 heatsink and overclocked I am running 38C right now and my machine has been on over 4 hours.
 

Cosmo 3

At what memory bus speed and what CAS settings are you running that Samsung 2700?
I want to overclock my memory and have read that settins of CAS2 with memory speed of 170 results in faster benchmarks than CAS 2.5 at a memory speed of 180. Also, I need to know what memory might reach those memory bus speeds.
 
If you want the fastest solution: P4 1.8a overclocked with RAMBUS. Geez these things rock ! (That's what I'm getting for my P3 500 replacement....)
 
It generally looks like that p4+rambus at 533 will beat a p4+DDR with clock speeds several hundred Mhz higher.

Just make sure you get an ICS-13 clock generator on your i850 board though, more information in the OC anandtech forum.
 
I have the P4 1.6@2200 in an Asus P4B266 with the Intel HSF and no-name 300 watt powersupply. It works fine, but it's no faster than about an AMD XP 1.8. The reason I went with Intel is because of chipset problems and the Noise!!! You can just hear the P4 box fans, my old AMD with the 2 case fans and a huge HSF always sounded like someone was running a hair dryer in the room. Not good at 3:00AM. RRRR
 
"RD-ram would set you back abit" Nice old argument. Someone apparently hasnt looked at the recent prices of DDR.

PC2100 256mb $97 Crucial.com
PC800 256mb $66 Neutron USA


I just picked the prices from Sharkyextreme.com Web Prices

RDRAM is the same (if not less in alot of places) than DDR ram right now. Plus its a tad faster
 
I am running an Athlon 1.2 GHz Palomino box (1300+ equivalent) and just built a P4 1.6a overclocked to 2.4 GHz Intel box for gaming. The Intel box is faster, but most importantly, it is very quiet. The Athlon box has a variety of sound deadening materials, reduced fan speeds, etc but it is still distracting with its noise. And, yes, the 2.4 GHz Intel P4 seems about the same speed as a 1.8 to 2.1 GHz Athlon. I gave a range here because the benchmarks are dependent on mobo and memory combos and settings. The AMD solution was a breakthrough in its time last year; and the new AMD chips with smaller die sizes may also run cooler and quieter (I don't know because they are not yet on the market). But, as of today, I have to give the "quiet with speed combination award" to overclocked Intel P4s.
 
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