P4 or A64 Its time to upgrade

[Tuscani]

I am on the verge of upgrading my pc, i just bout an ATI Radeon X800Pro, and now its time for CPU/MB upgrades, currently running an Athlon XP 1800+, everytime I mention I would like to go P4 this time around, I keep hearing AMD 64, AMD AMD AMD AMD AMD, everytime I turn around, I mean what up come on there must be some Intel support somewhere, what is so bad, the CPU I am looking at is the 3.0E version. Thoughts..

I continue to ask this question, and I really need a definitive answer someone to sum it all up, at the 3.0ghz level with my Radeon X800PRO and 512Megs of ram running at 400mhz, am I am going to notice a difference either way is what I am asking, or are we bickering over something that is very trivial at this point, I have had an Athlon for a long time, (My last 2 CPU'S, and they have both performed well I am just thinking about hoping back over to Intel's camp and give them a shot), but what I am trully asking is, what is the ultimate difference, I mean are we talking 1000 less 3DMARK03 scores? 5-10less FPS in DOOM3/HLF2/World Of Warcraft etc.. I need concrete stuff, also how well do the P4 3.0GHZ CPU's O/C Off the Stock fan. Plus Like I said about 64bit cpu's earlier, sure its nice to have the future-proffness but what good is a cpu that's 2 years old by the time 64bit programs come out, like when is the first 64big programmed game coming out? I bet not for at least 3 years, what are your thoughts, trying to be honest here, don't want flaming just want good old honest discussion. Ignore price, I am simply looking at a P4 3.0 "e" OR "C" vs. an Athlon 64 3000+.

Looking for honest discussion, not concerned with Fanboy flaming etc.. I have had both Intel and Amd parts before, just want some discussion on P4/A64 at the 3.0ghz /3000+ level

 

[fsstrike]

Everyone is going to say the same things as usual. "Get AMD its better for gaming"

I agree. Get AMD. Cheaper, Faster No brainer right? And im not sure exactly HOW big the difference is, I am assuming NOT much. But if you can get better performance, for cheaper, then whats to lose? And the "C" is *usually* better than "E" at that clock speed. Either way you go, ull get an awesome PC but when it comes down to performance frame per frame, AMD wins handsdown.

Neways, I used to be a huge Intel fanboy, but then I read benchmarks and the Anandtech Ppl have converted me

So, just get AMD 64 3000+.

 

[BW86]

AMD! but yeah, get the a64

 

[clarkey01]

nah a celeron 266 Mhz should do it.

 

[Markfw]

Heat is one main reason. The P4 'c' is hotter than the Athlon64, but the 'e' is a furnace ! Anyway the 775 socket chips are exspensive and buggy from what I read, the 478 chips are hotter and no upgrade path.

THEN there are the benchmarks to clinch it. What else do you need to know ?

 

[epsilon9090]

http://images.anandtech.com/gr...u_08020430812/3452.png

http://images.anandtech.com/gr...u_08020430812/3453.png


Some food for thought.

 

[Mik3y]

and the athlon 64 (socket 754) is faster in nearly everything except encoding/decoding vs intel. with socket 939, amd is faster in everything.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Originally posted by: Mik3y
and the athlon 64 (socket 754) is faster in nearly everything except encoding/decoding vs intel. with socket 939, amd is faster in everything.

and the thing is, why the hell does it matter when encoding is off by 2 seconds or so? -_-

 

[upsciLLion]

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX

Originally posted by: Mik3y
and the athlon 64 (socket 754) is faster in nearly everything except encoding/decoding vs intel. with socket 939, amd is faster in everything.

and the thing is, why the hell does it matter when encoding is off by 2 seconds or so? -_-

Because A64s are less expensive.

 

[Vee]

For close to 2 years now, I have moved back and forth between AMDs and P4s, every day on work.
I like the P4 for some special things. The right apps flies on it. Hyperthreading is sometimes nice. And the P4 is actually a decent gaming CPU. A fact sometimes perhaps forgotten, because of the A64's supposed supremecy. (The P4 is not so good for flightsims though, and thus probably not good for 'physics'-heavy games either.)

But overall, AMD, both XP and 64 are nicer to work with. They seem snappier, less hesitant and syrupy. They also outperform the P4 considerably on many real life applications. This advantage is normally not visable in published benchmarks, that are carefully put together so they suit the P4.

I still use both Intel and AMD, and I'm happy with that. I will check out the P4F and the "Smithfield". But I don't expect much. And my opinion, these days, is no more Intel before "Conroe". The A64 is such a joy. Since you intend to keep only one PC, I can't suggest anything else.

Looking strictly at performance, significant or not, there are applications that suits the AthlonXP poorly. There are applications that suits the P4 poorly. But except for bugs, there are no applications that suits the A64 poorly. And it will do 64-bit too. And I think 64-bit will come sooner than you seem to think.

I can't really comment on OC. Except for some experiment sometimes, I don't OC.
Sorry, but I think you should have got yourself a Pentium earlier, a dual channel P4C then. But not now. It's almost too late for that. The moment belongs to Athlon64. As you noted: Everybody says so. I do too.

 

[imported_jensend]

My guess is that it'd be best to settle for a tiny bit less performance, a lot less heat, and a lot lower price with a P4 2.8C or a Sempron 3100+. (x86-64 really doesn't do much for anybody except those running scientific simulations and those looking to address scads of RAM; the main reason Athlon 64 has been successful is that it's a good 32-bit processor, and the Paris core Sempron preserves that trait.)

I wouldn't expect either P4 3.0 to overclock well with stock cooling. That's just asking for trouble. The stock cooler has enough problems cooling the Prescott as is (see SPCR- and that may even have been with better-than-stock thermal interface stuff). Even with the 2.8C, if you're into overclocking it'd be well worth your money to get a better-than-stock cooler and some decent grease. A better-than-stock integrated HSF can be easy to install, no bigger than the stock cooler, and <$25.

I haven't heard real reports on how the Paris core overclocks, but I'd imagine that if you got a s754 mobo with an AGP/PCI lock it'd be a good overclocker thanks to its low transistor count.

As for concrete benchmark numbers, how can you be in the Anandtech forums and not know any good places to get benchmark numbers? Just click on the CPU/Chipsets button above.

 

[igblack]

if u decide to go p4 be warned, once u get a lot of programs on that hard disk be prepared to hava a slow start up and a hell of a lot of heat from that prescott that u want.


i had a p4 2.4 that made it to 3.3ghz stable, tahts the only upside other that great 3d rendering for gaming that i can see. if u go amd ull get it cheaper and get better preformance out of it.

 

[LTC8K6]

if u decide to go p4 be warned, once u get a lot of programs on that hard disk be prepared to hava a slow start up and a hell of a lot of heat from that prescott that u want.

That makes no sense whatsoever. The slow startup part, I mean. The "hell of a lot of heat" is over the top too.

Next time you want to spread FUD, don't make such ridiculous claims. Tone them down a bit and more newbs will believe them.