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P4 or Athlon for a 3D gaming machine

A

ahsia

Golden Member
I know probably is not to right way to ask this question, but is there a major advantage of going with one over the other? It seems like the benchmarks are all over the place, P4 edging out in some, while Athlon edging out in others. I am not looking for the fastest CPU per say, but at comparable speeds, which processor will give you the better performance over the other?

Also, I have heard that nvidia drivers are more tuned for P4s since Intel still own a larger market share? Is there any truth to that? Does nvidia or ATI work better with one processor over the other?

Or, does that really not matter enough to worry, and all I really should worry about is which video card to get?

Thanks for your help!
 
I would go with AMD all the way for a gaming rig...as far as Nvidia drivers being tweekd for Intel CPU's , I think tha statement is bunk.

Ausm
 
You can probably pick up an amd chip for somewhat cheaper than a similarily performing p4 chip. For that reason I would go with amd. However, if you want to do some serious overclocking, p4a's seem to be the thing right now. So, there isn't a huge advantage in going with either, they will both work fine.
 
The reason why I suggest AMD for gaming is that in gaming you will notice little differences and AMD is cheaper as well.
 


<< The reason why I suggest AMD for gaming is that in gaming you will notice little differences and AMD is cheaper as well. >>


You've got me curious as to what "little differences" are noticeable. Care to elaborate?
 
Performance-wise, there's really not that huge a difference between the 2 processors as far as gaming in general. Some games work better on the Athlon (like Serious Sam and RTCW) while others (namely Q3A and all of its variants), work better on the P4. The thing to consider is that while the P4 can overclock better, the Athlon would make a great price/performance deal at stock speeds.
 
Also worth noting is the P4 has SSE2 which most future games will be optimised for. P4 + SSE2 optimisations is alot faster than P4 without them.
 
Aragon: No, future games will not be optomized for SSE2(with some exceptions), according to game developers. In fact, they are/or will not be optomized for 3Dnow or SSE either(again with some exceptions). Game developers optomize for vidcard features and soundcard features.

A basic rule for choosing a cpu for gaming: FPU intensive games will work better on an Athlon, memory intensive on a P4. There are exceptions, but when gaming the vidcard is simply the most important part of a system these days.
 
I agree with sandorski....

Also look at it this way....

Do you want to overclock the chip....

If so a very good 1.6a ghz northwood and pc2700ddr can be made into near 2.3-2.4ghz machine with 400mhz ddr...The 1.6 can be had for aroun 130 and comes with retail hsf that is sufficient....

The amd at similar price likely can not oc this high and thus intel will out perform it....

HOWEVER!!!!

This is only due to the overclocking, and there are no guarantees.......FPU is dominat i the Atlon and clock per clock amd is very dominate....A amd 2100+ xp (1.73ghz) is neck and neck with a p4 2.2ghz. It is most likely that an 1400mhz tbird is faster then default 1.6a p4 northwood...

If no ocing then hands down the amd is the performance for leader for the price...look at the lower priced 1800-1900 xp chips for great deals....
 
Cost is not the issue here. What I am really looking at is what Aragorn992 is talking about. Are games more optimized for Athlons or P4. Say money is not an issue. Would I be better off getting a P4 2.2GHz Northwood, or a Athlon XP 2000+?
 
I'm with the Athlon. I'm very happy with my 1700+.

I like it so much as it doesnt need to be overclocked to get a good performance.
 
Unless you run your games at 640 x 480, the video card is the major determining factor in how well a game will play. Of course, if you had a 500 Mhz processor this may not be true, but with high-end amd and intel cpus I doubt you will notice any difference between the two given the same video card.

I would get an athlon and a geforce4 ti4600.
 
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