P4 vs. AMD 64

[Gusty987]

Which is better for playing games like BF1942, Counter-strike, Call of Duty, and Flight Simulator 2004, and watching DVD's?:

P4 3.0 GHz vs. Athlon 64 3200+

and

P4 3.2 GHz vs. Athlon 64 3400+

THANKS!

 

[Jeff7181]

Flight Sim is the only one that's really CPU limited... well... I suppose Counter-Strike might be too, but since any hardware from within the last 2 years can probably provide over 100 frames per second, it doesn't really matter.

The Athlons would be faster... you're not really even comparing the right models... the 3200+ is designed to compete with the 3.2 Ghz P4... hence the 3200+ name.

If you're comparing based on price, forget all of those and either get a P4C 2.8 or a mobile XP2500 and overclock the cheese out of them.

 

[jswjimmy]

the xp3400 would kill the 3.2 p4(only in games)

 

[jrphoenix]

It sounds like gaming is your thing. AMD trounces Intel in gaming, end of story. If you were into video editing and had lots of cash.... Intel is the way to go.

 

[zodder]

I have an A64 3200+ clocked @215 and I'm just now in the process of putting together a P4 2.6C @~3.25. I play a lot of Call of Duty and I'm looking forward to seeing how they both perform with my 9800 Pro. I'll post back when I finally get everything together.

 

[RussianSensation]

Of course one must recognize any respected gamer should play at 1600x1200 and then in that case AMD holds almost no performance advantage due to all the games being bound by videocard performance at those settings with 4AA and 8AF enabled.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
Of course one must recognize any respected gamer should play at 1600x1200 and then in that case AMD holds almost no performance advantage due to all the games being bound by videocard performance at those settings with 4AA and 8AF enabled.

Where in the world did you get that idea? I bought a 19" monitor so things would be larger on it, not smaller. Just because it will do 1600x1200 doesn't mean that's the optimal resolution for gaming at. If you had the monitor that I would like to own, a 22" that does 2048x1536, would you play your games at that resolution?

 

[Gusty987]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Flight Sim is the only one that's really CPU limited... well... I suppose Counter-Strike might be too, but since any hardware from within the last 2 years can probably provide over 100 frames per second, it doesn't really matter.

This sounds interesting, what the heck does it mean?

If you're comparing based on price, forget all of those and either get a P4C 2.8 or a mobile XP2500 and overclock the cheese out of them.

I'm not really into any of that, I'm just customizing a PC at HP.com.

I will be running this processor along side 1 GB DDR RAM and a Radeon 9800 vid card.

Thanks for the input, guys. Keep it comin'!

 

[PliotronX]

Athy 64 is what you need for gaming. They also chew up less power (so they put out less heat) due to SOI.

 

[JBT]

A64 for gaming, have you looked at the benchmarks? I think this is a pretty easy choice.

 

[Vette73]

Athlon 64 with a Radeon 9800 is what you want for gaming. I know that is what I replaced my P4 setup wiht

 

[Gusty987]

Originally posted by: Marlin1975
Athlon 64 with a Radeon 9800 is what you want for gaming. I know that is what I replaced my P4 setup wiht

How much RAM do you have and what kind of fps do you get in games?

 

[Gusty987]

Shouldn't the Pentiums be faster because they run at 3 MHz while the Athlon 64's run at around 2.2 MHz? (sorry, I'm a n00b)

 

[PliotronX]

Originally posted by: Gusty987
Shouldn't the Pentiums be faster because they run at 3 MHz while the Athlon 64's run at around 2.2 MHz? (sorry, I'm a n00b)

Oh, that's the Megahurtz Myth. Try Googling for it for more detailed info, but basically the Athlons do much more work per cycle (Hz) than the P4. This is because of the lengthened pipeline where it would cause the pipeline to flush before the next op during a cache miss (all CPU's do this, but the shorter the pipeline is, the more quickly it recovers from a cache miss). The Prescott has an even longer pipeline, but Intel managed to keep its IPC close to Northwood using other techniques. I wonder how a Northwood would perform had Intel added those enhancements to Northwood though.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Gusty987

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Flight Sim is the only one that's really CPU limited... well... I suppose Counter-Strike might be too, but since any hardware from within the last 2 years can probably provide over 100 frames per second, it doesn't really matter.

This sounds interesting, what the heck does it mean?

It means the performance of Flight Sim 2004 is the only software listed that will be limited by your choice of the CPU's you listed, and even sometimes the video card will be the cause of low performance.

Counter-Strike is such an old game that the graphics are no challange at all for today's cards unless you use 8XAA and 8XAF.

In those two cases, a faster CPU (the Athlon-64) will make the game run better.

In the others you listed, they're not too dependant on the CPU, and of the ones you listed will probably give you performance not much more than 5% difference between eachother... the video card would be a more important selection in that case.

 

[DarkMadMax]

In the others you listed, they're not too dependant on the CPU, and of the ones you listed will probably give you performance not much more than 5% difference between eachother... the video card would be a more important selection in that case.

Basically he wants to say its more wise to invest more money in video card than into CPU . Performance difference between AMD64 and Prescotts in games is about 3%-15% ,and since AMD64 based platforms are cheaper (less expensive mobos,less expensive ram,case ,cooling) buying AMD64 and putting saved money into better video card you could gain up to 20%-40% performance over similary priced P4 . Also P4C are running very hot now - you could get in all sorts of performance trouble with them in highly intensive applications suchs as games due to throttling :


throttling

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
Of course one must recognize any respected gamer should play at 1600x1200 and then in that case AMD holds almost no performance advantage due to all the games being bound by videocard performance at those settings with 4AA and 8AF enabled.

Where in the world did you get that idea? I bought a 19" monitor so things would be larger on it, not smaller. Just because it will do 1600x1200 doesn't mean that's the optimal resolution for gaming at. If you had the monitor that I would like to own, a 22" that does 2048x1536, would you play your games at that resolution?

can and do.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: DarkMadMax

In the others you listed, they're not too dependant on the CPU, and of the ones you listed will probably give you performance not much more than 5% difference between eachother... the video card would be a more important selection in that case.

Basically he wants to say its more wise to invest more money in video card than into CPU . Performance difference between AMD64 and Prescotts in games is about 3%-15% ,and since AMD64 based platforms are cheaper (less expensive mobos,less expensive ram,case ,cooling) buying AMD64 and putting saved money into better video card you could gain up to 20%-40% performance over similary priced P4 . Also P4C are running very hot now - you could get in all sorts of performance trouble with them in highly intensive applications suchs as games due to throttling :


throttling

How is the memory on the A-64 cheaper? its the same memory. Same question with case, and cooling?

Pentium 4 Cs arent hot either, the Es are..

I do however agree with the video card reccomendation. I would budget for a slower cpu with a more powerful video card for the best gaming experience. A64 3000+ with a R9800P > A64 3400+ with a Ti4200.

Edit: thermal throttling only occurs if something is set up very wrong, you need 70c for it to kick in.

 

[sandorski]

A64
get 1gb ram
DVD's won't matter either way

I assume you plan on buying other games(newer games), if you are get the better cpu(A64) without a doubt.

 

[newb54]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
Of course one must recognize any respected gamer should play at 1600x1200 and then in that case AMD holds almost no performance advantage due to all the games being bound by videocard performance at those settings with 4AA and 8AF enabled.

No it really depends on the game. In smaller environment FPS's I find it is easier to play at 1280X1024. Also can you guys really tell the difference between 4AA/8AF and 2AA/4AF when you are just playing and not looking for it? I know I can't.

 

[im2good4u]

if you ask me, grab a 2.8C and overcloack the hell out of it @ 3.5GHz and use a DDR500 module so that it would BE in sync with the 250MHz FSB. @3.5ghz it might just be in par with the athlon 64s, heck maybe even faster at a much lower price. and gues what, thats just what i exactly did :beer:

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: im2good4u
if you ask me, grab a 2.8C and overcloack the hell out of it @ 3.5GHz and use a DDR500 module so that it would BE in sync with the 250MHz FSB. @3.5ghz it might just be in par with the athlon 64s, heck maybe even faster at a much lower price. and gues what, thats just what i exactly did :beer:

You would have been better served to save money by getting 3200DDR, running asynch, and spending the difference on a 9800pro. Because that 9600XT is now your gaming bottleneck

 

[DarkMadMax]

Originally posted by: Acanthus
How is the memory on the A-64 cheaper? its the same memory. Same question with case, and cooling?

Memory is DDR2 for p4 - significantly more expensive than DDR1 for AMD - 2 x 256 MB DDR2 for p4 is more expensive than 1 x 512 DDR for AMD. P4 requires also specific case design (most cases support it ,but its more expensivew than regular ATX)

Pentium 4 Cs arent hot either, the Es are..

It was a typo.

Edit: thermal throttling only occurs if something is set up very wrong, you need 70c for it to kick in.

Yeah and under full load Prescott easily reaches over 70 C with enthusiast cooling and open case .- Pictures are shown in the link above (there is also article ,but sadly its not in english ).

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: Gusty987

Originally posted by: Marlin1975
Athlon 64 with a Radeon 9800 is what you want for gaming. I know that is what I replaced my P4 setup wiht

How much RAM do you have and what kind of fps do you get in games?

I have a single 512mg Slab of PC3200

Don't kno about FPS, but I have Unreal T. 2004 running at FULL detail and I get no lag at all. I also get 6000 in 3dMark03 and I have a Reg. 9800, not a pro.

 

[Gusty987]

Ok, I think I have decided. I am going to get the following PC from HP.com:

AMD Athlon 61 3200+ (or maybe 3400+ if the rebate is still in effect when I buy the comp)
1 GB PC3200 DDR RAM
Radeon 9800
160 GB 7200rpm Hard Drive

All for about $1250 after rebates (+ ~$200 for the vid card).

What do you guys think? Will I be happy with this setup? Is it the best for the money? Will it run games at optimum levels?