Pentium 4 vs Amd 64

YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Moderator<br>A/V & Home Theater<br>Elite member
Aug 6, 2001
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Is this for gaming?

If so, AMD.

If not, then look at some benchmarks more specific to what program you're doing and decide for yourself.

There are a bunch of CPU benchmarks over at Tom's Hardware too if you can't find any that compare these two on AT.
 

enwar3

Golden Member
Jun 26, 2005
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im surprised u even ask this, anywhere online ppl are gonna say amd lol.. i thought about this myself, compared the 630 and the 3000+ and decided the 3000 is a better buy. speaking of which, save money and get the 3000 instead of the 3200, overclock them and theyll end up about the same.
 

dguy6789

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2002
8,558
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Originally posted by: AnnihilatorX
AMD for sure.

P4 is a design flaw, a doomed NetBurst architecture.

The Athlon 64 3200+ is a better processor than the P4 630.
 

fatty4ksu

Golden Member
Mar 5, 2005
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In gaming the AMD will murder the p4.

In multitasking, your AMD will feel more slugish than a P4 w/hyperthreading.

 

hurtstotalktoyou

Platinum Member
Mar 24, 2005
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Do you plan to overclock? If so, you'll be hard-pressed to find a good online review. If not, this article directly compares the 630 and the 3200+ at stock speeds in a variety of benchmark tests.

For the most part, the 3200+ runs away with the performance crown. However, there are a few benchmarks that I like to look at a little more closely...

WinRAR: The 3200+ out-performs the 630 by more than 30% in this test. I use WinRAR a lot, and so AMD's superiority here means quite a bit to me.

multitasking: The 3200+ has a 2.2% benchmark advantage, here, which is pretty much negligible.

video editing: This is a tough call. In one test, the 3200+ blows away the 630 by more than 30%. However, in every other test, the 630 enjoys a 2-16% advantage. I'd say the 630 has the video editing advantage, here.

audio editing: I also do a lot of audio editing, so I always love to look at this test. Unfortunately, the two CPUs are neck-and-neck, again, with the 3200+ beating the 630 by a mere 1%.

Of course, you can look at the benchmarks, yourself, to see which tests are most important to you.

If you're overclocking, you'll have to do more guesswork than scientific comparison. The "Venice" 3200+ has a lot of headroom, whereas the 6xx series has had a difficult time reaching high clock speeds. My guess is that if you plan to overclock, you'll be much better off with AMD, even for video editing.
 

GamerExpress

Banned
Aug 28, 2005
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Originally posted by: fatty4ksu
In gaming the AMD will murder the p4.

In multitasking, your AMD will feel more slugish than a P4 w/hyperthreading.

True, but i don't think you will even notice much diference in multitasking, and the Prescott is hot enough to cook your dinner on.
 

bradley

Diamond Member
Jan 9, 2000
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There was a time where I would have recommended Intel, but today is not one of those times. Go with AMD, it isn't even close.
 

sourceninja

Diamond Member
Mar 8, 2005
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I've had 2 P4 machines, and 1 AMD64 machine. Prior to that I had a few AMDxp and P3 computers. I've loved them all. But I have to say my AMD64 3500 kills my P4 3ghz (the one with the 800mhz fsb).
 

hurtstotalktoyou

Platinum Member
Mar 24, 2005
2,055
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Originally posted by: fatty4ksu
In multitasking, your AMD will feel more slugish than a P4 w/hyperthreading.

I know that's what you'd expect, but it's really not the real situation.

This test shows the 3200+ with a slight multitasking advantage over the 630 with HT turned on. Now, I grant you that's just one test, but I've never seen anything suggesting HT is a serious selling point.
 

xeodragon

Member
Jun 25, 2005
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I just built my first AMD64 computer, and i must say it was worth it saving the extra money. plus, it's a great overclocker if you really need it.
 

fluxquantum

Platinum Member
Oct 27, 2000
2,398
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i recently converted over to AMD and i don't regret it one bit. depending on what you'll be doing, i would definitely recommend AMD over Intel. check out my sig:)
 

hurtstotalktoyou

Platinum Member
Mar 24, 2005
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Originally posted by: Pabster
Save yourself another $45 and go with the Venice 3000+ rather than the 3200+.

Actually, that's a pretty good idea. It's not really worth $45 just for another 200 MHz.
 

natto fire

Diamond Member
Jan 4, 2000
7,117
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Originally posted by: t3h l337 n3wb
99.99% of the members on this forum will recommend AMD...

QFT. I have been an AMD proponent since the K62-450 days. Mostly because I am a cheapskate, but AMD has made drastic improvements, especially starting with the the Athlon line. I like Intel just as much as AMD, but I am a budget shopper, and in that price range AMD wins everytime. Still sporting a 2500+@2.0 GHz, and have never bought an Intel processor in my life. Really I have been noticing how flawed x86 code is, especially when you start talking about DirectX/WindowsXP. :p I like to play games in OpenGL, but unfortunatel I am not very well suppported in this theory...