Performance difference between Duron 800 and Athlon 800......

[jamesbond007]

Hello again. I'm building a budget system with the Asus A7S-VM motherboard, 128MB Crucial SDRAM (PC133, CL2), and I intend to have him use the onboard VGA and sound. NIC isn't as big of deal because he still dials up, but that's no biggy. More functionality, I guess.

Anyhoo, is there a big performance difference between those two CPUs? How about Athlon 850 and 900? The Duron 800 is priced VERY nicely and is also retail boxed. (Intend to use boxed fan, too) This person plays StarCraft, MS Golf, Solitaire, browses the Internet (not on AOL 😀), and does word processing. Now, I know he doesn't need much power, but I'd like to give him a system that has plenty of headroom for the future. I know the motherboard doesn't have AGP, but it's a budget system. I heard the onboard video on the A7S-VM has very nice video and audio. Also, the onboard video supports iDCT, which assists in DVD playback, so it has lesser CPU utilization.

I notice the Athlon 850+ starts around $85-90. If any of you know of a good reliable site to get an Athlon for less, let me know! I've checked with Newegg, Mwave, Neutron, etc. Pretty much the same prices.

How about the Asus A7VL-VM motherboard? It uses VIA (God forbid 😉), but since I plan to use all integrated parts, it should be ok. I noticed that this board has an AGP slot, which will broaden expansion for the future.

Any reccomendations on a better priced/performing CPU and all suggestions and experiences with both motherboards are welcomed.

Thank you for your time and comments!

 

[cookieman]

I can only speak about the CPU performance diference.

Normal programs (Office/Windows/IExplorer...) there is not much difference 1%-5%.
ZIP/MP3 coding/... it can be as much as 10%
Video intensive applications 3D Games/Cad/3DStudio will bring a maximum of 15-20%
difference BUT ONLY if the program was especialy optimized to use the memory (and therefore the CPU cache) more wisely.

Read in the threads, these questions pop up all the time 😉

So which is gona be?

Cheers,

 

[Shudder]

I tell ya what. The duron 800 is VERY awesomely priced.

If you want headroom for the future, you've already got it by getting a socket a board that could probably handle at least 1.2 gighz

For his tasks a duron 600 would probably be good, let alone 800 🙂 If for some strange reason he doesn't think it's enough speed, he can always buy whatever athlon is the cheapest.

Personally, I'm a game player and I was happy with my 650. I still bought an 850, but save the money and get the duron 800.

 

[jamesbond007]

Awesome. Yeah, I was thinking the same things. I can get the Duron 800 Retail boxed for $58, and that's a damn mighty good deal if you ask me. Even the cheapest Athlons start in at ~$90, so I don't think in his case the extra cash would be getting him much more speed, especially since he's not a heavy PC gamer. He's a console gamer, really. He's got a Dreamcast, PS2, PS1, N64, and the list goes on and on. 😀

I'll try and get him to go Duron, but if I can't, it's his cash. 🙂

Thanks for your help.

 

[NelsonMuntz]

Here's a link to a Tom's Hardware (sorry Anand, I'm just more familiar with his archives) article that has some info comparing similar speed T-birds/Durons in some testing. skip right to the Benchtesting and check it out here.