Please help me pick a board...AMD/Pentium?

[smokin711]

Hey guys,

(warning: I may sound like a noob) so it's been a while since I've been on the market for a board/cpu so I need some expert oppinions to expedite my research, cause I don't even know what the latest boards are...but this is what i'm looking to do...I want to set up a gaming rig while keeping the price in check...

I don't need the latest and greatest, but I want something that's gonna be fast enough to last for a few years... Oh and I am not into oc'ing.

so, first off, any reasons to pick Pentium over AMD? I'm thinking a 533fsb for a P4 (2.4GHz) or the 400?/333 fsb for AMD (2800+) so, what kind of boards for P4 and AMD would I be looking at?

The only thing I care is that the board has onboard LAN which almost all of them do. I don't really care about the sound since I have a nice sound card, and for video i'll get a good video card...

also, what's a good video card for about $150? Anything in that price that beats the Radeon 8500 128mb?

Also, between the 800 2.4Ghz the 533 2.4 and the 400 2.4 P4's will there be a significant difference? I mean is it noticeable with the bottlenecks created by the other hardware?

So please help me out by voicing your oppinions on what I should be thinking about, and then i'll do my research based on your suggestions.

Thanks for the help.

 

[mechBgon]

What will the system be used for, and what's your whole budget like?

 

[smokin711]

I'm a Csci student so the usual college thing plus videogames...actually it'll be mainly for videogames since I use my laptop for everything else

Also I am looking to spend about $100 for the board and about $150 for the cpu....i'm willing to spend more - haven't checked the prices for the 2gig cpu's yet- but this is what i'm thinking...I don't want to spend more than 1000 for the whole thing...case, psu, cpu, vid-card, mobo....and a 19" lcd

 

[Corporate Thug]

AMD: abit NF7-s
Intel: Abit IS7

the only CPU you can get in that price range for intel is the 2.4C
with AMD, i would go 2500+

 

[smokin711]

Ok...the xp 2800 and the 2.4G (800 mhz) are roughly the same price...is there a significant performance gain with this P4 as opposed to the 2800?

 

[mechBgon]

You can find some benchmarks starting from this page of Anand's P4 3.2C review that might help. The Pentium4-C's are at their strongest on streaming-data work such as media encoding, and/or apps where their SSE2 instructions let them "work smarter, not harder."

Where the AthlonXP may end up being a better value is if you get a 2500+ and use the money you save on the CPU to buy something else your system will need worse than CPU power, such as getting more RAM for those massive compiling projects, or a second hard drive so your system can pull from one and save to the other (huge benefit for me, about a six-fold reduction in the time it takes to do some stuff), or moving up on the video-card ladder so you can game at full resolution with the eye candy on, on your 19" LCD That's why I asked about the whole budget... you don't want to end up with a Corvette engine in a Cavalier chassis.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: smokin711
Ok...the xp 2800 and the 2.4G (800 mhz) are roughly the same price...is there a significant performance gain with this P4 as opposed to the 2800?

The 2.4c has hyperthreading and also will give excellent bandwidth using DC-DDR, overclock and it will shine even more and it's almost a given that it'll hit 3ghz+ so there is really no downside to it. IMO, running stock speeds the 2.4c is a much better choice than the 2800+ and if you do decide to overclock the 2.4c should really widen the gap.

 

[novice]

Another way to go would be for a "no frills" budget board like my Shuttle AN35N Nforce 2 board with a XP 1700+, which if you get a "B" should hit 2.0 Ghz without difficulty. I spent a total of $107 for mine. That could free up another $150 or so for a top line video card, say Radeon 9700 or 9800 or FX5800, or FX5900. I think you might see better gaming performance going that route than with a 2.4 ghz P4, a $150 P4 motherboard and a Radeon 9600 or FX5600 vid card.