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Please make recommendation:Intel or AMD

B

bosozoku

Member
I am planning to build 2 new systems for a friends company. They are to be used for Web design. Apps used would be Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash.

Personally, I'm using a P3 700 oc'd to 980 on a Soyo 6BA+4 with no problems. I never oc'd an AMD before.

I would like to know which MB CPU combo would be best for price-performance-ease of OC. Stability is more important than price ultimately, but he does'nt want to spend a whole lot of money either. Budget about $1500 each PC.
 
At the moment I usually recommend AMD systems. I've built 4 systems using durons this year and all have been pleasant experiences with nice overclocks too. For a motherboard I'd take a look at Anand's latest socket-A roundup, or read the conclusion at least. Combine the Microstar K7T Pro2 with a duron for ultimate value, or t-bird for more power and a GOOD 300W power supply and I'd say you should be very happy. Overclocking these babies is a breeze too, just a little pencil work (I don't have the links right now sorry 😱) and with the MSI or the Abit motherboard you have a nice time playing in the BIOS ... couldn't be more fun or easier 😎 Last, but not least I'd say go for some QUALITY ram, at least 256MB if he's gonna do hard work in photoshop, Anand and others seem to have good experiences with Mushkin ram, in fact I haven't heard anyone badmouth them yet... This should be a start at least.

Good luck

Two-Face
 
One thing you may want to check is that applications such as Photoshop may be SSE optimized. Check his software to see if that is true or not. If it is, he might be better off with a P3. If not, he has little reason to go with Intel (bang-for-buck wise) and you should build him AMD based systems. As TwoFace said, 256MB of ram is a must.

Have fun.
 
I was thinking about a dual celeron cpu set up then I changed my mind - I believe the T/bird and MSI K7Tpro-2 is the way to go. But check for SSE optimizations as the other post suggested.
Good time to buy cheap high end systems.
 
If I were building a "dream" system for myself now, I would switch to AMD. The value on the $$$ can't be beaten, and with the newer AMD mobo's out, AMD seems the best upgrade path.


HOWEVER.....you mentioned a few apps that are definitely SSE friendly. I'm not sure that you wouldn't do better with a P3 system.

also, I would NOT use the pencil "trick" to OC a system that you won't have access to everyday, CERTAINLY not for a business.

I'd do a more permanent method, like the car defrost-repair kit, if I were to do it.

also, the new Celeron systems aren't SMP capable, and since your friend has a budget, going SMP with a P3 probably isn't quite so wise.
 
You are going in the right direction with the MSI K7T Pro2a ,it would be a very good choice you are also making sure you are going to use good ram,PSU, which means you will end up with a very stable system so yes go with AMD.

🙂
 
For that type of application, I would also go with a P3 versus an Athlon. Those applicationss are optimized for SSE. I hear rumors of Intel price cuts on/about December 10th. So, I'd wait a week and check prices.
 
Don't even think of overclocking a system for a business. Photoshop on a P3 will perform much better than on AMD at a similar clock speed. Price out a couple of alternatives, its possible that you can build a higher clock speed TBIRD system. For $1500 you can likely do the 1GIG dance with AMD.
 
I also think it's an odd idea to sell someone in biz an overclocked computer. The words "time bomb" spring to mind.
All company guys like Intel anyway (it's called the "corporate lobotomy", and I figure with the lower heat and less need for fans (they will have to work with them all day) they will like Intel better.
 
For reference, I'm building myself 2 new systems: one Inhell and one MAD system.

The Intel flip-chip (probably 600EB) goes into my ultra-compact all-purpose server/firewall/router. Its 15W power consumption is perfect for the Flex ATX book-sized case. The speed is enough for several years. (Wishful thinking. I'll compulsively upgrade it eventually.) I absolutely won't overclock my server CPU.

The AMD Tbird 900MHz retail will be my workstation chip. Retail's statistically have a greater chance of being copper, and may run a bit cooler. Past 900MHz, the CPU heat becomes a big problem. I'd rather have 900MHz non-overclocked and stop there.
 
Leo V that icon you have is funny. It reminds me of the RockyHorrorShow. You're not sitting there in black rubber and suspenders are you?
 
Thanks for all your replys.

Let me clear some things up. This "business" are 3 guys working out of their homes so at this point they want to save money. They are my friends and I'm not selling them anything. Just gathering information because they don't keep up with PC hardware as much as I do.

One guy has been using a dual Cel366/550 BP6 setup for the last year and a half and hasn't complained so far. So I think its OK to use oc'd systems. 😉

Its a good thing some of you mentioned SSE, I haven't even thought of that. So I guess it boils down to price -vs- SSE optimizations.

I'll run this by my friend and see whats more important.

I wonder how big a differnce SSE makes in Photoshop. Is it a huge difference or a little.
 


<< All company guys like Intel anyway (it's called the &quot;corporate lobotomy&quot;, and I figure with the lower heat and less need for fans (they will have to work with them all day) they will like Intel better. >>



Corporate lobotomy? Until the Athlons, AMDs had compatibility issues as bad or worse than cyrix, and only slightly better performance. On top of that they overheated easily. Intels did neither. For the apps he wants to run, Intel chips of similar speed will perform better than the AMD, and might even be SSE enhanced. With AMD, you will get a cheaper system that will likely do better for gaming. With Intel, it will be slightly more expensive, and likely better your those apps. For a gamer machine, Tbird. For business, the pentiums are still better (come on, AMD! Give Intel more competition! You've done good so far!)
 
I would like to formally protest the comment that you will recieve a noticable faster Photoshop experience &quot;because of SSE&quot;.

For that type of application, I would also go with a P3 versus an Athlon. Those applicationss are optimized for SSE

This is simply not true.

The only routines in photoshop that are SSE optimized are image manipulation routines and filters. Unless you regularly work with 1200DPI images, even a complicated smart blur or some such filter will run in an immesurably small amount of time on a 1Ghz CPU, regardless of SSE support.

The biggest slowdown in PhotoShop (and this is not something that is regularily &quot;benchmarked&quot😉 is the manipulation and detail work on high-res images. For example, zooming in on a 600DPI scan takes some real CPU power to do quickly but more importantly, it takes BANDWIDTH. Since large images can't fit in the cache of the CPU, the SEE enhancments are useless and AMD's much greater memory bandwidth is a HUGE benefit.

If you had the cash and wanted to do hi-res 2D image manipulation, I would recomment the Pentium 4, but right now the price is prohibitive and they are hard to find.

Athlons consistantly beat the PIII (price normalized) in Content Creation Winstone- which most nearly resembles the activities of a Web Designer.

Plus- the Athlon is a better gaming system 🙂
for lunchbreak 🙂

One suggestion- don't overclock a business PC.

I've corrupted one harddrive full of work from overclocking troubles and I'm not about to repeat that.

Eric

Edit: I'm assistant webmaster at BXBoards.com and I do web-work and performance testing about 20-40 hours a week so I know what i'm talking about (just figured I'd validate my above statements for you).

PS. In case you want to argue- I do concede that the PIII beats the Athlon at Content Creation on a CLOCK normalized basis but with the Athlon so much less expensive, on a PRICE normalized basis is how you should be buying.
 
Here's a vote for AMD... price/value/performance wise... they can't be beat. Use the money saved for extra ram. I run all the above programs, and SSE ain't gonna make enough of a difference.
 
For a business machine I vote for Intel. The lack of heat problems must be a top priority. You don't want to be fiddling with 20 fans in your case and/or overclocking. I would go with stock speed and have it as quiet as possible.
 
Frankly, heat isn't a problem unless you overclock or are running 1.2GHz CPUs.

Even with the 1.2GHz- its only running 1.7V and heat shouldn't be too bad.

Voltage affects the CPU's heat dissipation much more (a square relation) than clockspeed (a linear relation).

Frankly, the heat shouldn't matter. Use the standard CPU heatsink and the normal powersupply fan. Unless you're running half a dozen fast harddrives you don't generally need more fans.

AMD CPUs have quite a higher tolerance to heat than Intel's fastest CPUs. Keep that in mind when worrying about the CPU's heat.

Eric
 
I may be mistaken, but I believe Photoshop runs better on Athlons due to better floating point calc. performance (some 15% better performance). On top of this fact, money saved on an Athlon can be spent on more ram for your systems. Moving from 128MB to 256MB will almost double your photoshop performance.
 
I highly recommend the Athlon systems for the main reason of price. In any real-world or synthetic benchmark, the results where the P3 manages to beat the athlon are very minimal and wouldn't be a noticable change. For such a tiny difference (and better performance all-around) you could save enough money to put some serious RAM into your system. With photoshop work, if I remember correctly, it keeps roughly three copies of the image. So you'll need three times the RAM of the maximum size of the image you're dealing with and then some. Since I've done some intensive photoshop work myself with some negative scans running in the hundreds of megs, the extra RAM is a required addition. 256 megs of ram is fine and dandy for home photoshop work, but if you're doing major business work, I'd recommend 512 or more for the added peace of mind.

The moment the data must be moved to the hard drive, unless you've got a set of X15's running in a RAID array, you're gonna notice a MAJOR slowdown. (Even still, HD performance comes nowhere near the performance of RAM, if you did happen to have that setup you'd still notice a HUGE differnce) It'll just crawl.

Save the money on the athlon which will outpace the P3 or lose by only a small margin and get the all-important RAM that you'll need.
 
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