Time build a new system - HELP - AMD or INTEL??

[raven176]

Okay,

I'm floundering here. Do I got with the 1.7GHz P4 or do I go with the Thunderbird 1.4GHz??? I don't know which to choose. Can people please give me suggestions??

What I will be doing with this computer:

Games (top priority)
Internet stuff (viewing streaming media, working with Flash)
General office stuff (using Word for writing, etc.)...

What should I do?

Raven

 

[Boonesmi]

read around on the forums here much and you get a general idea that the athlon 1.2ghz is about as fast as the pent4 1.7

also take into account that the pentium4 is switching platforms soon, so current pent4 mobo's wont hold the new pent4 cpu's

while current athlon board should have no problem running the new palomino(athlon4's) when they come out

another thing to consider is the athlon costs less

another thing. athlons need good cooling, so if you get a 1.4ghz dont get some cheap heatsink/fan unit

the list goes on and on


hehehe all in all for me the athlon is by far the better choice. but to each his own, get what you feel comfortable with

 

[jamesbond007]

Raven, I'm currently working on my new computer as well. I'm choosing the Pentium 4. Despite the higher costs, I feel it is the better choice for me. How much are you looking at spending? I keep reading the forums day in and day out, only to find more and more people with Athlon problems. Not to say they're bad or anything. I've owned two, but sold them to get my current laptop. The A7V was a pretty stable board overall, but was flaky sometimes in performance. I run Win2k Primarily, which isn't very VIA friendly, however updates are coming out weekly/daily. The A7V133 I had was pretty good, but again, flaky in performance. WinME/Win98 were the only OSes that ran pretty decent. The bootimes were incredible, to say the least.

Baiscallly, either way, you should be set for a very long time. The SSE2 software implementation looks promising, along side with nVidia drivers. Did you read that Tom's Hardware review about the nVidia/P4 performance boost when nVidia began to write in tweaks aimed at the P4? Pretty impressive performance boost. All in all, it's up to you and how much you want to spend.

Good luck!

Current PC Specs of the PC I'm building:
-----------------------------------------
Motherboard: Asus P4T
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 1.7GHz
CPU Cooling: ThermalTake Indigo Orb
Memory: (4) 128MB PC800 Samsung RIMMs
Case: Fong Kai 320 (FK-320) (Thumb Screws)
Power Supply: 350W Enermax
Case Cooling: 120mm Panaflo Intake, 90mm T&T Exhaust
Sound Card: Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Sound Add-On: NewQ Platinum
Video Card: Elsa Gladiac 920 (GeForce3)
TV Card: WinTV To-Go (have)
Hard Drive: IBM 40GB 60GXP Series ATA100 7200rpm
DVDROM: Toshiba 16xDVD/48xCDROM
CDRW: Plextor 16x10x40x
Storage: Mitsumi 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Network Card: 3Com 10/100 w/ Remote Wake Up 3C905C-TX-M
Speakers: Boston Acoustics BA4800 (have)
Monitor: 19" ViewSonic PF790
Mouse: Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer (have)
Keyboard: Microsoft IntelliType Pro (have)

 

[Einz]

totally agree with jamesbond. p4/intel are much less prone to chipset/software problems than AMD. Friend o' mine just got a t-bird 1.33 and a asus a7m266, burnt out his first t-bird cause of improper cooling. p4 might cost a little more, but it's the peace of mind that you're paying for. and no, i'm not intel freak. i use both a p3 and a t-bird. different people like different things, but i feel that the intel's solution is much less worrysome.

 

[jamesbond007]

Einz, thanks for the compliment.

Also, one thing to keep in mind. It seems as if AMD is for the tweaker, a person who doesn't mind updating drivers constantly. I know some people have got Tbirds running off their original CDs, but that's just luck, I guess. I've noticed with some of the Intel setups I've built for people, that you can just install drivers and forget about updating them to make something work better. It won't be uncommon to have one of my buddies call me up and I have to go over to their house to get something to work right on the AMD box. (VIA 4-in-1s, Win2k sux with VIA, IMHO, SBLives >>Santa Cruz) The list goes on and on.

My $0.02

 

[6TNINE]

AMD all the way. they are great. i have an axia 1.2 266 at 1.47 stable. i will kill any p4 1.7 system out there any day of the week. if i were u, i'd pick up one of those new 1.33 ahjka (or something like that) t-birds. they apparently will overclock to 1.6-1.7 easy. just my 2 cents

 

[GundamF91]

depends on your tinkering abilities and will. i dont see how there's less stability with AMD. my 1.2 runs just fine, with the updated drivers and patches. once those are done, everything's just fine.

 

[Axman]

I totally agree with jamesbond007 and Einz go with the Pentium no problems and they work with many chip sets and software AMD's run hotter and and are sometimes uncompatible with some hardware and software, but thats just MHO I could be wrong ;-)

 

[dowxp]

=) [agrees]

 

[sandorski]

AMD. Cheaper, as fast, many times it is faster.

Setup is a breeze, when done correctly. The amount of posts concerning AMD problems, are usually not AMD problems at all, but setup (re: user error)problems.

Heat is rarely a problem, although some people get scared at the temps, they are well within spec.

Hardware/software problems, what would they be? Until the recent SB Live/VIA 686B issue, there were none. That problem is now fixed.(note that the VIA 686B was a new chip. New chip usually = probability of new problems)