What CPU should i get?

[Spec]

I'm building a whole new comp and i've been out of the loop for awhile
so not sure what type of CPU to get..
AMD or INTEL?
and which one is the best for the buck?

 

[Raspewtin]

did you read articles on athalon, pentium 4 and pentium 3 on Anandtech and Tom's Hardware? Also read Intel and AMD roadmaps.

 

[jsbush]

AMD are the best bang for the buck. If your on a budget go with AMD, you won't regret it.

 

[Hamburgerpimp]

I have to say that is a no-brainer. All AMD CPUs are on average 20%-30% cheaper than their Intel counterparts. And outperform them to boot. And if you are thinking of the P4, don't even waste your time or money. It is just an incomplete CPU rushed to market before it was finished. Go to Tom's Hardware and read the poor benchmarks if you don't believe me. AMD has done their homework.

 

[Muadib]

AMD has the best price to performance ratio. When are you looking to start buying, because things could change.

 

[Deeko]

AMD certainly owns the price/performance war. Don't even bother with a P4 yet...overpriced and underperforming, plus mandatory Rambus.

 

[Grminalac]

I have been looking around myself and it appears the best bang for the buck system would be a 1 ghz thunderbird paired with 256 megs of ram. The t-bird can be had sub 200 and memory is awfully cheap nowadays.
I would steer clear of a p4, and would only reccomend a PIII if you don't mind overclocking and would enjoy having a dual processor setup. The abit dual socket 370 board could be had for less than 160. You could purchase 2 pretested PIII 700's that overclock to 933 and have a fairly powerful win2k setup.
As for myself I will probably purchase a T-bird soon.

 

[BigLance]

Well you know I have an Athlon right now (and its a good CPU) but I got to hand it to Intel for overall being less -pain in the ass- vs AMD. I guess thats what your paying for, not performance, but for reliability and compatibility... Just something to think about-

 

[Ulysses]

BigLance makes a good point. It's not that you should not get an AMD CPU, but rather, if you do get one, then be sure to use an AMD-approved power supply. And use an AMD-approved CPU cooler or the retail one. It is also probably a good idea to get a high quality motherboard, like the MSI (Micro Star) K7t Pro2A (rather than an Abit, say, or a more mediocre board).