Why are people still building AXPs?

[sisooktom]

Not a flame, I'm just curious. It seems as if the A64 is almost as cheap right now, considering we have sub $100 motherboards and that the 2800+ is only like ~$170 at newegg. I'm building a system soon and was just wondering why the AXP is still so popular? Are the boards a lot better? Does sound storm make that much of a difference? I really like the idea of going 64 bit, and figure most enthusiasts would too, what am I missing?

 

[MichaelD]

You can buy a $75 XP processor that overclocks like stink and runs like a $200 processor, that's why.

The 2800 A64 is not all that great. Only 512mb of cache and the clockspeed ain't all that. Now, if you're talking A64 3200+ and up, that's a diff story.

Also, I'll add this. If you have an "older" rig right now, say a P4 1.6GHz, 256mb ram or an AMD TBird rig, I would definitely say upgrade to a "real" A54 rig, like a 3200+ w/1GB of ram.

But for me, running an overclocked XP rig at 2+GHz, 1GB PC3200, 9800Pro, it's not financially feasable at this time for me to upgrade. And it would be dumb to spend all that money on a A64 2800+ rig that MIGHT net me another 10% in performace.

 

[sisooktom]

I guess I can see why the overclocker likes the AXP, especially since until lately ocing an A64 was problematic. I'm not sure I agree with your assessment regarding the 512k cache on the 2800 & 3000 though. I'm looking at a 3000+ because most all of the reviews I've read claim the smaller cache on it has little to no detrimental effect on performance. Isn't the 3000+ considered the best bang for the buck A64?

 

[Zap]

Simple reason, really. *Most people* don't need more performance and would rather spend less.

*Most people* = anyone and everyone who purchases a computer. Sure, most of us who hang out at a hardware enthusiast site like here would pay more for more performance, but the rest of the purchasing population don't think like you and I.

Besides that, there's a whole legion of people even at enthusiast sites who like good VALUE? for some overclocking fun. Why buy a Celeron 300A when you can buy a faster Pentium II 450? Why buy a Pentium 4 1.6A when you can buy a faster Pentium 4 2.4? Why buy an Athlon XP 1700+ TbredB when you can buy a faster Athlon XP 2400+?

 

[will889]

I think it's because most people with K7 units know that they can still run any game with an ATi9700/9800/XT if they have a gig of ram, and the fact that the (read:revised) A64 boards with socket 939 pins aren't the rage yet, and ... they don't want to make 2 or possibly 3 quick total upgrades. In other words to not buy a socket 754 board, then turn right around ad be jonsin' the newer socket 939 boards, and make a total switch out again. Imo It's better for many to just ride out the A64 storm until you see a leveling out effect much like the XP series in midstream was. many of these people with A64 754 pin motherboards will just move right into the 939 series, and that cost alot more than just riding it out with K7, possibly selling the 9700 Pro you got for a 9800 XT, and adding another stick of DDR400 (if you only have 512), then getting the socket 939 pin after it has been out for a while and has really come into it's own (so to speak). It's simply smarter imo. Any game will run fine with XP2400-3200 with a very good video card and enough ram. Plenty of time to let A64 mature more. I have decided to wait about 6 months at least.

 

[skiddy]

Originally posted by: MichaelD
You can buy a $75 XP processor that overclocks like stink and runs like a $200 processor, that's why.

There you go. If I wanted the best of the best I would get a A64 or high end P4. But why do that when you can get a $70-100 chip, overclock it and near the performance of the high end chips? The fact that my $90 2.5ghz barton can hang with a $250+ Intel 3.2ghz in some aspects is just amazing IMO.

 

[Peter]

Further down the ladder, one can get a complete socket-A set, mainboard w/ onboard everything, CPU, fan/heatsink, for well below $100. Athlon-64 has not come anywhere near that price range yet.

 

[3LEMENT0]

I was set to get AMD64 but changed my mind coz:

1. No stable system for A64 yet (Don't wanna be a guinea pig)
2. Softwares are nowhere to be found. Most in Beta stage. I'll give it 3 years to mature.
3. Not much components yet. Few MB's around...
4. Dual Channel and PCI Express are still
5. I want a machine right now that's been around the block and most bugs have been fixed.

But I might upgrade next year or so again probably when everything is out and price/perf is good.

 

[will889]

My thoughts exactly. That's why I decided to wait. For all of the hoopla, it's no faster than the P4C really. On high end 3D aps it is, but the P4 still owns the memory benchmarks and is a better overall solution imo.

 

[CraigRT]

nothing wrong with stability at all.. read some of the reviews, they are dead solid most of the time! the 2nd gen chipsets are already out, and they are looking great!

 

[piasabird]

First of all I do not do any overclocking, and I always buy a little behind the top end. In reality an XP2800 or XP3000 is plenty fasts to run any video game out there. Why do you feel the need to have a P4 3.4 or 3.6 Gig processor? Can you really justify paying for that?

 

[jagec]

I'm running AXP since my $77 proc is currently beating out a 2.2 Opteron in Sandra Arithmetic.

 

[coolred]

Ahh, I am still debating which way to go. If it wasn't for the fact that the upcoming MSI K8N Neo platinum has a great layout for the case I plan to use(antec overture) it would help my decision. But man that MB just looks custom made for that case.