Your honest opinion on upgrade; AMD or INTEL?

[VFAA]

My buddy is into graphics design and he's looking to upgrade his processor/motherboard to suit his needs (Adobe Photoshop / Premiere and a lot of CAD and animation programs).

He doesn't have a lot $ to spend either but he needs the best processor he can get for the job. Now I don't know who makes best processors for graphics, AMD or Intel, so I told him I'd ask the pros here on AT. He's looking at AMD XP 1800+ and up, and Intel P4 1.6GHz and up. What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance;

 

[Vinny N]

What does he currently have for a system? Is he planning on selling his old system or will he be able to salvage parts if it's convenient?

Try to get an exact $ amount as to what your friend wants to spend or some other minimum requirements in the system.

 

[VFAA]

Right now he's got a Intel P3 733MHz system, 512MB of SDRAM & Elsa Gladiac GeForce3 (original) video card. He's willing to spend a maximum of $350 USD on upgrade for a processor and motherboard. He already has 512MB of DDR memory as he mentioned he'd rather go DDR.

I believe he wants to keep his old parts to build another system some time.

 

[Fatt]

I don't know everything there is to know, so forgive me if this sounds silly, but based on use and budget, maybe a high end video card might be a good idea?

More ram maybe?

 

[VFAA]

Well his 733MHz processor isn't taking all the advantage of the Geforce3 card. He'd rather upgrade his processor as 733MHz is not enough for rendering some larger movies and images. I think if he upgraded to ie. Geforce4 Quadro or similar he wouldn't see that much difference. You still need a high end processor to drive these video card beasts .

 

[RanDum72]

For $350, he could go with an XP 2400+ (provided he can wait) or if he wants it right now, 2200+ XP and a motherboard.

 

[Vinny N]

What does he currently have for a power supply?

$350 sounds like it'll net a decent AMD or Intel solution, but not if you also need a new beefier, high quality power supply :Q

 

[VFAA]

I belive he's got some generic 250W or 300W PS. If he needs one than I guess it should be added to the list, sacrificing of processor power a bit.

But remember, he stays in Adobe and CAD programs most of the time. He needs something that drives these apps good.

 

[Wolfsraider]

my advice
read the articles on the front page and in others benchmarks for the specific graphic design needs
link 1 link 2 link 3

hope this helps
mike

 

[Vinny N]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/cpu/athlon-xp-2600/

Don't forget to check out these benchmarks...the most interesting is the Lightwave one, Intel recommends the Raytracing one, and no surprise it looks like the winner there. However, try a different render, and AMD CPUs come out on top...

Also note the Maya benchmark (which isn't optimized for any CPUs), the AMD processors come out on top...

 

[vm]

I work in graphic design as well.

currently I have a tbird 1.1ghz/geforce3/512mb pc133

and i'll tell you..it's all about the RAM.

if I was him i'd get a slower CPU, but get alot of RAM.

(say an XP 1800+, 640mb of RAM, + mobo)

 

[VFAA]

Hey guys, thanks a lot for help . He read the articles you provided and I believe he has set his mind on a XP 1800+ or XP 1900+ and 1024MB of RAM .

 

[Bovinicus]

For Adobe Photshop/Premiere, the performance will be similar between an Athlon XP and a similarly priced Intel P4. The results should slightly favor AMD, especially as one climbs the clockspeed ladder and Intel needlessly overcharges for their higher end chips.

The AMD Athlon XP handily beats the Intel Penitum 4 in 3DS Max5, and even more so in Maya.

Under SSE2 optimized applications, the Pentium 4 destroys the Athlon XP. Lightwave 7.5 is one such application.

 

[Siddhartha]

Originally posted by: VFAA
Hey guys, thanks a lot for help . He read the articles you provided and I believe he has set his mind on a XP 1800+ or XP 1900+ and 1024MB of RAM .

I am curious, is he going to increase his budget or is he going to stay with SDRAM?

 

[VFAA]

Hehe he actually saved $20 . He bought a AMD XP 1800+, ABIT KR7A-133 and some brand name PC2100 512MB DDR stick. He already had another PC2100 512MB DDR stick at home as he bought it some 2 months ago .
He did his shopping here CanadaComputers.com for fairly cheap .

This is his new system:
AMD Athlon XP 1800+
ABIT KR7A-133
PC2100 1024MB DDR
Elsa Gladiac GeForce3

 

[ElFenix]

for a lot of graphics cards the drivers aren't good enough to handle AutoCAD and programs of that nature. you can check autodesk for their list of cards that meet their standards.