Techie Processor Question

[col]

I'm planning to upgrade soon.

Where do you stand on the P4 / Athlon+ debate?

I cant decide which wa y to go. Current fav is Athlon XP+2500 with Barton core + Abit NF7S mobo combo.

Thoughts?

[ProPain]

I'm looking for a new comp and have the same problem. Figured out that AMD 2800 means it's actually 2.08 GHZ, kinda confusing.

I'm wondering: are the AMD processors really 100% compatible?

[Skyfish]

Am more a fan of Intel P4 jsut because it works better with an MS environnment, the 2.8 one :D Isnt there a 3.01Ghz out ?
Athlon is better for heavy graphics program though I heard (like first person shooters).
What video card have you got ? Often a very good video card is a better investment than the top of the range latest processor...

[col]

I currently have a 700 PIII but my motherboard is showing its age. I just bought an 80Gb HD and discovered that the mobo can only handle un to 32Gb. So its time to put it to rest.

I currently run a Matrox G400Max card. Not great 3D but still arent many better 2D cards around.

I dont wanna be on the cutting edge but at the point where prices really drop and you get the most bang for your bucks. So that rules out the Athlon 64 for a while.

[Sir Eric]

I just recently upgraded my celery 533 to an Athlon XP 2600.
I think that the N-force2 chipset is the better one over the KT400's or if you can afford it the more expensive KT 600's. I have a MSI N-force2 mobo that is N-Forec2.
When I was looking for this mobo I found that it comes with intergrated G-Force4 graphics (32Mb of system memory) which is more then enough for civ. (it's not quite G-force4 but it aint too far off).

[digger760]

The latest P4's outperform the AMD, i built my own AMD system, but only cos it was cheaper.

AMD system architecture used to be such that an AMD processor might only be 1.3Mhz but it would perform as well as a 1.6Ghz Pentium processor so they named them XP1600. IT was all due to AMD having a faster Front Side Bus...the thing that accesses the RAM..they also had a large internal cache, so the processot was'nt slowed down accessing stuff in RAM all the time.

But somewhere in the XP2000 range Intel caught up with bus speed and internal cache.

Now its a decision based on cost only, AMD is much cheaper.

The new P4 3.2Ghz processor is supposed to be designed towards gaming, it has a massive internal cache. i would go for that.

[Plux]

First of all, if you're only into strat games such as Civ and don't care for first person shooters or other heavy 3D-games, then you don't really need to upgrade your videocard. cpu cycles are much more important. That said, if money is no issue and you want just the fastest CPU there is, then you want one of the top P4-processors (eg 3,2GHz), as they outrun every AMD-cpu there is. If you do need to keep the hand on your wallet, then you want AMD. In the middle and lower CPU-segment, they definitely bring more bang for the buck. At this moment, I think the cutting edge lies with the AMD 2600+. If you really don't want to spend too much, I can recommend the L7S7A2 motherboard from ECS, it's rock stable for a very good price. The other best option would be an nForce2-board (nForce2 is the name of the chipset it uses), but that already costs quite a bit more.

If you only need to upgrade because of the 80GB hd, there are several tools that can make your motherboard recognize large disks. Have you tried Maxblast for instance? http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/maxblast3.htm)

[smalltalk]

Usually, I'd recommend AMD; like Plux said, they deliver more bang for the buck.

OTOH, Athlons produce lots of excess heat and need big coolers. They can be annoyingly loud.

[col]

Ok Athlon + mobo + 1Gb of memory ordered. I would have liked to have gone the P4 route but it worked out about 50% more expensive for a similar spec.

Thanks for all the advice, guys

[Matrix]

I'm a big fan of AMD. I myself have a Duron 850 and never had any troubles with it (my computer sometimes seems the most compatible computer in history) and it's very fast considering it's price.

I don't have much knowledge about the rest though.

[col]

Yeah - my wife's computer has a Duron that seems to take everything she throws at it.