64bit amd or p4

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 12:41 am

sheesh, putting together a new system is a headache.
I have been an 'intel guy' ever since having a problem with compatibility on an amd system back in '99. but after reading this article:

http://the-inquirer.net/?article=19110

I'm confused...and a bit out of date. without starting a amd vs intel war, seeing as how I'm trying to put together a system for $1200 or so, does it make any sense to go with a 3.2 p4, instead of a 3.4 amd with 64bit?

--and what would be your mb/cpu recommendations with either?
I was set on this, but I'm doubting my choice atm:
Abit MB IC7 P4 Intel875P Socket478 8MHz 4DDR AGP-Pro8X 5PCI SATA15 wAudio Raid 8USB2. 1394 HT
Intel CPU Pentium 4 3.2E GHz 800MHz Socket478 Prescott
---

I'm very ignorant about this issue. thanks for any help/input!

-RM

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 12:45 am

If you want to play games it makes no sense at all to go with any of the current Intel products, they just can't match the Athlon 64 for performance, and they will never even try to beat AMD on the price point.

Grendel · Post by **Grendel** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 12:50 am

Some people say "AMD" some "Intel", it boils down to personal preferences.. I like to have the CPU & bridges from one big company so I'm using Intel (got burned w/ AMD/VIA/nVidia/whatever). The stuff is pretty much "throw together & forget"

Beware of "The Inquirer" -- it's an internet tabloid..

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 6:05 am

Krom is right, if your just into gaming go AMD.. if your always multitasking/ht ( video/photo editing, music creation, gaming, blah blah) go Intel.

no brainer

AMD = Gaming
INTEL = ALL

So based on your preference ...choose

Iceman · Post by **Iceman** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 8:43 am

I third that ... it is NOT a matter of personal preference, it is a matter of your application. If you need performance for games, number crunching, or visualization purposes then AMD has no real competition. If you need heavy bus bandwidth for work such as video editing and mastering then INTEL wins pretty much hands down.

Don't take my word for it, ask Tom

Ned · Post by **Ned** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 10:09 am

Ready man,

I've had many INtel machines and decided to build my own AMD system last year. It works really well. Definietely the best PC I have owned, hands downs.

Athlon 64
Asus K8V SE deluxe
plain vanilla HD
ASUS CDRW
NEC DVDRW
a did have a cheap power supply blow, and bought an ANTEC

all from www.newegg.com
more info later, if you want, but I bought cheaply and the clock is ticking

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 11:04 am

Iceman wrote:I third that ... it is NOT a matter of personal preference, it is a matter of your application. If you need performance for games, number crunching, or visualization purposes then AMD has no real competition. If you need heavy bus bandwidth for work such as video editing and mastering then INTEL wins pretty much hands down.

Don't take my word for it, ask Tom

Actually, the Athlon 64 939 chips have more bus bandwidth then the P4 now, just look at the various memory bandwidth charts. Overclocked some of the AMD chips are hitting 6 GB/sec actual bandwidth. The P4 wins video encoding because of that clock speed, but the A64 is far more competitive at video encoding then the previous AXP chips were.

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 1:31 pm

Actually, it aint the clock speed of the P4 that kicks A in encoding tasks. It's the pipeline depth of the P4. Because there is effectively almost no branching of the code in encoding tasks, the P4 is able to keep the pipeline full of instructions which means blistering performance on that architecture. The IPC (Intrustions Per Clock) are far far larger than the AMD cores when the pipeline contains no holes.

But let's examine this "P4 wins at encoding tasks" thing. It's not a clear-cut case. The top AMD's are only 10%-15% slower over an encoding task. So that might equate to a couple of minutes. What did you have planned for those extra minutes? Yeah.

Balance this against the fact the AMD 64 rips the P4 line a new one when it comes to gaming, and equals it in ALL business applications. Then combine the release of XP64 bit in June, and there's really no decision top make.

The AMD is the way to go.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 1:56 pm

Almost every major performance improvement to the P4 architecture has come in the form of better branch prediction, always trying to keep that 31 stage pipeline from stalling.

Mobius clock speed is why Intel beats the AMD chips at encoding not IPC, AMD has better IPC then Intel, just look at the numbers in your own post. Intel chips run at about 150% the clock speed of AMD chips but are only 10-15% faster at encoding, and you are trying to tell me the IPC on Intel chips is higher? Yeah... right.

WarAdvocat · Post by **WarAdvocat** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 2:00 pm

It's like even when you agree with Mobius, you have to argue with him!

heh

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 7:13 pm

Thank you for the input.

I dont do much with my pc besides gaming/word processing, online browsing, and some office work (xcel and word). By far, gaming is the prime aspect I'm looking at....tho I'll watch some movies and do a bit of video clipping when I get a dvd player in this upgrade.

do both chips over clock equally well?

and what are your opinions of the mb I chose (do you have a better recommendation?)?

I'm down to chip ram and case at this point.
I'll type up a list of my components when I have made these last 3 choices so that I can be sure to get the "DBB Tech Masters stamp of approval"

fliptw · Post by **fliptw** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 11:30 am

Krom wrote:Almost every major performance improvement to the P4 architecture has come in the form of better branch prediction, always trying to keep that 31 stage pipeline from stalling.

the P4 only has a 31 stage pipeline because of the former intel back-monkey known as Rambus.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 11:41 am

I had to buy some rambus memory for a older P4 system someone wanted upgraded from 256 MB to 768 MB. 512MB of rambus cost as much as 1 GB of PC3200 2-2-2-5 for my system. I hear rambus is a big part of that cell processor thing, makes me wonder just how expensive cell is going to be.

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 3:41 pm

ReadyMan wrote:do both chips over clock equally well?

phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=5538

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 5:57 pm

I read that thread, but the numbers dont make a lot of sense to me. Stress's 1.8 was overclocked to 3.0...?
It also seems like the athlon numbers dont match up to the pentium numbers: ie 3200 = 3.2gb

that being the case, if I get a 3400 amd chip, it's non OC'ed speed is actually about 3.2gb, right? and since the 3400 sells for about the same price as a 3.2 pentium, the price is really the same for the same speed....correct?

Ned · Post by **Ned** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 8:13 pm

Everyone here know more than me, but keep in mind buying a new "generation" of processor is a HUGE change in performance. Buying slightly different clock speeds is very subtle tweeking. Take it from someone who used to edit audio and had to make a long pot of coffee during a track mixdown rendering: its just too subtle to notice

I have an Athlon 64 3000+ and it ran Doom3 like greased butter and cooks away nicely.

Kingston 184 Pin 512MB DDR PC-3200 - Retail
Item# N82E16820141424 qty 2

ASUS "K8V SE Deluxe" K8T800 Chipset Motherboard for AMD Socket 754 CPU -RETAIL
Item# N82E16813131490

AMD Athlon 64 3000+, 512KB L2 Cache 64-bit Processor - Retail
Item# N82E16819103486

that was some months ago

REDDER · Post by **REDDER** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 8:26 pm

I don't go with figures and charts. I go with real time application of processors. I always have high hopes for the AMD systems I buy but am ever disappointed when it comes to using Photoshop on them.

I have an AMD Barton 2500 with 512Meg of RAM. It chokes and freezes on large photoshop files after about 5 actions.

I also have a basic Dell SC400 with a 2.8 P4 and 256 Meg of Ram. It never locks up on any Photoshop file.

Past experience with an AMD 333 verses a P3-450 returned the same results.

I like both equally for everything else. And will not take sides on which is better. I guess it depends on what you use them for.

Ned · Post by **Ned** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 8:45 pm

That is very odd indeed.

Im not up on the software "layer model," but I wonder if adobe was sloppy and wrote towards hardware, rather than logical concepts

Love my AMD and I use photoshop elements, ie levels, layers, transparency, etc.

do what floats your boat. Im not sure you can tell the difference, unless you ask it to find the next Merseine Prime

pATCheS · Post by **pATCheS** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 1:39 pm

The Athlon 64 chips are WAY faster (and more reliable) than the Bartons. I went from a Barton 2600/A7N8X-E Deluxe to an A64 3000+/A8V Deluxe (939 - dual core with only a BIOS update ^^ ), and my HL2DM framerate took a leap into the air with a ~50% increase in framerate... I don't do a whole lot of Photoshop, but it's definitely faster.

Redder, something is severely wrong if any *CPU* is coughing and choking like that. Might be related to heat, or PSU problems, maybe drivers. Hard to say what at this point, but something is very very wrong if it's doing that. heh. Or if you're using Win9x/ME... hehe

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:01 pm

snip--
It also seems like the athlon numbers dont match up to the pentium numbers: ie 3200 = 3.2gb

that being the case, if I get a 3400 amd chip, it's non OC'ed speed is actually about 3.2gb, right? and since the 3400 sells for about the same price as a 3.2 pentium, the price is really the same for the same speed....correct?

--anyone know the answer to this one?

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:11 pm

The 3400 is a model number, not the actual clock speed just like with the nvidia 6600GT. That card obviously doesn't run at 6.6GHz (note the correct unit for frequency, which is in HERTZ not bits or bytes. It amazes me how so many people can get that wrong.). The 6600 is just the model number for the card.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:40 pm

thanks for clearing that up.

So how can I compare processors from amd and pentium for speed besides going to tom's hardware or something?

woodchip · Post by **woodchip** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 6:43 pm

Popular Mechanics in their April issue, built a $7500.00 P.C. In it they used A ASUS A8N SLi delux board with a AMD 64 FX-55

Ned · Post by **Ned** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 7:48 pm

Maybe just buy a news stand magazine for PC geeks or look up "CPU benchmarks" in google.

If they do real world tests, like from business apps or autocad, you will know the capablities. In the old days www.zdnet.com used to have some good reviews

My food store has a HUGE magazine section and there are always a few mags about PC hardware

go to www.newegg.com
under product details you will see clock speeds, cache, etc., for the chips, or use www.dogpile.com and search for "CPU comparison chart" Get creative on it.

When I bought my Athlon they had chips for $150 and chips for $900. Since I am not rendering a movie for pixar or disney, I went for Athlon64 3000. Doom 3, a specification hogging game, plays great.

Comparing the same exact Mhz speed is not logical. They are built differently, thus benchmarks, and your buddy saying, "oh autocad 99.999 works great" is important info. I think mine was about 2 Ghz; the intels were about 3 Ghz at the time and I could have cared less.

The mag I bought, "PC modder," had all kinds of CPUs thrown in all kinds of boards. The scientific approach. Personally, since I had like 10 Intels before, I wanted to see what the fuss was about with AMD. Photoshop, games, 3d simulations, etc. have all been really fast. If you want to rip 3 hr movies into MPEG, etc., it will take some time, as they ALL will.

ReadyMan · Post by **ReadyMan** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 2:15 am

Thanks Ned!
I did a ton of searching/reading.
I found this comment at zipzoomfly.com

AMD is using model numbers rather than clock speeds b/c they say an 1800+ (1.533GHz) is comparable to a 1.8GHz P4.

this tells me what I was trying to understand: basic comparisons in performance.

So the AMD 3400 out performs it's P4 counterpart...meaning the 3.4 cant keep up and apparently neither can the 3.6

REDDER · Post by **REDDER** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 9:05 am

Well I see that ReadyMan wrote "I dont do much with my pc besides gaming/word processing, online browsing, and some office work (xcel and word). By far, gaming is the prime aspect I'm looking at....tho I'll watch some movies and do a bit of video clipping when I get a dvd player in this upgrade." in one of his posts.

It is clear that the AMD or Intel will all work just fine for his needs. I would also go as far as saying that for those tasks a 64 bit chip is not necessary for anything other than gaming and video applications. The internet, MS Word & Excel benefits are negligable with the 64 bit chip.

CPU Speed... We are all aware that the numbers are simply a selling point and actual numbers are still a difficult way to measure performance. To me it comes down to which processor I can afford. Besides... I personally cannot "see" or "experience" any noticable performance boost between say a 2.8 Gig and 3.4 Gig processor. It is more how I "feel inside" knowing I have a newer, faster processor.

As for my Photoshop experiences... Sorry, but the AMD machine works just fine. Temperatures are normal. The unit performs all other tasks without any problems. I point the problem to articles I have read stating that Adobe writes their software for PC platforms and the code is designed around the Intel archtecture and instruction set. I frequently work on files in the 400 to 600 Mb size which is way huge. The larger the file... the faster the AMD's choke.

I am in no way trying to put down AMD's. I use them and often and am pleased with their performance in general. I just notice this anomaly in Photoshop and wanted to point it out.

ReadyMan, you will be pleased with anything you choose. The biggest advantage for AMD is you do get more for your money.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 10:42 am

The difference between a 3200+ Athlon 64 and my overclocked 2.4 GHz Athlon XP is night and day with the same RAM and same fast hard drives, if you can't see the difference you don't need a fast computer.

Mr. Perfect · Post by **Mr. Perfect** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 5:03 pm

ReadyMan wrote:So how can I compare processors from amd and pentium for speed besides going to tom's hardware or something?

You can't. Not really. Sure, a 3400+ supposedly matches a 3.4GHz P4, but in practice the model numbers simply don't work out that way.

For example, when Anandtech ran all the recent CPUs through a round of gaming, you can see that in Doom 3 and UT2004 even the 3.8GHz P4 and the 3.73GHz Extreme chips where outperformed by the 3400+, and the 3.4GHz P4 ends up down around the 3200+. In "Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory" the the 3400+ was in with the two diffrent 3.6GHz P4s and the 3.4GHz P4 was once again down with the 3200+.

If you realy want to know what you're blowing a couple thousand dollars on, you should skim through some benchmarks at Tom's, Anand's, or Xbitlabs and see what's what in the games and programs you're planning on using.