# AMD Atholon or Intel Pentium 4?



## Fetch_Man (Jul 27, 2004)

Hey all I'm going to buy my first custom-built computer with this processor, and I was wondering what you think is better. Amd or Intel? So far, I'm going with Intel, because I'm not much of a gamer. I will mainly be using this computer for programming and webdesign + graphics design.

Let me know what you think. Thanks.


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

I'd take an Athlon over a Pentium. I am not so sure about an Atholon though. 

All joking aside, it is more of a preference thing. If you like Intel, buy one.


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## Gabriel (May 2, 2003)

I have an Athlon and have had this PC for about 4 years now.....it seems very stable if that's the right word, and I'm told it will probably be fine if I do all the right things with maintaining my PC....I'll be getting a laptop in the future, and want a Pentium processor, but just because I have an Athlon already


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## dannyboyfx (Nov 19, 2003)

i would go for the 64 over the athlons. pentiums have been better for multi-tasking, so i would go with them.


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

dannyboyfx said:


> i would go for the 64 over the athlons. pentiums have been better for multi-tasking, so i would go with them.


 Heh heh, I just ordered an Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego today along with a few other goodies. I was going to go with a 3800+ but I wanted the 1 meg L2.

I am going to be like a little kid on Christmas eve until the stuff gets here.  I burned some of our tax refund to get it so I hope it is worth it.


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## Fetch_Man (Jul 27, 2004)

Can you all tell me *why* you are getting AMD's instead of Intel though?


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## Big-K (Nov 22, 2003)

I'm an AMD guy

*It's All About The Pentiums, by Weird Al Yankovic*
It's all about the Pentiums, baby
Uhh, uh-huh, yeah
Uhh, uh-huh, yeah
It's all about the Pentiums, baby
It's all about the Pentiums, baby
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
Yeah

What y'all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?
Workin' at a desk with a dumb little placard?
Yeah, payin' the bills with my mad programming skills
Defraggin' my hard drive for thrills
I got me a hundred gigabytes of RAM
I never feed trolls and I don't read spam
Installed a T1 line in my house
Always at my PC, double-clickin' on my mizouse
Upgrade my system at least twice a day
I'm strictly plug-and-play, I ain't afraid of Y2K
I'm down with Bill Gates, I call him "Money" for short
I phone him up at home and I make him do my tech support
It's all about the Pentiums, what?
You've gotta be the dumbest newbie I've ever seen
You've got white-out all over your screen
You think your Commodore 64 is really neato
What kinda chip you got in there, a Dorito?
You're usin' a 286? Don't make me laugh
Your Windows boots up in what, a day and a half?
You could back up your whole hard drive on a floppy diskette
You're the biggest joke on the Internet
Your database is a disaster
You're waxin' your modem, tryin' to make it go faster
Hey fella, I bet you're still livin' in your parents' cellar
Downloadin' pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar
And postin' "Me too!" like some brain-dead AOL-er
I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller
You're just about as useless as jpegs to Hellen Keller

It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)

Now, what y'all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?

Uh, uh, loggin' in now
Wanna run wit my crew, hah?
Rule cyberspace and crunch numbers like I do?
They call me the king of the spreadsheets
Got 'em printed out on my bedsheets
My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box
You say you've had your desktop for over a week?
Throw that junk away, man, it's an antique
Your laptop is a month old? Well that's great
If you could use a nice, heavy paperweight
My digital media is write-protected
Every file inspected, no viruses detected
I beta tested every operation system
Gave props to some, and others? I dissed 'em
While your computer's crashin', mine's multitaskin'
It does all my work without me even askin'
Got a flat-screen monitor forty inches wide wide
I believe that your says "Etch-A-Sketch" on the side
In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user
You've got your own newsgroup, "alt.total-loser"
Your motherboard melts when you try to send a fax
Where'd you get your CPU, in a box of Cracker Jacks?
Play me online? Well, you know that I'll beat you
If I ever meet you I'll control-alt-delete you
What? What? What? What? What?

It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
Now, what y'all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?
What??


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## Fetch_Man (Jul 27, 2004)

Why don't you like Intel?


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## Deathblow (Oct 7, 2003)

My take on this is always for reliability go with Intel, for most bang for buck, go with AMD.


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

One other thing to think about is upgrading. The next Intel I bet will not be able to go on the motherboard you have now as they change things so much. With the AMD you can use the same motherboard for a upgraded processor longer.


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## Tumbleweed36 (Feb 13, 2004)

Hi,

Actually, if you have owned both, you won't find a whole lot of differences. My experience has been that AMD is generally quicker in most cases, but Intel is generally less likely to crash over the long haul. Both are excellent and reliable platforms, so it is like the old lady that kissed the cow. "Everyone to their own taste." You won't get consensus on this issue and it is kind of like "do you like a Chevy or a Ford." Each person has their personal preferences to choose from two great products and you have to choose for yourself. 

What I do with my personal machines is build an AMD one time and the Pentium the next. That way, I always have my main computer as one and my spare computer as the other brand. So, I like them both.


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## Space Cowboy (Apr 19, 2005)

hewee said:


> One other thing to think about is upgrading. The next Intel I bet will not be able to go on the motherboard you have now as they change things so much. With the AMD you can use the same motherboard for a upgraded processor longer.


Good point. I've been runnin AMD for around 6 years with no problems at all. My current rig allows me to update like crazy so I should be all set for at least a couple years anyhow.


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

Yes that is one nice thing about AMD Space Cowboy. With every new version of Intel you have to or may have to get a motherboard.


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## Big-K (Nov 22, 2003)

Morphia said:


> Why don't you like Intel?


I don't hate intel, I just use AMD.


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

I don't use Intel because I like AMD chips better. The fact that Intel is trying to bully AMD out of the OEM market doesn't do anything for me either. Go to a bestbuy or crapusa and count the AMD machines that are on the shelves. 

This isn't because Intel rules over AMD, it is because of bullying and threats to the OEM builders. It is just dirty pool. Intel is the big boy on the block and doesn't want AMD to get a piece of the pie. Check out the 90 nm chips. The Prescotts run hotter than a firecracker while the AMD 90 nm chips are running cooler than the 130 nm chips did. AMD did their homework and figured a way to get their 90 nm chips to run on less power therefore causing less heat transfer to the chip. This also means if you are an overclocker you can get more out of the chip without frying it.

I am not a huge OC freak but I like the fact if I want to run my 2200 mhz chip at 2500 mhz it won't require a $250 water cooling rig to do it.


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## Space Cowboy (Apr 19, 2005)

Skivvywaver,

So what do I have to do to bump up my CPU from 2200 mhz to 2500 mhz.  Do I have to bump up the voltage or just play with the timing?

Thanks
Cowboy


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## Gabriel (May 2, 2003)

Yes, the friend that worked on my PC, liked it a lot that I had AMD.....he told me upgrades would be easier and I would have it a long time.......oh gooody.....because I love my PC.


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

Space Cowboy said:


> Skivvywaver,
> 
> So what do I have to do to bump up my CPU from 2200 mhz to 2500 mhz.  Do I have to bump up the voltage or just play with the timing?
> 
> ...


 The easiest way to OC if you have the ram that can handle it is to bump the FSB up a little at a time until you get instability. Then you bump your vcore and ram 1 voltage step and see if it becomes stable. If it does you go back to bumping the FSB again, watching your temperatures constantly. Prime95 is an excellent tool for checking heat and stability issues.

You can also loosen your ram timings if you get errors. My 2400+ for example would hit 2.2 ghz buy upping the FSB to 400 and using an 11 multiplier. Not all 2400+ chips can do it, most will. The higher FSB gives you some extra oomph in games and benches.

It is very important that your board have AGP and PCI lock. If it doesn't you end up overclocking your slots and that is not good. All nforce 2 boards have AGP and PCI lock. That is why they are a favorite with overclockers.

Still it mostly comes down to your ram. You won't push PC 2100 to anything near a 400 FSB, some 2700 ram will do it if you loosen the timings enough and raise the voltage. The best way is to have the 3200 ram to begin with.


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## Dude044 (Dec 23, 2004)

Started witn Intel ,needed to upgrade and changed athlon can't see me changing back.


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## cheese (Jun 22, 2003)

Me and a buddy a few months ago had virtually the same machine, just he had the P4 2.4ghz and i have the AMD Athlon 2500+, and he had a better video card. During games i would always load up faster and such. I know theres more factors contributing then just that, but his CPU was around $50-$70? more then mine.


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## Space Cowboy (Apr 19, 2005)

Thanks Skivvywaver,
I've been lookin for some sort of explanation on overclockin this AMD64. I overclocked my Intel 166 mhz but that was awhile ago. Never had any problems back then. I've been playin with the video card timing and Ram voltage but just takin it slow. It will be nice to have this post to look at when I'm ready to go for it. Ckick On "Master Control" below. I think you'll see why I'm not in a big hurry. :up: 

Thanks Again
Cowboy


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## cheese (Jun 22, 2003)

Overclocked Intel 166mhz, man i bet that was an unchained beast


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## Space Cowboy (Apr 19, 2005)

Like I said .. it's been awhile .. I think I got it to run around 180 mhz or so.


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## cheese (Jun 22, 2003)

Talk about speed demon


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## Fetch_Man (Jul 27, 2004)

Ok so you guys are saying that AMD is better then? gotcha.


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## Tumbleweed36 (Feb 13, 2004)

Hi,

I think to say they are better is a stretch. However, there are some good reasons (unless you have deep pockets) to choose AMD over Intel. Like I said earlier, I alternate what I build for me personally. The one I am about to build is an AMD 64 Winchester 3500. I presently have a Pentium 4 2.8 Northwood. The AMD just makes more sense in this stage of development.


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## Fetch_Man (Jul 27, 2004)

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1213196&Sku=MBM-K8T-3400A

^ do you think that is a good processor+Motherboard then?


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

Not really. The socket 754 has reached the end of the line. You would be better off with a socket 939. Socket 939 also has dual channel capabilities, the 754 doesn't.


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1229524&CatId=1619

Much better, same price.


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## Fetch_Man (Jul 27, 2004)

Thanks, looks like a good one.

What are these "sockets" and what are differences between them?


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

754 has hit the end of the road. The 3700+ is the end of the line. The 754 also only ran in single channel mode. It was a single channel design.

939 is here to stay for the foreseeable future, the new chips are arriving for it and there are projected releases for this entire year and well into 06. 939 runs in dual channel mode giving you twice the memory bandwidth making the whole rig much faster. 

You do need 2 or more sticks of ram to run dual channel though. I run two 512 sticks as I really don't see any benefit of running more than a gig of ram. You can survive on two 256 strips but with a 64 bit chip I'd feel better with a gig.


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

I knew I had read the dirty pool by Intel somewhere.  I ran across it again tonight.

http://www.asahi.com/english/business/TKY200503090124.html


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## dannyboyfx (Nov 19, 2003)

Dad asked me to upgrade his computer, which is an office machine. think of those types of applications. firefox (4 tabs), outlook, solitiare, word, excel and a virus and firewall running. on XP

He wants to get motherboard and processor for about 100 bucks and it will be used rarely, so it dosnt need to be too fast.

We went to newegg, and were looking at sempron, or celeron. Which one. there arent too many cpu charts that discuss the differences between a celeron D and a sempron. socket A and 478, probably with 512mb of ram.


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

http://www.newegg.com/OldVersion/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=19-103-417&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/OldVersion/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-135-148&depa=1

OK, for $115 you can get a Barton 2600+ which will kick the snot out of any Sempron socket A and an ECS mobo.

You can buy cheaper mobos, but you don't want to get too cheap or you might just regret it.

If you buy the Barton you will get 2x the L2 which is always nice.

The Sempron is just a chopped Athlon XP. I wouldn't take one if they were giving them away. Same goes for the Celeron. Budget processor.


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## Clumbsy_Mage (Oct 21, 2004)

Big-K, thankyou very much for introducing me to one the Weird Al' songs I was previously unaware of, a song I've been looking for but I didn't know it xD.

AMD4tw (Yes I probably am a fanboy), currently running a weeny Sempron 3100+ 754 socket.

Edit:



> The Sempron is just a chopped Athlon XP. I wouldn't take one if they were giving them away. Same goes for the Celeron. Budget processor.


You only say that because you buy the vastly more higher end chips, the Sempron's a perfectly fine CPU, runs everything I throw at it and doesn't lag...


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

He is looking at a socket A sempron. There is a difference. He is also looking for a board and processor for about $100. Find him a 754 Sempron and a board for the price he stated. 

You are right, I buy better chips but a sempron socket a is along the lines of a celeron. They are slow and very laggy. The L2 cache is chopped. 

I just installed my 3700+ San Diego yesterday. Wanna talk about nothing stopping a processor?  This thing is a beast.


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## Fetch_Man (Jul 27, 2004)

is AMD Atholon XP the best Atholon processor?


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

No, the Athlon 64 939 pin processors are the best right now. They are expensive though unless you get like a 3000+. That is the bargain of the 64 line right now. There are slower and less expensive ones, but the 3000+ is the best bargain for the money.


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## mobo (Feb 23, 2003)

I would also go with the 64 bit, l2 cache 2 meg chip. That is beating all chips now in benchmarks hands down.


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

My chip is smokin at stock vcore. This thing is awesome. It is like a bulldozer, absolutely nothing bogs it down. I have only been running it for a short time. I haven't even found the max OC at stock voltage yet. Right now I am at 220 mhz over stock with the stock vcore and stock cooling. I don't go over 48*C on prime95 torture test. 

Of course the first thing I did was scrape off the thermal pad and lay a bit of AS5 to the core. I'll cool down more if I ever let the chip cool down.  I have been torturing it every night since I got it in one way or another. Memtest86 last night, the night before it was prime95. Tomorrow it may just be MS memtest. I am making sure everything is up to snuff. I don't want to find out 6 months down the road.


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## mobo (Feb 23, 2003)

Good idea..Too much cash to go up in smoke..


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

mobo said:


> Good idea..Too much cash to go up in smoke..


  I purposely bought ram that would limit me. I know me like nobody else knows me. 

Hmmmm, I could run a divider.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Hi Scott 

Think you might like this link:
http://www.amdcompare.com/us-en/desktop/

Check out the dual core AMD specs


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

I know Jack. Man I just dropped a bundle on this rig. Duallies are going to be expensive at first and with low clock speeds.

I do have a 939 board so who knows what the future holds??  I am totally loving this chip though. It is a benchmark crusher right now.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

One day I'm going to have to build my own.
I'm still back in the early P3 era


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

Does the P3 serve your purpose? If so the hell with upgrading.

I game and love to keep up with the Jone's. Right now I am at #18 at http://forums.amd.com/index.php?showtopic=34844 under the alias of Max Payne. 

I just get into being one of the top machines in the country.  LOL 17 people have beaten me so far and I haven't really OC'd the chip yet. I am also not running a top of the line video card sooooooo. 

Let the Chicken run it. Then we will see what a Mac can do. LOL


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

I'm getting close to the edge of usefulness.
I'm using 98se and it's memory management is becoming an issue the more things I discover I want to do.
Voice recognition eats a lot of memory and resources. And 9x doesn't like to give it up when I close it.
But I think this machine just doesn't have the umph to run win2k , VR, PSP8, Firefox with 6 or 7 tabs open plus all the other whims of the day and still be responsive.
Might have to build a boxen this summer 
Kinda been waiting to see what dual core brings and see how low 'yesterdays' cutting edge costs ( I'm cheap ....and proud of it :up: ) after dual core becomes the in thing.


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## mobo (Feb 23, 2003)

Building is reall not hard at all, its done one component at a time and most of the time you save money compared to retail.


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

I hear ya Jack. Look at how long I went before buying into the 64 bit processor. When I saw the San Diego on newegg for $339 I jumped. A cool running 90 NM processor with a one meg L2 cache was just irresistible.

It still only has a 2.2 ghz stock speed though I can still CRUSH the Pentium 4 extremes. I can show you benchmarks that will prove this. I know you really don't want to see sandra benches, but if you do??? 

Dual cores are going to be great, but just like everything else let somebody else beta test and wait for the prices to drop and the core speeds to go up.

I am a great waiter but I am still at #18 in the country on an AGP 6800GT. Some of the guys that beat me are running SLI rigs which should be separate. No way I can compete with a dual card setup. LOL, I beat some of them.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

I think the best part is being able to have control of the quality of the components.
I've replaced several el-cheapo parts in my Gateway that didn't fail right off, but kept me guessing for a while.


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## mobo (Feb 23, 2003)

The best advice would be to pre design then wait till you are able to purchase what you want without settling for something of lesser quality because you will appreciate it more later..


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

Stoner said:


> I think the best part is being able to have control of the quality of the components.
> I've replaced several el-cheapo parts in my Gateway that didn't fail right off, but kept me guessing for a while.


 Yep.


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

Stoner said:


> I think the best part is being able to have control of the quality of the components.
> I've replaced several el-cheapo parts in my Gateway that didn't fail right off, but kept me guessing for a while.


 Like right now I am wishing I would have went for the true power 550 watt? My PSU is doing fine but I would really rather have more of a "comfort" rating.

My rig needs 360 watts and I have 430 watts. 550 would make me feel better. At leaast I have an Antec. Whew!!!!


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

I follow this site which often configures an assymblage of several classes of computers. The parts lists change about every 4 months or so.
The 'Hot Rod' version is the one that interests me, but with a tv tuner card instead:
http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/system-guide-200504.ars/3

Things change,  , but what are your opinions on this one.


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

That machine sounds awesome. I don't think you will beat the price. The only thing different from my system is you would have a 512 mb cache vs my 1 MB cache. In gaming and general apps the 1 MB cache can be a bummer, it depends on the bench of course. 

My 3Dmark01 score is in excess of 25000 points. That is the L2 speaking, nobody with a lower L2 can touch it.

Now, for actual gaming and the rest of the benches in this world a 3500+ is just slightly under a 3700+. 

If you can afford it I would strongly suggest a 4000+ San Diego. That chip is guarenteed to crush the FX53. Me, I am poor and I know that if I buy an early San Diego that I will be right up front. AMD has a way of releasing chips and then them slowing down after the hype, ala the XP2500+. 

My chip with the proper ram will do 2800 mhz on AIR!! Think hard Jack. Don't buy a prebuilt board and processor. If you need help I am a PM away. I mean it. :up:


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

I'm not interested in another branded box.
I'm not a gamer, but for the extra cash now, I don't forsee me needing a machine more powerful than that one, and if so, dual core should be cheap by the time I did need it 

Some of the hardware in that list, I really don't need. So the cost would be very reasonable.
I have tinitus so the cheap $5 sound card I have in a drawer, works for me 
I have a nice Dell trinitron 17" monitor...so that's another savings.
Don't need a DVD writer, already have a DVD player and CD writer...so more savings
Speakers, mouse and k-board already have.

Looking at the numbers, about $1100 + windows.
That's a whole lot less than what my gateway cost 5+ years ago! And built to use right away. The gateway came with 64mb memory, 10 gig hd and a cd player


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

And thanks for the offer ...........:up:


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## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

LOL, it is all cool. Make sure to get a 90nm chip. It doesn't matter what speed. 

Google and ye shall find. :up:


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