AMD Athlon vs P4
 

Getting a bigger machine soon and I need to choose between a 2.5Ghz Athlon and a 2.4Ghz P4. I know the athlons, even if they are 2.5Ghz, their clocked speed is 2.0Ghz.

Machine will need to have about 1GB of ram.

Can't decide what to get... :(
Athlon will end up being cheaper but maybe less performant.
P4 much more expesive but similar or a little increase in performance.

:helpme

The newest p4's leave the latest AMD's far behind. They have far more grunt. Really, if you've got the money, get the p4. Pretty much the only reason to buy an AMD at this stage is to save money.

I have an AMD and it sucks go with the P4 man :winkwink:

I wasn't worried about the price of the CPU as much as the price for the ram for the P4.

Do P4s also work with DDR rather than RAMBUS ?

I heard P4s are loud as a motherfucker though. Don't want to put it in a cupboard due to heat issues

my AMD is xp 2000+ is like a p4 1.6

sure p4 are faster but hell its really unnoticable
something like under 30 seconds doing benchmark
test of say like ripping a DVD

i must disagree about your opinions on athlons... slower athlons outperform p4's in many areas, i know many people have problems with P4's including two of my friends.... i have 4 athlon xp machines running 24/7 never had a single problem with them, and i have 1gb of ram in a few of them too...

if you going to get athlon get a second fan, just my suggestion...

cool. I think on that. Basically reliablity is #1 issues followed by speed, loudness then $.

my AMD is pretty loud,, well its because of that second cooling fan,, i heard it was needed for AMD

P4 3ghz is coming out in 2 weeks.. it supports hyperthreading too

I have an AMD XP 2000 with 4 fans 512 ddr, soyo dragon platinum mobo and some other cool shit.. it rocks, no problems, and i have to reboot about once every 2 weeks.

go with the P4 ,it'll be a lot more stable and reliable... jf you're only using it for a gaming machine you may want to consider the athlon though... good luck! :glugglug

no, just web work and video encoding...
The AMD smoked the P4 in video encoding benchmarks.

How is the P4 more reliable than the AMD ?

with the P4 you're paying for the brand name.... go with the Athlon.

Go with Athlon. With the $400 or so you will be saving, get a SCSI hard drive.

http://firingsquad.gamers.com/

AMD XP 2800+ VS P4 2.5- 2.8
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardwa...ev/default.asp

AMD kicks ass in there reviews on most things. Beats the P4 in a few things, but I think the P4 still took out the games by a few frames per second

But I'm an avid P4 fan, just bought two 2.4 ghz with 1 gig ram and FUCKING LOVE em, I upgraded from a Pentium 450mhz and WOW what a difference. Bummer thing is with RSI in my hands can't play any good games at 300 frames per second :(

Oh well better to get a life than play games all day long I guess.

Sammy

I got both brands (among others).
Dual AMD MP2000 1.67Ghz, 266Mhz FSB, 1G
and
Dual P4/Xeon-2.4GB/512K cache cpu, 2G
(I am assuming you are talking about Xeon)
Tell you the truth - they both strong as hell. Its mostly the memory that makes a difference in my case (even though the P4-Xeon is 2.4 vs 1.67 of the AMD). Mostly a price difference :winkwink:
If my assumption is wrong and you are talking about a non-xeon then I would lean towards AMD. For Dual architecture there is an issue of heat and durability where for higer mission critical systems, Intel may have an advantage in a heat-fan breakdown.
Performance-wise - you can't really compare systems before stating what you want to do with it (and even then..)
One last thing - Everything I say should be read in context - I am talking about a server - not a gaming console. Have no idea about that case.

How is an athlon less stable and reliable, either it works or it doesn't. It's that simple. My 1.3 gig t-bird beats the fuckign pants off a p4 1.8 gig in 3dmark, windstone, everything. And that was when i had pc133 ram :), I have proof sitting in a few jpegs on a cd of benchmark screenshots.... The only advantage P4 has over AXP cpu's is the fact that they have more cache. But even then, comparing an Intel to an AMD is liek comparing a Motorola gs eries with an Intel, totaly diferent. Except in this case, both chips can understand the same code.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is "RSI" ?

ATHLON XP
and they have an MP model out now too?

I run a 1900+ with gig of ram , quiet as hell, and totally reliable
, my last system was a DURON , not half as stable as the athlon

I would go with amd .. .

:thumbsup

I always thought AMD was cheaper because it was less performant or because it had unstable issues. Maybe 4-5 years ago, it had some minor problems, if that's even true. I always bought Intel chips.

I finally decided to give it a try a couple of months a go, I now own an Athlon XP 1800+ with an ASUS A7V333, and it simply rocks. No problems whatsoever and saved a lot of cash. Used that cash to buy memory.

RSI = repetitive strain injury

Depending on where the injury is its something that you never really recover from - if you have it in your hands then I guess you just have to learn to live with the pain and impaired movement.

Athlon rocks - I still render video on a 750.

P4 is not fastest... it handels RAM better, yes - but is behind AMD in so many other places. If you build it right, a AMD XP2200 wil BLOW away a P4.. I build videoediting systems all day, so I know about cpu-power :winkwink:

Look at this benchmark i did...
http://212.97.207.121/posen/001.jpg

thats a XP2000.. yes and it runs at 1,667Ghz.. and it STILL kicks Intell ass..... If you want to buy a motherfuckersystem from me.. send me a mail to kh "at" mci.dk and I'll make you a sweeeeet offer

RSI = repetitive strain injury

YEP thats it, I had a small car crash which injured my shoulder years ago and with working 12-14 hours a day and then finishing work to play 6 hours of games before bed, well lets just say it fucked my shoulder real bad and I now have to strech lots of arm and shoulder muscles each day just to be able to use the computer for a few hours.

I also have a slight carpol tunnel going on in my wrist but nothing major.

Tell the truth its getting better slowly, never be near what it was but if I can do normal works hours with the streching I'll be happy.

I word for the wise, treat your body like a temple cause its depressing as hell when it don't work the way it should.

Sammy

ebus dk knows what he is talking about.

I have both an amd and a p4 and man, the amd beats the p4 hands down. Both are running 512ddr.. xp 2000 and a p4 2.4ghz.

the p4 literally CRAWLS compared to the athlon (ok, so I am exaggerating a little bit - but not much!)... and yes, I spent the $$ and bought good quality shit...

It's simply the cpou architecture I think. The amd is so simple and that makes it surpass the pentiums.. the pentiums NEED all that cache to just stay competitive.

Yes, the latest benchmarks show the latest P4's beat out the amd - true. BUt how long till nforce2 comes out? and not much after that the clawhammer comes out... :)

I had an Athlon@2GB and it was a pain in the ass.. it crashed all time. I changed coolers, motherboards... I tried all possible things to make it work acceptable...
Now I have a P4 at 1.8 with 512 RIMMM and it's a delight... I don't give a fuck that an athlon is 10% faster and $200 cheaper as long as it's unstable...

I LOVE AMD :)

that has NOTHING with the brand of the cpu.
Every kid can buy motherboard x and cpu y.. but that dosent make it a good mashine.
For AMD you should use Tyan and Biostar motherboards with the 760 chipset.. and NOTHING else (and it dosent cost more)... the rest is budget stuff

AMD RULES

4 in 5 idiots agree! :thumbsup

oohh.. its him again... did you sell some makebelive 300k TGP's lately ?