AMD or Intel

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endlesszeal

Senior Member
Hello fellow computer geeks. Im helping my brother's gf build a computer. Im not to sure what to use, but if it was for me, i was thinking a AMD 64 3200+ process with an ASUS mobo. However, its not for me, so i need some opinions.
First of all, this computer will be used as an home office computer. They want to use this computer to keep track of payroll, contracts, etc etc.. Not sure why kind of programs, but theyre in the building-construction business. They are looking to spend around 2000.. This would be strictly for business so i assume they dont need crazy video and audio cards.
Any help would be nice. And if you suggest an AMD, AMD 64, or P4, please state why. thanks a grip
 
For the price, you can't beat the Athlon XP line. Sure they're on their way out tech-wise, but I have a feeling they'll be a fallback for a long time. If it's gonna be used for pretty much home/office type work, I recommend an Athlon XP 2500+ or better, probably with an Asus or Abit motherboard. No reason to spend oodles of money.
 
i picked up a barebones celeron 2.5ghz with p4 hyperthread support.

then i picked up a p4 3.0ht cpu for like 130 bucks. :)
 
How do you build a computer? I don't know the first thing about it. :blink:
 
64's are fucking useless unless you are running a 64-bit os and 64-bit programs.

total waste of cash for a home machine.

That said, I have an AMD Athlon 2500 XP Barton chip, and i will not be buying another AMD.

If I had to do it again, i'd get the p4.

the boards are better, FSB's are faster, but they are a little more costly.
 
i've had and have amd. all built by myself. you can't beat the price, but it seems they have a bit of heat issues and require a good size power supply.

btw, p4 is 64 bit yet i don't see people saying how useless they are. windows xp has a 64bit beta and some games already support 64 bit gaming.
 
i had (still have actually) an AMD Duron 850mHz processor that was pretty damn good in my old pc.
 
AMD is a processor that can keep up with the p4 and is a fraction of the price so. I would recommend the 64 bit not yet anyways not even for gaming because the 64 bit os isn't out in mass production. The only way to get one right now is if you have a business or have a front name(know from experence) knowing this because I work at best buy and I am keeping up with it threw the techs at the store. The AMD XP line is a good line for now. If you can wait though about 6 months or so Windows will have the os out for the 64 bit.
 
I'm still running an XP 2100+ 1.73 gHz on a top of the line at that time Asus MB in my home system with el cheapo Samsung 512 mb 2600 DDR RAM.

It runs circles around the 2 ghz machines at work with a gig of RAM, and I haven't experienced any kind of lagging or crash issues even with my craptastic Win98SE OS.

I can't wait to update to something current, but I have 1,825,345,982,852 other better things to spend money on right now.
 
Originally posted by pissedoffsol+Sep 8 2004, 11:19 PM-->
pissedoffsol @ Sep 8 2004 said:
64's are fucking useless unless you are running a 64-bit os and 64-bit programs.

total waste of cash for a home machine.

That said, I have an AMD Athlon 2500 XP Barton chip, and i will not be buying another AMD.

If I had to do it again, i'd get the p4.

the boards are better, FSB's are faster, but they are a little more costly.
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I don't know. I'm an Intel fan, but there's still some basis to going with the A64 chip. It's still faster than the newest Athlon XP cores, and it has a higher ceiling. You can get it to go much faster than the AXP chips given the correct equipment.

:)

I do like the compatibility and stability of the Intel chipsets paired with Intel processors, but I really do think that AMD has won this round and will be ahead for at least a year or two- at least in the consumer market. The nForce250Gb is a badass chipset, and it's pretty damn stable too.

The P4 chips and chipsets use a much higher FSB because they need it- the chips are pipelined much deeper than the A64 and AXP, so their latency is much higher (slower)... therefore they need the higher FSBs just to keep the pipes fed and not take a huge performance hit. The A64 and AXP run at slower clock speeds and can use (do use) shorter pipelines, resulting in lower latencies and faster "response" time. They don't require FSBs as high as the Intel solutions to keep their front ends fed with instructions. Make a cache/memory miss on the Intel setup, and you lose big time... so you stack it with faster memory. Make a cache/memory miss on the AMD setup, and it's not as bad- so you don't need memory that's as fast.

Originally posted by Prowler@Sep 9 2004, 12:43 AM
i've had and have amd. all built by myself. you can't beat the price, but it seems they have a bit of heat issues and require a good size power supply.

btw, p4 is 64 bit yet i don't see people saying how useless they are. windows xp has a 64bit beta and some games already support 64 bit gaming.
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The P4 can't run 64 bit instruction sets. It's an x86 processor, that's all. Intel is actually going to have to conform to AMD's x86-64 architecture on a consumer chip, since IA64 adoption isn't going too well compared to AMD's solution. I'd guess the Itanium (Intel's 64 bit solution) is most likely dead soon, and they'll be coming out with something else in the near future to compete with the A64. I haven't kept up in the industry lately though, so who knows.

Heat- just run water, a pump and a radiator. It's wonderful- trust me. :lol:

Originally posted by TrailorParkPimp@Sep 9 2004, 12:48 AM
i had (still have actually) an AMD Duron 850mHz processor that was pretty damn good in my old pc.
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Damn dude! Wanna play some Doom3 online? :lmao:

SiR Kid@Sep 9 2004, 03:39 AM
I'm still running an XP 2100+ 1.73 gHz on a top of the line at that time Asus MB in my home system with el cheapo Samsung 512 mb 2600 DDR RAM.

It runs circles around the 2 ghz machines at work with a gig of RAM, and I haven't experienced any kind of lagging or crash issues even with my craptastic Win98SE OS.

I can't wait to update to something current, but I have 1,825,345,982,852 other better things to spend money on right now.
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I've got a similar setup in my tournament box, and it is nice and quick comapred to my main system (Intel)... maybe it's because I don't have nearly as much crap running on the game system as I do on the main system- but that's ok. One's the big juggernaut that doesn't quit, and the other burns through chips (literally) every year. Gotta love AMD's super hot chips and heat sinks that don't like to stay put!

I've got about $3000 in upgrades planned on the main system, but I need to start pulling some paychecks before that can happen.

:(
 
I'd go with AMD, I'm running dual AMD 1600+ MP chips on a tyan motherboard, have never had a problem, and it's plenty fast enough.
AMD has a gret line of newer products that are killing Intels products.

There's also a new guy on the market transmeta. making a 256bit processor, as well a a 64 bit processor chip that runs seemlessly in either a 32bit or 64bit environment and shows signs of outperforming AMD and intel.

http://www.transmeta.com/efficeon/efficeon_tm8600.html
 
Yeah, AMD definitely has this round won. I'm eager to see what Intel has coming up to compete against the A64.

I thought Transmeta was only trying to compete in the low power segment? That chip still doesn't look like it's trying to compete against the top offerings from AMD and Intel. It seems more like a mobile device competitor, maybe for laptops- but mostly for integrated devices.
 
ive been reading around.. some people suggest getting the AMD64 because its backwards compatiable with the 32 bit OS systems and 64 is getting a little push in gaming this Christmas season. also, when the MS 64 ( i know you hate MS B, but user friendly) it would be ready for it.
however, i cant see them running serious business apps or heavy gaming on the machine. but the AMD 64 3200+ is around 220 and the AMD XP 3200+ Barton is only 10 bucks cheaper.
Would the 64 run as fast as the Barton for regular MS Office apps?
Anyway, the AMD seems like a better buy than an Intel even though it runs hotter. Shouldnt a sufficient cooling system, say thermallake, help?
Oh yeah, what about a decent LCD monitor? Sony? View Era?
Last question, what about a decent video card? around the 200 area. Nvidia or ATI?

thanks a whole bunch for the useful info and comments.

ps probably gonna go with an ASUS, Soyo, or MSI mobo.
 
The A64 will run 32 bit apps just as well as any other AMD processor of a similar speed. It's a different core than the 32 bit only processors, but it's built to handle both types of instruction sets natively. You won't run into compatibility issues like Intel's Itanium processors that are built for 64 bit only, and have to run 32 bit applications in some wierd kind of software emulation mode. I would get the A64 over the Barton, especially if the price difference is only 10 bucks. You'll most likely be faster than the Barton for office applications... and it's not like you're going to see much speed difference on office apps between a 3000 rated chip and a 2000. Those programs really aren't that stressful. For office apps, memory matters a lot more than processor speed in real world usage.

:)

If you get the A64, you could just go with the retail package chip and run AMD's own heat sink. If you don't plan to overclock, you won't have to worry about heat if you stick with stock cooling. Just make sure you case has good airflow in and out, and that your heatsink is mounted on the processor with good contact- preferably with some kind of good thermally conductive grease in between the chip and the heatsink base.

I'm a supporter of water cooling... but that's me. Most people don't need it. :lol:

LCD monitor- who knows. Look around in your price point, look at things like contrast ratio, brightness, viewing angle, response time, reviews- there are tons of good brands out there.

Video card around $200- if you're going to drive an LCD panel, make sure you have a DVI output. Most cards do these days. You can look for an older nVidia model like the GeForce Ti series, but I think you would be best served with a previous generation ATi card in the $200 range. Something like a Radeon 9800 Pro would serve you well and not break your wallet.

Asus = :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
MSI = :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Soyo = :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
 
Originally posted by Prowler@Sep 9 2004, 12:43 AM
i've had and have amd. all built by myself. you can't beat the price, but it seems they have a bit of heat issues and require a good size power supply.

btw, p4 is 64 bit yet i don't see people saying how useless they are. windows xp has a 64bit beta and some games already support 64 bit gaming.
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I've been in the 64 bit game for quite some time. It's called Silicon Graphics. There was also the Alphs and a lot of other high end systems.

I can run Linux on any 64 bit processor too :worthy: The world doesn't revolve around Microsoft anymore.
 
:werd:

There are tons of good 64 bit operating systems out there. Micro$oft just doesn't happen to have one yet. :)
 
I have an XP2500 cpu with a asus a7v600 mb. I don't really have a problem with heat.

My avg temps are:

43 C for my CPU w/o 84.1CFM 80mm case fan (55.2db grrrr)
38 C for my MB

40 C for my CPU with the fan
30 C MB

I'm just using the stock AMD CPU cooler that came with my CPU
 
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