Athlon XP or Pentium4

[e2Genesis 0]

Hmm, personally I have PC133 SDRAM, on my computer now, and I've seen a similar system with more ram at DDR, and even then the performance isn't the biggets diff, his comp is 66Mhz faster, yet mine outperforms his, so I do not see the need to pay the HIGH price for RDRAM and get it, I'll stick to DDR RAM, but now the question is, athlon or p4?

[sapiens74 0]

Go with the Athlon. Costs less and you get a lot more if your willing to work with it. Hopefully my board will arrive safely tommorow (UPS scares me sometimes) and I'll post results here.

[JP- 0]

Well i just broke my p4 trying to remove the heat spreader Had to order a new 1 (1.9ghz) to replace it I think im gonna cry

[BladeRunner 0]

I didn't say SDRAM was the same price as RDRAM.

When considering a P4 then SDRAM is NOT an option, so I will not compare apples & pears - they may be the same colour but are vastly different.

Now if I am going to compare like for like I have to choose brand names.

I'll take Crucial as the base for DDR-PC2100 modules.

Also, as RDRAM has to be used in pairs I shall compare like amounts of RAM.

256MB DDR-PC2100, CL 2.5, Unbuffered, Non-Parity £53-09+vat

512MB DDR-PC2100, CL 2.5, Unbuffered, Non-Parity £111.59+vat

 

Now an equally good name in the RDRAM market is Samsung, I'll just take the vendor where I purchased my P4 parts from, www.komplett.co.uk

 

Samsung RAMBUS 256MB PC800 Kit (2x 128MB Modules) £68.90+vat

Samsung RAMBUS 512MB PC800 Kit (2x 256MB Modules) £129.35+vat

 

At 256MB RDRAM is only £15.81 more expensive.

At 512MB RDRAM is £17.76

 

Sure, in this example Crucial offer free delivery, komplett.co.uk don't, so you've got to add £5.

However as you can see the difference is really nothing considering the outlay on the rest of your system.

I stand by my original statement, there isn't that much difference in price now, so you can make your choice on needs rather than cost.

[sapiens74 0]

Sorry M4 I've been there and it isnt very pleasent.

 

 

/tips 40 oz

[sapiens74 0]

Got my new board in, cant wait to get home and try it

 

 

/woohoo

[clutch 1]

I was just reading up on the new dual CPU motherboards coming out for the AMD chips (MPX-based). I thought "well this is cool, full AMD-only chipset so it can't be that bad..", and then I found out that USB is broken. LOL! Nicely done. Now the vendors are shipping PCI USB controllers which now take up one of your "normal" PCI slots, leaving you to hope your stuff works in the 66MHz slots. I read about this on [H]ardOCP and 2CPU. Again, congrats...

 

[JP- 0]

Hmmm i saw that a little while ago but i was under the impression that manufactures had put the boards on hold until it was fixed.......oh well

 

Dont they test these things when they make the board or do they just think 'ah sod it, no one will ever notice' ;(

[clutch 1]

Yeah, pretty much a big let down. I would like to see another cheap duallie rig come out again that's stable (like the days of dual Celerons). The Athlons can carry it off, but they need a stable (not just working) platform first.

[JP- 0]

I agree, i would love an athlon system with the same stability as my current intel system. Dont see that happening for a while though.

 

Also i would love to see some dual p4 action

[smokinkane 0]

My outlook on an amd system is this, good performance with a major sacrifice to stability and compatibility (you know its bad when DELL doesn't even use AMD). Build an Intel system get good performance, stability, and compatibility.

 

I have to admit, I have a Shuttle AV40(VIA) P4 1.7ghz, and OCZ DDR, and have had no stability problems. This system is equally as stable as my last system which was on the best chipset of all time the 440bx.

[sapiens74 0]

I got my new board in and its been up and running for 2 days now with no crashes. Its about 20 percent faster in most games and a lot faster copying files.

 

IF your gonna get an AMD the ABIT KR7A is the way to go.

 

A note on stability:

 

 

If you truly know what you are doing you can make any system stable, almost hehe. I'd have to say tho that both the AMD DDR boards I have used have been ultra stable, moreso then my p3 at work at least. And Dell doesnt use AMD cause he gets too great a pricing from INTEL, he doesnt need to go to AMD. That, like most things, may change. Epecially if there are more shortages of parts in the future.