Intel P4 vs. AMD XP what's the deal?

[Brian Frank 0]

From an enthusiast and home user's standpoint, I'll say what I've said before: I don't believe the chipset matters as much. For critical applications and servers, heck, even any business machine, I'd be rather wary of anything outside of Intel. I'm a Via man @ home, but depending on where I land a tech job (PC shop or some company) may mandate in some way that Intel chipsets be used. I believe that you cannot go wrong with Intel at any point, but there are some places where anything but Intel is inappropriate. Clutch has been very good at laying out the points about Intel chipsets. If I had his experience, I'd probably be in the same position. Right now, I don't care so long as it's working well for what I do.

[sapiens74 0]

I agree, somehwat. Clutch and I probably do about the same thing. Tho he has a bit more credentials then me on the network side of things. ON the hardware side, I hae had a lot of VIa chipsets, more then those of you who argue for them. I have had really good via based boards like my old MSI kt266 R, and it still is rock solid stable, but too many others have not had that luck.

 

I guess the word should be CONSISTANCY. Via does not know the meaning of it. IF most via based boards were as stable as my MSI one, I'd be arguing with you. But the fact is, some boards are, and some arent. Even with my MSI I had 2 RMA's before they got it right. Now that's not VIA's fault, but it seems to be a pattern, whether it be the mb makers or VIA.

[CyberGenX 0]

Well Sapiens, at least we can agree that MSI makes a fairly good board. When you get one that hasn't been finger f&cked by every idiot salesperson at the vendor/store. This is my first MSI board, I was reluctant to by MSI sooner because of how they used to be quality wise. Now I am sold on the new one at least. BTW how well does that Dual mouse work in games?

[sapiens74 0]

Quite nice. Not using a mousepad, and it resopnds very well. I wish they made the dual optical with the Microsoft ones tho. I like the feel of thiers better.

[pmistry 0]

Quote:

From an enthusiast and home user's standpoint, I'll say what I've said before: I don't believe the chipset matters as much.

That's a really good point there Brian, as a home/enthusiast user, I gave VIA a try this time, and will probably give SiS, AMD, or even ALi a chance later on too.

[sapiens74 0]

I'll concede the enthusiast, but the home user doesnt need the headaches that come with Via chipsets. Computers are supposed to be easy to use, and trouble free, as well as stable.

 

Cheap chipsets are one of the reasons Windows has a bad name for stabilty.

[CyberGenX 0]

I think windows had a bad name for stability ever since 95 classic.

[BladeRunner 0]

But that was to be expected.

We were moving away from a totally command line OS, DOS, to something based on a GUI.

We were exploring a new way computers could operate, no longer was Windows just an application on top of an OS, it was the OS itself.

Sure, it kept it's roots firmly based in DOS and did so right up until the release of WinME (Unless you had jumped the Win9x ship before then).

Windows 95 wasn't a particularly unstable OS, sure it had it's teething problems like anything else out there, but once it had matured, once it hit the A release it was really forming itself nicely into a good OS.

Even then bad hardware could take the OS down extremely easily and even quicker would be badly written drivers.

I remember my early days with Windows 95, running on a P90 and basically it was a very stable system.

I used top quality pieces of equipment even back then, Seagate HD's, Diamond video cards, SB16's, etc and found that my productivity increased ten fold with the release of Win95, I didn't have any real teathing problems with it.

 

Windows 2000/XP is a rock solid OS.

All these people who have problems with these OS's are usually doing one of two things:

1. Overclocking, well of course, even the slightest overclock will reduce the stability of your system and consequently your OS.

2. Not running an Intel based system

 

I cannot remember the last time I saw a Win2k/XP PC crash.

Sure I've seen plenty of applications crash and in the corporate world that is usually the fault of the application, but I cannot remember the last time I saw a proper OS (Win2k onwards) taken down and totally crashed by a bad application or anything software related.

[Phemo 0]

I personally have had a number of VIA chipsets, ranging from the ol' Apollo Pro 133A for my Intel system to the KT133A with an AMD system. I never had any problems with any VIA platform either. However, from the number of forum posts I've read, hassles at work and the problems that my friends have experienced, I personally would seek out any alternative. Sure I can get it going myself no problems, but the reputation alone, and the fact I'd always be left wondering whether I'd have any problems or not, is enough to put me off.

 

I decided to avoid the whole situation. I'm currently using a dual Athlon platform with an AMD chipset. Aside from the broken USB, (not too much of an issue for me - Asus included a USB2 card, so I lose a PCI slot, but I wouldn't be using it anyway) I haven't had a single problem. Fast, rock-solid and I didn't have that niggling feeling that I'd have any problems. Even before I migrated to my dual Athlons, I was using an Abit KG7-RAID, based on the AMD761 chipset. Ok so it wasn't the fastest out there, but it wasn't the slowest, and more importantly, I'd heard of very little issues and had no problems myself.

 

So to summarise, yeah I like VIA, I've had no hassles with them in the past, but due to the numerous forum postings I've seen/read/heard about, I will seek out alternatives if at all possible. I also like Intel systems - I have a P4 and a dual P3 system, (incidently, the dual P3's are running on a VIA chipset) and they've never given me any hassles either. As has been mentioned before, a processor is only as good as its supporting chipset - and VIA isn't the only chipset available for an Athlon platform.

[sapiens74 0]

I would support the Athlon if they did the Following:

 

Made a good performing chipset for thier own chips

 

Dealt with the heat issues that have plagued the new core.

 

DO that and I would consider them again.

[Phemo 0]

I do agree with you, but AMD's SMP chipset isn't a bad performer at all. They just need to keep working to produce a decent performing uni-processor one to target the enthusiast too, whilst providing support for things like PC2700, etc.

 

Having said that, Intel's chipsets are rock-solid stable and decent performers and that's what makes them so appropriate in the business sector. When it comes to pure performance though, the Intel chipsets are hardly the fastest. It's almost the same story with AMD chipsets - they're stable, believe it or not, and they're not the best performers, but they don't have many issues.

 

As for the heat issues, there's no denying that Athlons run hotter than P3's and P4's, I agree, but my two MP 2000+ chips which run at a default of 1666MHz, are currently sitting at 42 degrees whilst overclocked to 1812MHz - it's not that horrific. My heatsinks aren't even that special - they cost £22 each which is $31. As a comparison, my P4 1900 system runs at about 30 degrees with a dodgy cooler - an overall difference of 12 degrees isn't that significant a margin though.