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To P4 or to Athlon XP that is the question.
- Thread starter RichardF
- Start date
You won't get the same answer from everyone. First of all, Athlon is not designed to work with Rambus RAM. It works fine with DDR RAM. Rambus is much more expensive than DDR and hasn't proved to be that much more efficient.
As far as which one to choose...depends a lot on your money situation. Athlon XP procs are still quite a bit cheaper than Intel's. An Athlon XP 1.67 GHz proc is also called XP 2000, signifying that it competes with Intel's 2.0 GHz proc. And it does a very good job of that!
Basically, the only advantages of a P4 over an Athlon is multimedia editing (i.e. decoding or encoding MP3's, encoding movie files). We're talking mere seconds, so unless you do a lot of it, don't let that be the deciding factor. Many will say the Athlon is better at 3D gaming due to its amazingly fast floating-point technology.
Both are good procs. My honest opinion is that AMD is the better buy. I like to think of Intel procs as being more stable, though that's probably not as true anymore!
![[lookaround]](/data/assets/smilies/lookaround.gif "[lookaround] [lookaround]")
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As far as which one to choose...depends a lot on your money situation. Athlon XP procs are still quite a bit cheaper than Intel's. An Athlon XP 1.67 GHz proc is also called XP 2000, signifying that it competes with Intel's 2.0 GHz proc. And it does a very good job of that!
Basically, the only advantages of a P4 over an Athlon is multimedia editing (i.e. decoding or encoding MP3's, encoding movie files). We're talking mere seconds, so unless you do a lot of it, don't let that be the deciding factor. Many will say the Athlon is better at 3D gaming due to its amazingly fast floating-point technology.
Both are good procs. My honest opinion is that AMD is the better buy. I like to think of Intel procs as being more stable, though that's probably not as true anymore!
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It isn't just a processor question as the chipset support is so important, so saying this there seems to have been more advances in chipsets for the Athlon recently that have most definately given the XP the edge.
Via have been blazing guns with the recent (4 months now)
introduction of the KT266A chipset and the even newer and said to be more impressive KT333 chipset with it's support for UDMA 133, and USB2 support to name but two.
I know this sentence is well used but "Bang for Buck" the Athlon XP wins.
I am not taking anything away from the excellent P4 but if it's down to price against performance the the AMD chip and support periferals is the winner.
On the other hand if price is not an issue then the new Northwood P4 certainly could be for you. Martin Just trying to help, sometimes falling short, I am only human after all.
Via have been blazing guns with the recent (4 months now)
introduction of the KT266A chipset and the even newer and said to be more impressive KT333 chipset with it's support for UDMA 133, and USB2 support to name but two.
I know this sentence is well used but "Bang for Buck" the Athlon XP wins.
I am not taking anything away from the excellent P4 but if it's down to price against performance the the AMD chip and support periferals is the winner.
On the other hand if price is not an issue then the new Northwood P4 certainly could be for you. Martin Just trying to help, sometimes falling short, I am only human after all.
- Thread starter
- #4
I dont want to spend ridiculous amounts of money on silicon that would soon become cheaper, to give you an idea of my price range i was considering the P4 1.7 before i read the above.
to cdogg:
I read that Rambus Technology was 800MHz+ bus speed and that was used by P4 chips, do you know something i dont ?
to paparzi:
What is the Northwood P4 ? how is it better (dare i ask! )
thanks.
to cdogg:
I read that Rambus Technology was 800MHz+ bus speed and that was used by P4 chips, do you know something i dont ?
to paparzi:
What is the Northwood P4 ? how is it better (dare i ask! )
thanks.
Richard,
Rambus RAM is indeed advanced technology and operates at speeds 800MHz+. However, out of all the benchmarks I've seen, Rambus hasn't proved to be that much more effective than DDR RAM, which is the type of RAM you can use with either processor assuming your motherboard supports it. No one really knows for sure why benchmarks haven't proven that Rambus kicks DDR butt, but Intel is pointing the finger at Rambus while Rambus is pointing back. My guess is that the Intel chipset & processor hasn't been designed to fully take advantage of Rambus's bandwidth. After all, the P4 frontside bus still operates at 400Mhz (100Mhz x 4 multiplier). Other reasons might be that software in general hasn't been designed to fully take advantage of RIMM.
That said, Athlons do not support the RIMM architecture. Actually, it's only because a chipset hasn't been designed for AMD CPU's to work with it. Without getting into too much detail, Intel and Rambus have an exclusive contract with one another.
The Northwood P4 is the latest edition to Intel's line of processors. It has been given 512kb L2 Cache. Previous P4 CPU's had only 256kb L2 Cache. You can read more about it here:
Rambus RAM is indeed advanced technology and operates at speeds 800MHz+. However, out of all the benchmarks I've seen, Rambus hasn't proved to be that much more effective than DDR RAM, which is the type of RAM you can use with either processor assuming your motherboard supports it. No one really knows for sure why benchmarks haven't proven that Rambus kicks DDR butt, but Intel is pointing the finger at Rambus while Rambus is pointing back. My guess is that the Intel chipset & processor hasn't been designed to fully take advantage of Rambus's bandwidth. After all, the P4 frontside bus still operates at 400Mhz (100Mhz x 4 multiplier). Other reasons might be that software in general hasn't been designed to fully take advantage of RIMM.
That said, Athlons do not support the RIMM architecture. Actually, it's only because a chipset hasn't been designed for AMD CPU's to work with it. Without getting into too much detail, Intel and Rambus have an exclusive contract with one another.
The Northwood P4 is the latest edition to Intel's line of processors. It has been given 512kb L2 Cache. Previous P4 CPU's had only 256kb L2 Cache. You can read more about it here:
Looks like I was a little off in my explanation. OOPS!
![[reading]](/data/assets/smilies/reading.gif "[reading] [reading]")
No one explains it better than Tom himself. Check out this article:
No one explains it better than Tom himself. Check out this article:
I can't see the need for that much speed at the present time. Since the PC333 RAM has come out I have seen a lot of posts about problems with the RAM. Choose Wisely. I got fed up with an Athlon I was having troubles with and set up a Celeron 1.2 Gig on a PIII/Celeron Asus motherboard, TUSL2-C, with the Intel 815EP chipset. Runs great with old PC100 SDRAM or PC133 SDRAM. There is something to be said for buying good RAM. The faster it goes, the higher quality it needs to be.
I eventually threw my FIC AD11 Motherboard back in the box it came in and put a new Asus A7V266-E motherboard into my other computer for my son. I think the FIC was just a lemon. However, I decided the Celeron route is a pretty good choice too. Just don't install IE 6.0, or you will be sorry! I think it is impossible to uninstall a newer version of MS IE Browser.
Just dont buy the fastest CPU and Memory and great video card and CDROM R/W and then buy a harddrive that spins at 5400 rpm. At least buy an ATA 100 hard drive. If you compare prices between a 5400 rpm drive and a 7200 rpm drive you might come to the conclusion that you get more bang for the buck with the 7200 rpm hard drive. If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.
I eventually threw my FIC AD11 Motherboard back in the box it came in and put a new Asus A7V266-E motherboard into my other computer for my son. I think the FIC was just a lemon. However, I decided the Celeron route is a pretty good choice too. Just don't install IE 6.0, or you will be sorry! I think it is impossible to uninstall a newer version of MS IE Browser.
Just dont buy the fastest CPU and Memory and great video card and CDROM R/W and then buy a harddrive that spins at 5400 rpm. At least buy an ATA 100 hard drive. If you compare prices between a 5400 rpm drive and a 7200 rpm drive you might come to the conclusion that you get more bang for the buck with the 7200 rpm hard drive. If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.
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- #8
- Thread starter
- #10
yes, i thought i was a good article and it has definately changed my mind about getting a P4 chip, i wont be able to afford the northwood unless i want to wait. most of my pc work is programming + internet + a few games then i think the athlon, now, has won me over. so thanks.
next thing i need to do i think about motherboards! also i need to consider how i am going to cool my case down a little, apparantly these chips get *HOT* and i believe it is recommended to get another fan in the case if poss. ...
next thing i need to do i think about motherboards! also i need to consider how i am going to cool my case down a little, apparantly these chips get *HOT* and i believe it is recommended to get another fan in the case if poss. ...
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