Athlon or PIII or PIV??? Suggestions please.

[Guest]

Hello people with great insights, I need some advise and suggestions.

I am wanting to get another computer and after reading many of your choice comments, I was swayed from INTEL to AMD mainly to the Athlon 1.2 GIG.

I know we have all heard of the dreaded notion of AMD not being compatible with many softwares in the past and (may have some today compared to INTEL) There was also patches and updates needed for K6 in the past in order to run programs properly.

So here's my question, If I were to get an Athlon 1.2 Gig with say a A bit AV7 MOBO (something like that) Nvidia GeForce Ultra, 128 meg DDR ram (maybe more), at least 7,200 rmp HD, Creative 5.1 soundcard, 3 com network card.

Will I have any trouble in running normal applications like browsing, office work, internet applications the norm.. I dont' really need a high performance machine but just one that will play SOF nicely.

You see, my worry is that I may need to download patches for this and that just because it is an AMD.

I apologise for thelack of confidence in AMD but I need more input from poeple who are runnign similar machine configuration to assure what I am planning to get is going to run smoothly and does not require future updates on who the CPU runs.

Oh.. I am eyeing to get e DVD drive for the system as well. Also, cooling for the CPU is a big thing to worry about from what I have read, people putting on a crappy heat sink that totally screws up the DIE on the CPU... that's just unaccepteable.. anybody recommend a good heat sink? Liquid transfer is better i have heard.. Is that right?


Suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

70% AMD ----30% INTEL... Undecided but most probably AMD in terms of what I have read so far.

Mike-NZ

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Smilley on 12/04/00 03:43 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[LTJLover]

As far as I know, there are no software imcompatability issues with Athlon/duron CPUs. I have been running my K6-3 400 for over a year without a hitch. My house has several AMD CPUs running fine. If you don't need super performance, you can go with a simple 1Gig AMD or even less. If you want you can overclock them 100-200 MHz. My friend just built a Duron 700 system on the Abit KT7 RAID (the A7V is Asus and good as well). His $60 Duron kicks my bro's $200 P3 700. For the price/performance ratio these days, I truly feel you would be near insane to buy Intel products. But that is just my opinion...I don't want to see hate mail because of it .

Jon
"Water-Cooled CPU Runner"

 

[Guest]

Thanks LTJ,

Was wondering if you ahve friends who are running the same specs I am looking to buy.. Athlon 1.2 gig..

Cheers though.

Mike-NZ

 

[Guest]

I sold few Athlon/Duron Computers in past 3-4 month without any incompatibility problems. (A little with AMD 750 chipset and cheap soundcard.) I think 1GHz is enough for you. In the near future (as always) you buy 1,2-1,4 GHz Athlon with cost todays difference between 1 and 1,2 GHz.
Motherbord with PC2100 DDR SDRAM - this is a good idea!

 

[Dravic]

There is an old saying with computers that still holds true.. GARBAGE in GARBAGE out.

If you stick to quality parts(mem and PSU), and due your research about the products you are about to buy, you will have few issues.

keep in mind, build a PC is not light issue. You bound to hit complications along the way, just hit the web for common fixes and suggestions.

I've had no issues with software compatibility..


If you go with a Abit Kt7 board, read this first..

http://go.to/kt7faq

Its a great board for overclocking, and is stable, but there are some periph's to keep clear of when using the kt133 chipset.


Abit KT7 RAID
Duron 650@896
128MB pc133@149cas2
Geforce2mx(205/215)
Antect s1030/sblive+

 

[Guest]

If you're seriously not going to be using your system for hard gaming then I definitely recomend you get a Duron 650 or 700 and overclock it to 850 or 900 Mhz. This can be achieved very easily with the Asus A7V motherboard as long as all of the L1 connections are connected on the top of the CPU. If they are not you can buy a PCB pen and connect them with that. One of tom's article goes into detail on how to overclock it. This will give you the best price/performance ratio by far and you will be more than happy with the performance.
I have a 650 Duron and overclock to 850 without any problems. I could probably take it up to 900 or maybe even 950 without problems, but I just don't see any reason to go that high. It works great with any game or application that I have thrown at it thus far.

Good luck,

Poderoso.

 

[lakedude]

Are you in a rush to get a system by say Christmas? If so it sounds like you have picked a very nice setup. The only thing to watch out for with AMD is that they lack a thermal diode to shut them off if they get too hot. AMD is the current price/performance leader but that could change in the near future. If you can wait Intel should be shipping 1.7G p4 soon. I believe the p4 is far more “future proof” and that AMD is swimming without a life jacket due to their lack of thermal protection. Both companies processors are easy to break due the lack of a protective cover on the chip itself. The thermal performance of an uncovered chip is a good trade for durability. AMD has a small edge in this area as they include four pads to cushion the CPU from the heatsink. A new chip looks really wimpy compared to an older larger metal enclosed one but the new chips are way better you just need to be careful. No matter what you buy it will seem like junk in a year or so.

 

[lakedude]

Are you in a rush to get a system by say Christmas? If so it sounds like you have picked a very nice setup. The only thing to watch out for with AMD is that they lack a thermal diode to shut them off if they get too hot. AMD is the current price/performance leader but that could change in the near future. If you can wait Intel should be shipping 1.7G p4 soon. I believe the p4 is far more “future proof” and that AMD is swimming without a life jacket due to their lack of thermal protection. Both companies processors are easy to break due the lack of a protective cover on the chip itself. The thermal performance of an uncovered chip is a good trade for durability. AMD has a small edge in this area as they include four pads to cushion the CPU from the heatsink. A new chip looks really wimpy compared to an older larger metal enclosed one but the new chips are way better you just need to be careful. No matter what you buy it will seem like junk in a year or so.

A slot load DVD is nice because there is no tray to break(kids in the house?). DVD players are cheap. A 16x/40x dvd/cd is only around $100.00 and a hardware decoder is only about $45.00. A 16/40 is fast enough that you wouldn't need a regular cd player. You can even get a three in one dvd/cd/cd-rw but I wouldn't. Get a DVD/CD and a seperate CD burner cause it is nice to record from one disk to another without swapping.

 

[Guest]

Actually if you want to forget about fooling around with compatability issues, I would suggest an Intel 1Ghz with the 815E chipset. Not as pricey as the P4, and stable as a rock.

By the way, incompatabilities are mostly generated by the chipsets, not the processors.