Best processor

[marshahu]

I want to revamp my entire family PC system and I also want to build an XPC for my bedroom. However the big confusion is which processor to base my PC around. I have heard lots of promising things from AMDs Athlon 64 and some people say that the Pentium 4 can still kick the 64's ass. Meanwhilst Intel is releasing a new Pentium 4 Prescott Processor and a P5 is not far away.

I use my PC for lots of games, video editing and viewing, DVD viewing and creation, Surround Sound Encoding and Creating, DVD Audio and Music listening, Internet Gaming and Surfing, etc. My dad also uses it for word processing and he has a massive excel spreadsheet containing lots of big calculations. I will be choosing my processor from the list below. I have tried to conduct my own research but I have ended up really confused. Can you people give me some information about each of these processors and where applicable state whether its worth waiting for.

AMD Athlon 64
AMD Athlon 64 FX
Intel Pentium 4 with Hyper Threading
Intel Pentium 4 Prescott
Intel Pentium 5

Thank you for your help!

PC Spec: AMD Athlon XP 2000+ running at 1.25ghz, ECS K7S5A Motherboard, 768MB SDRAM PC133, Sparkle nVidia Riva TNT2 M64 32MB AGP Graphics Card, Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 6.1, Windows Me

 

[hogfather]

Forget the Prescott imo. Also forget the Athlon FX - its overpriced and not very much better than the 64. I would go with 64 3000 or 3200, though for video encoding, the p4 is still faster - though to be honest, who notices the difference of 5 minutes when encoding a big file? I just go and watch some tv, come back now and then to check. That's why I'd say 64 3000, best bang for your buck.

XP2000, 256ddr 2100ram, GF4 MX440, XP Pro

 

[P4Man]

For an XPC I would also choose a A64, if for no other reason than Cool&Quiet. Prescott is *not* a good idea for a small form PC, given its rather exeburant heat output, a regular P4C would be a better choice, but for gaming, nothing holds a candle to the A64 while offering decent media encoding performance, and probably the very best office performance if really your dad would be one the very few to notice. 64 bit support may also well turn the tables in favor of the A64 when it comes to media encoding, though there is no guarantee.

Pentium 5 is still at least a year out, not much use in waiting for it. By the time its there, you might want to wait for K9, etc, etc,..

You may also want to have a look at the THGC buyers guide, first topic in this forum. Spitfire put a lot of work in it, and its there for a reason

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[sirak]

P4Man, so it isn't so. Promoting AMD?? I say get a 2.8c and OC it to 3.2ghz =]

----------------------
PIV 2.4c @ 3.12ghz
1gig PC3200 (512mbx2)
ASUS P4P800
GF3 Ti200 64mb (soon to be replaced)
WinXP Pro
3DMark2001SE: 6453
3DMark2003: 746

 

[Guest]

I noticed your Athlon XP 2000+ was running at 1.25G(12.5x100MHz), it should be 1.66G(12.5x133MHz). Check your mb manual for jumper/BIOS settings.

 

[P4Man]

>P4Man, so it isn't so. Promoting AMD??

I promote what I think is best, and what I would buy myself

> I say get a 2.8c

Not a bad choice either, for a lower budget.

>and OC it to 3.2ghz =]

I don't like recommending an overclock to someone not familiar with it. Are you going to solve his troubles ? Replace the cpu if ever it gets damaged ? Replace his data if the overclock turns out to be not so stable and corrupts his registry/trashes his harddisk ? Think twice before recommending overclocks. Everyone has to do what they want to do, but speccing a machine to a first time builder to overclock it, just isnt my idea of smart.

And its often not even all that cost effective if you take into account the cost of faster ram, better HSF, case fans, etc..

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[Whisper]

I'd either choose an Athlon 64 3000+ or a Pentium 3 2.8 GHz. Flip a coin...

 

[Coop]

It would be stupid if you buy a P4, runs hot as hell(and you dont want that in a small system) en what are you gonna do when Windows XP 64 bit comes out ?

You can overclock the A64 also...
(i didnt expected an other answer on this forum, Djeezus, P4 ???)


THG : The last 5-6 reviews have allways either had skewed results, or just somehow strangely come to a completly diferant conclusion then all of the other sites around.

 

[endyen]

Be serious coop. Whisper is right, for the first 7 words.

 

[trooper11]

yeah, i would agree, the northwood p4's do not run that hot so thats not an issue, either cpu will do fine, it all depends on where your focus lies, more in gaming or video encoding, if its both, then flip a coin lol.

 

[Crashman]

Everything is changing this year, I suggest you build for now, and consider building a new system next year. The top chipset for any AMD processor is the nForce2, which only supports the XP series processors. Those are pleanty fast and a great value.

Yes it's true that you won't be able to upgrade them later to a faster processor, but by this time next year you'll want a new board anyway, due to all the new technology going into them this year.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[pauldh]

As was said, P4 2.8C GHZ or faster would be the best choice for video editing and is still a great gaming chip. IMO


ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 512MB Corsair TwinX PC3200LL, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt

 

[trooper11]

Well you could also say the ahtlon 64 would be the best choice for gaming and is still great for video editing.

 

[P4Man]

>I'd either choose an Athlon 64 3000+ or a Pentium 3 2.8
>GHz. Flip a coin...

If I had to choose between those, I'd very much get the second option, but unfortunately, I have yet to see a P3 clocking anywhere near that speed

If you meant a P4 2.8, I'm not sure its worth saving ~$30 over the A64, and loosing the extra performace (especially gaming), Cool&Quiet in a SFF, and the possibility to run 64 bit software as it comes out. If money is tight, I'm sure the 2.8C will live up to anyone whishes, but the A64 just delivers more bang for the buck IMHO.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[P4Man]

>Everything is changing this year, I suggest you build for
>now, and consider building a new system next year.

Now why would you that ? If he needs that much performance that a system built today will not be good enough a year from here, then I'd say getting a AXP is a bad idea. Building is fun, but I doubt a current decent performer will be obsolete in a year. Is anyone finding his 18 month old P4 3.06 being too slow ?

>The top chipset for any AMD processor is the nForce2,

Typical crashman; by your reasoning, I'd say the top chipset for intel is the 440BX, which only supports Pentium 3 processors.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[timberwolf1]

Hi

I checked the prices of tje Athlon 64 and Prescott - way too expensive! I think you should go with the AMD Athlon 64
or Intel Pentium 4 with Hyper Threading.


Gary Hendricks
<A HREF="http://www.digital-music-guide.com" target="_new">www.digital-music-guide.com</A>

 

[TheRod]

I noticed your Athlon XP 2000+ was running at 1.25G(12.5x100MHz), it should be 1.66G(12.5x133MHz). Check your mb manual for jumper/BIOS settings.

You gave him a free upgrade!
Can you do this with my Tbred 1800+ clocked to 2400+ (166*12)?

--
Would you buy a GPS enabled soap bar?

 

[SoDNighthawk]

Buuurrrp Yo Rod found a speed bump WoAHa Kids that was a good one my stomach fell out on that one.

I told him in another post to simply use it as a boat anchor but I was nice about it

Barton 3200+ 400MHz
A7N8X Deluxe
Liquid 12 Celsius
2x512 Crucial DDR 400 PC3200
GeForce FX5900
Two Maxtor 40Gig 8MB cach 7200rpm
SONY RW 52x/24x/52x
SONY DVD 16x/40x

 

[Kanavit]

Build your life around Intel based systems. You 'll thank me for it. P4 maybe slower in useless games than the A64, but its got ADR=quality, dependability, and reliablity. Most HOspitals use intel inside.

------
<b><font color=blue>Intel rules</b></font color=blue><A HREF="http://arc.aquamark3.com/arc/arc_view.php?run=1817959409" target="_new">http://arc.aquamark3.com/arc/arc_view.php?run=1817959409</A>-<b>28,959</b> stock
P4 2.8 | 512 | Radeon 9500pro

 

[Crashman]

You're right. But an XP3200+ is almost as good as a P4 2.8, while a PIII 1400 is almost as good as a P4 2.0A.

nForce2 is so far better than nForce 3, nVidia hasn't released their revised nForce3 for us to compare to. Intel has released their 865/875 series however.

With all the new standards comming out this year, staying near the top will require not more CPU power, but a newer board.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[EugeneMc]

really your stupidity hasn't finish, today is greater than yesterday but smaller than tomorrow. Do you do some special training to multiply it? lol

 

[P4Man]

You're obsessed with chipsets, you know that ? I only require a stable platform with the features I need; since I am not much of an overclocker, the feature set requirement is really, really limited. Nothing that a nForce or VIA board don't provide. USB2, SATA, Firewire, AGP 8x and... well that is about it really ? Raid is not part of the chipset itself, SATA can be added as well, as can sound, gigabit ethernet (if you'd require that),..so, what am I missing out on with a nForce3 or VIA chipset ? the sound ? could care less, I use an audigy, and most nForce2 boards come with SoundForce anyway.. what else ? Coo&lQuiet doesnt even exist on nForce2 or any intel chipset..

As for performance; even though nForce3 might be slightly slower (actually, pretty much only on SPEC VIEW, which does not represent anything I use) than the VIA KT800, but it sure is faster than a nForce2+Athlon XP.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[Crashman]

so for you chipsets and board quality are not important issues, as long as it's fast. That's why your comments have no merit, and the only point in you making them is for my amusement.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[P4Man]

Did I say that ? I think I wrote " I only require a stable platform" first sentence; board quality matters *very* much to me.. I happen to depend on my computer for my income; it also runs 24/7/356. i just can't afford to RMA it every 3 months. But board quality does not relate directly to a chipset or cpu platform; there are crap ECS P4 boards, and there are quality AXP or A64 boards.

chipset quality is hard to quantify. Stability and compatibility are not easily tested; but so far I've not heard of one major (or even minor) issue in this regard with either nForce3 or K8T800.

Performance can't be seperated from the cpu; a nForce2 may be as good as it is, paired with a AXP its still no match for a nForce3+A64.

So, I still can only wonder what it is that makes you prefer a nForce2 over a nForce3 or VIA K8T800.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by P4Man on 02/17/04 04:13 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[marshahu]

OK as far as I am concerned I should be choosing an A64 for my processor because of the 64bit version of Windows XP comming out and for games. Are you guys sure that Microsoft are actually going to release Windows XP 64bit for consumers to buy? With media center edition Microsoft decided to only sell it with new PCs. Whats worse the Media Center Edition PCs are using bloody P4s, pumping up the price and the temperature inside the case. Sure this is good for watching TV, listening to tunes and editing videos but games are extremly poor quality.

I have been asking around various PC stores and here are their responses. Would you agree to them?

PC World (part of dixons group) - "Get Pentium 4 because it is much faster than A64, also take a look at THG and you will see that A64 is not all it is made to be"

Dixons - "Pentium 4, because it is much faster with games and video editing"

Currys (part of Dixons group) - "Pentium 4, because it is supported by Windows XP and with its hyper threading it is much faster at all tasks"

The Computer World - "Get A64. It may not be of much use now but if you get A64 now, you can be assured that you will be ready for the future."

Maplin - "A64 is the future platform for operating systems and it is much better in games. P4 maybe good now for Video Editing but in the future the tables could turn in favour of 64bit technology. Best to wait for prices to come down"

PC Spec: AMD Athlon XP 2000+ running at 1.25ghz, ECS K7S5A Motherboard, 768MB SDRAM PC133, Sparkle nVidia Riva TNT2 M64 32MB AGP Graphics Card, Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 6.1, Windows Me