Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (
More info?)
Er, no.
Regular 32 bit Windows XP installs and runs fine on an Athlon64 machine,
such as the one being used to write this. The 64 bit version of XP that will
support the Athlon 64 is available only in beta form at this time, and it
may be a bit lacking in terms of driver availability. (Last I read,
Microsoft has not given information on the final version of that OS beyond
"the first half of 2005". I doubt that means that it'll be available
tomorrow, 1 January.) The currently available 64 bit Windows is for Intel
Itanium systems, and only available for purchase with such a system.
In response to the original poster's question, the AMD performance rating is
supposed to be roughly equivalent to a P4 of a specified clock frequency.
(You may notice, though, that Intel is moving away from identifying its
processor simply by clock frequency. The newer LG775 chips have model
numbers.)
The "which is faster for the money" question has no simple answer. An AMD
FX55 CPU (the fastest Athlon64 at the moment) is very expensive; so is an
Intel P4 Extreme Edition CPU. The Athlon64 is supposed to be unbeatable for
gaming; hyperthreaded P4s are supposed to be good for video editing.
My own choice for my latest upgrade was an Athlon 64 3500+ (Socket 939) on
an Asus A8V mainboard. It replaced a P4 2.6c that was overclocked to 3.25
GHz on an Asus P4P800 board. I have no regrets.
Address scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.
"Jerry" <NoSpamChiefZeke@MSN.com> wrote in message
news:ei9lnO47EHA.1404@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
> The fastest cpu on the market right now is the AMD 64 - which, as it's
> name implies, is a 64-bit processor.
>
> You woulld have to use the 64-bit version of Windows. Don't know of other
> possible issues.
>
(snip)
>