I want a good advice!!!

[Guest]

I will probably buy a new system in september or october and I beginning to watch what happen on both sides of the war (AMD vs Intel) and i'm not sure what to buy. Should I buy a AMD system with a probability that it will crash or... or what? The P4 is so overpriced that it's killing me! And I bet the P3's systems are now completely obsolete and will not be sales anymore in september! And I don't want Duron or Celeron processors 'cause i'm a big game player. I need some advices for both Intel buyers and AMD buyers. Thanks!

P.S Maybe and advice on the video card and motherboard would be nice too!
I'm sorry if I make language mistakes but i'm not english-speaking.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by WhatShouldIBuy on 06/09/01 02:52 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Kodiak]

Oh Lordy...
LOL
I come here every two months now... and every darn stinkin' time, the top message is some reincarnation of "Intel vs AMD", usually sparked by a new guy asking what he should buy

ahh... I guess I should make popcorn and watch the battle unfold... sure it's a rerun, but it's fun nevertheless

Oh, and WSIB, personally I would go with a Tbird... P4 is becoming a decent processor, and it has its uses... but I'd say that if you want/need a P4, you'd pretty much KNOW that you *need* a P4...

>>AMD system with a probability that it will crash
that's not just empty hype, it's *old* empty hype... it shouldn't be a serious consideration in your choice...

for now, Tbirds have a good spot on the price/performance curve (as do Durons). P4 is very very expensive for what you'd see as a little improvement in performance (as a game player), and I'd personaly take Celeron right out of even thinking about it...

anyhoo -- g'luck either way

 

[Guest]

>AMD system with a probability that it will crash
>that's not just empty hype, it's *old* empty hype... it
>shouldn't be a serious consideration in your choice...
Thanks for your advice but i'm not sure of that, you can frequently see posts in forums that say somthing like "I have (duh) some problems with my video card on my AMD/VIA system" and it's not the kind of problem I want! I think the problem is that wherever you go, on any forum, the forum is on one side or on the other. This is why is post this question but I begin to think, after reading some posts that this forum is in the AMD side. I want something totaly impartial. Is it possible to have it? Can I have your heart-deep (if i can say) opinion on that?

 

[Guest]

And why do you think that 80% of the people on the tech forums buys AMD Athlon or duron?

 

[SerArthurDayne]

You hit the nail on the head with instability when you said "AMD/VIA".

Some people don't have problems with their VIA based motherboards. I'm one of those people. However, trying to find the best order in which to install the multitude of drivers and patches that can go along with a VIA platform can be irritating(it all depends on what you're trying to run).

If you don't want instability in your system, then don't buy VIA. That goes for both Intel and AMD platforms btw, NOT just AMD.

I own several Pentium systems (PII 333, PIII 500, and PIII 833), as well as two AMD systems (Duron800@1G and Tbird 1G). In my opinion AMD currently offers the best of the computing world, provided you purchase a mobo with caution (you may want to avoid VIA, though I must say that my Duron with KT7 RAID has been rock stable).

The current P4 isn't even an option. You say that most of this forum seems to support AMD - you may be right, and that observation should tell you something. Are you going to buy what the guy in the store tells you to buy, or are you going to look at what the computer enthusiasts buy? There is a reason so many people in this forum praise AMD - because despite a few shortcomings, AMD deserves that praise. If you don't believe us, hell, just read some of the articles on the main site. Or go to any number of hardware review places - you'll see a trend of AMD being the current 'top dog' in both price and performance. If you paid close enough attention to this forum, you may have caught posts from even the most valiant Intel supporters about their disappointment concerning the P4.

In a few short months things will be different again - It will be the Athlon 4's versus the new P4, and new motherboards with chipsets like the nForce and SiS's new offering. New graphics cards like the Radeon II, the Kyro III and the nv30 will be shaking things up, and none of us knows how it's going to turn out.

Right now I would recommend AMD. I don't know what I would recommend in 4 or 5 months.

 

[scarywoody]

If you want good advice you came to the WRONG place. If you want biased OPINIONS from people you came to the right place.

 

[Guest]

Ain't that the truth!!!.....Wait and see whats around in september....never buy anything based on one review and talk to as many people as you can who actually OWN the system your considering purchasing.

"no kelder....you can't shoot goblins in wordpad"

 

[Guest]

Honestly unless your really into benchmarks your not going to see the difference between a P4 and a Tbird. But the AMD system is going to save you allot of money.

As to AMD's instability, yes they take a few hours to get running properly, but after that there as stable as anything Intel has to offer.

I AM Canadian.

 

[Phelk]

By Sept/Oct there will be two choices

1) Athlon 4 vs P4 (Northwood)
or..
2) Athlon 4 vs P4 (Deadwood - The current one)

Basically, if Northwood is not out the Athlon 4 (desktop) will be by far the best buy. If it is then cool check the benchmarks as it 'should' perform very well.

Assuming Athlon 4 then the chipset is a very important consideration. The VIA 686 southbridge should be avoided if you are concerned with the 'stability' issues. The new SiS735 looks pretty good as does the nForce, mobos and benchmarks should start coming out for these over the next month or so.

As for video cards wait until 5 seconds before you buy your machine to check the latest benchmarks and spend as much as you can! Seriously though, Radeon, Kyro & GeForce may all have upgrades by Sept/Oct so don't decide yet. Also consider your monitor size and what resolution you will be playing most games at, there is a big difference between 17" & 19" and quality varies greatly between brands.

<font color=blue> The Revolution starts here... as soon as I finish my coffee </font color=blue>

 

[Guest]

OK,I'm unbiased. I have had 3 Celerons in two motherboards, one K7, and a bunch of oldie Cyrix's. As of today VIA chipsets are still a bit troublesome in particular cases, but not very with the current drivers. Stick with current NVIDIA video boards with current VIA chipsets and save yourself some minor glitches in other makers video drivers. Don't get the DDR VIA chipset yet.
Stick with stuff that has been available at least 3 months, and better yet 6 months. For someone who doesn't mind spending 50-200 extra, I'd say stick with a P3 on an Asus mobo or other with an 815 chipset. I personally think the saving on a K7 system is worthwhile and the added trouble not much. It is really in very particular gaming setups where problems seem to show up. I never had any of the problems people mention except for an old Vortex sound chip card which does not like VIA chipsets with any CPU.

 

[Kodiak]

>>I want something totaly impartial. Is it possible to have it?

NOT from human beings. Seriously. Basic truth

I Do have Cyrix 586, AMD Tbird, AMD K6, Pentium, Pentium2 and Pentium3 on which I work every day... does that help my objectivity?
Possibly, but not necessarily
And just because somebody says that the other 'side' is biased doesn't make that poster automatically objective either
Truth is most people will vehemently defend what they have and personally like. Others, if particularly dissapointed with their purchase, will slamm a product WAY above what it deserves (Hobbit & Radeon, if memory serves me. Again, just human nature

Via Chipsets do get a lot of negative opinions and talk; I suppose many people have issues with them. Personally I have AMD 1.2Gig on Asus A7V with 256MB and couldn't be happier (well, if I were to win a lottery tommorrow, I'm sure I *would* be

As for frequency of problems, again, yes there are many who have problems with VIA chipsets -- they can be funny to set up. But you also have to consider the demographics -- if (say) 75% of us have AMD, you'd expect to have 75% of problems here be about AMD and only 25% about Intel. That doesn't automatically indicate superior performance of one or another

There can be little (rational) argument made of the fact that Tbird regularly battles P4 on benchmarks, while offering *considerably* lower price, especially when coupled with SDR or DDR RAM vs Rambus...

And we can't ALL be lying about how stable our systems are

 

[Guest]

>You say that most of this forum seems to support AMD

I didn't said that! I said that all the forums are on one side or on the other one. And THIS forum is on the side of AMD. I saw forums that are on the side of Intel but posters are not so... how could I say? as enthusiast as people in this forum. The only argument they seem to have is "Our systems are stable!" But, thanks for your advice, it may help! The only problem is that I really don't want something unstable and AMD scare me because I spoke to a technician who bought 30 1Ghz TBird for the school were he work and he said he never had so much trouble with computers. More, all my friends are against AMD but they seam to be "Intel fanatics". But, maybe I will take a chance and buy a AMD system anyway. You may understand now why I said that.

Where the <b>hell</b> is that AnyKey?

 

[Guest]

LOL! True, true!

Where the <b>hell</b> is that AnyKey?

 

[rcf84]

I dont support AMD 100% maybe around (45% - 55%).

Nice Intel and AMD users get a Cookie.... Yummy