Athlon OR Pentium for HL2!?

[Dr. Freeman]

Originally posted by crabcakes66
the 2500+ is still a good deal if you dont have alot of cash.

the author of this thread was not overly concerned about cash.. he said he would spend the cash on a P4 if thats what was best..


not to hate on u crabcakes66, this is just in general that i have noted, pple forget what the original question/author was asking and start discussing stuff that probably won't have an affect on what he should by..

edit: i agree with the posters that say either to wait for the new AMD technology (64 bit whatever im not too familar with it) or just get a P4 because its a new line and for the future one can still upgrade later on

 

[ankalar]

Originally posted by Maskirovka
he's gonna have to buy a motherboard too...and probably different ram. and considering that he can't upgrade to anything good from a barton, he's gonna be wasting his money buying that stuff.

...

if you buy a p4, the motherboards you're gonna be checking out are most likely gonna be compatible with the newer p4's that are due out.

He is going to have to buy a new motherboard either way he goes, AMD or Intel. Now, for upgrade sake, if he was going to upgrade his CPU within the next year then you would be semi correct with your statements. The problem is, the Prescotts will be coming out sometime within the next year (I really don't remember when) and they will, at first, be using 478 pins, but then they'll be switching over to a higher pin count, thus needing a different motherboard. I really don't know where I'm going with this post, so I'll just stop.

 

[Lupus]

Well the graphics card you get now, if you go for say a radeon 9800 pro (or non pro and flash it to a pro) should last awhile, so no matter what system you get that should be ok. If you are planning on upgrading again in a few months I would say that if you get a system now, the barton 2500 , asus A7N8X Deluxe rev.2 motherboard is good, together that is about £160, which is about $300 US. It is very commong to overclock the barton 2500 to the 3200+ speed (and often a bit more, like mine). So you can get a good system for about $350 (the extra there is for a cpu cooler like an aero 7 lite or vantec aeroflow and some arctic silver ceramique). The graphics card isn't included there as it would probably be the same thing no matter what way you went (athlon or intel). Again if you are going to upgrade again in a few months dont splash out big on ram (I think the athlon64's take different ram), get like 2 sticks of 256mb pc2700 twinmoss ram or something. I have an athlon system so I can't really suggest what is best for intel. Though I hear the 2.4 GHz chip is very good, 800fsb and can overclock well. That chip is also more expensive, so again, you have to decide hehe. Personally I don't think you could really upgrade to a top end system by the time HL2 comes out, as shortly after that much better things will appear (like the athlon64's) and your 'top end' system will be 'oh, yeah thats ok I spose <snicker>'. I spose you could always sell whatever system you get now before you upgrade again or give to a family member for christmas hehe.

 

[crabcakes66]

Originally posted by Dr. Freeman
the author of this thread was not overly concerned about cash.. he said he would spend the cash on a P4 if thats what was best..


not to hate on u crabcakes66, this is just in general that i have noted, pple forget what the original question/author was asking and start discussing stuff that probably won't have an affect on what he should by..

edit: i agree with the posters that say either to wait for the new AMD technology (64 bit whatever im not too familar with it) or just get a P4 because its a new line and for the future one can still upgrade later on

I understand.

That was more directed at people saying that AMD makes crappy cpus and what not. The 2500+ is still a great value IMO.....I myself would not buy one....id go with a p4 2.4c atm......but thats just my opinion.

Not at the original poster.

 

[3DDuL]

I totally crushed a p4 3ghz 800fsb with 512mb pc3700 and a geforce fx 5900ultra in 3dmark2001 with my amd system
Ive got a barton xp2800+ @ 2350mhz, 512mb pc3200 and a radeon 9800pro
The P4 got 16447 points...
http://www.gamersdepot.com/hardware/video_cards/leadtek/5900u/002.htm
...and i got 17999points ;0)
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6979287

 

[Asus]

NJ on the OC and nice score and all.
But that isnt really a fair comparison.
More like an Intel bash.

 

[3DDuL]

Why aint it fair?
Both the P4 and the Geforce FX should be much faster :rolling:
Plus, they used faster RAM's :bounce:

 

[crabcakes66]

Originally posted by 3DDuL
Why aint it fair?
Both the P4 and the Geforce FX should be much faster :rolling:
Plus, they used faster RAM's :bounce:

The Fx isnt faster...... why cant people get that through there skulls


look for an overclocked P4 with a 9800pro..... if you want a "fair" comparison.

 

[3DDuL]

Why should i look at an overclocked P4?
Its supposed to be faster than my cpu.

 

[ankalar]

Originally posted by 3DDuL
I totally crushed a p4 3ghz 800fsb with 512mb pc3700 and a geforce fx 5900ultra in 3dmark2001 with my amd system
Ive got a barton xp2800+ @ 2350mhz, 512mb pc3200 and a radeon 9800pro
The P4 got 16447 points...
http://www.gamersdepot.com/hardware/video_cards/leadtek/5900u/002.htm
...and i got 17999points ;0)
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6979287

• The 5900 Ultra is slower than the 9800 Pro, therefore you already have an advantage over the P4 system.
• Your FSB would be higher than the default on your overclocked 2800+, so that means the P4 would have to have an increased FSB speed for it to be fair. That is another advantage on your part.
• The fact that the 3ghz P4 had PC-3700 memory means that the timings are probably much higher than your PC-3200. This would give you a very big advantage, and don't give me that "He has faster RAM than me" crap because it's not true. His PC-3700 would still run at PC-3200 speeds if the FSB is at the default 200.
• At 2.35ghz, your CPU would be considered an XP 3500+. The P4 is only a 3ghz, so in essence, your CPU has a 500 P4 megahertz advantage.

 

[Lupus]

The pc3700 would be at slower timings because it can go to a higher fsb which the pentiums would actually use, whereas its very rare to get an athlon with an fsb higher than 250 (500 overall). But yeah you can't really make a comparison of one area when there are differences in several areas.

 

[ankalar]

Originally posted by Lupus
The pc3700 would be at slower timings

I said that.
<3

 

[Lupus]

Aye, my post was saying that to you hehe, the timings would be slower but it would be running at a much higher fsb which sort of compensates .

 

[ankalar]

It would still run at PC-3200 speeds if the P4 isn't overclocked......:bounce:

 

[3DDuL]

Oh, ok
btw, anklar, your models are awsome

 

[OCybrManO]

Originally posted by 3DDuL
I totally crushed a p4 3ghz 800fsb with 512mb pc3700 and a geforce fx 5900ultra in 3dmark2001 with my amd system
Ive got a barton xp2800+ @ 2350mhz, 512mb pc3200 and a radeon 9800pro
The P4 got 16447 points...
http://www.gamersdepot.com/hardware/video_cards/leadtek/5900u/002.htm
...and i got 17999points ;0)
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6979287

1) In 3DMark 2001... past a certain point (reached long ago) the CPU speed difference only produces marginally higher scores. Higher scores are achieved by faster video cards. Although 3DMark is supposed to be a benchmark for the whole system it mostly depends on the video card... so it has very little bearing on real-world performance in games. Do not use this as the basis of a "my processor is better than yours" arguement... and if you decide to use 3DMark anyway, at least use the same video card in both systems.

2) You have the 2800+ overclocked past 3200+ speeds while the P4 is running at stock 3.0GHz. The results of which processor has better bang-for-the-buck will be skewed when only one processor is overclocked.
Though, I would still bet that the P4 system (if it had the same video card) would still perform better in real-world situations where the processor really comes into play.
I have gotten a 3GHz P4 to go just short of 4GHz stable (with a really good cooling system... and that was just to see how fast it would go). If you bought a comparatively priced P4, like the 2.4GHz (around $170), it would perform roughly equal to a 3200+... then you could also overclock it to around 3.2GHz, maybe higher.
What I'm trying to say is that if the P4s perform better to begin with (they do) and you overclocked both processors to their highest stable speed (with the same type of cooling system)... the P4 would still be ahead.

Intel's fastest P4 easily beats AMD's fastest Athlon XP. Even Intel's 2.4GHz P4 beat AMD's Athlon XP 3200+ in about half of the tests (and it costs 60% less than the 3200+).

Some people are just too stubborn to admit that AMD processors haven't been the best processors performance-wise (or price-wise for that matter) lately. It may change with the next sets of processors... but for now I would go with Intel in almost every case.