Which one would you buy?

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AMD or Pentium? Looking to buy a new system.
Both come with:

512 MB PC2700 DDR RAM
80 GB HD
Floppy Drive
ATI Radeon 9200SE 128M
Toshiba SD-R5112 4x DVD Burner
Integrated 6 Channel Audio
650W Speakers w/Subwoofer
17" AOC FT700 Flat Monitor

With Pentium 4, 3.0G, Asus P4S8X-X Motherboard: $717
With AMD XP 3000, Asus A7V8X-X Motherboard: $643

With everything the same, it looks like a $74 difference between the Pentium and AMD product. Is it worth paying an extra $74 for the Pentium?

Would you get the Pentium or the AMD?
 
I'm not entirely sure... Being an 'Intel Man' myself, I'd go with the P4 3.06 Ghz...
The price diffrence is strange, most likely doesn't come from the Processor, but the Motherboard... Look up reviews for both motherboards on epinions.com and tomshardware(.com?) and see which one is better...

BTW: I would suggest upgrading the video card from the SE, ATI's SE Cards are far below their standard numbers, so much so that they go down to almost (and sometimes lower) than the model number before (ex Radeon 9800 SE is worse than Radeon 9600 (Pro?)) So, if you can, get the regular 9200 or some other card...

Have fun with your new compy!
 
An AMD XP 3000 is roughly 2.16 Ghz - not 3 Ghz. Don't be fooled by their model designations.

Definately go with the P4. Not only is it 3 Ghz, but it also has an 800 Mhz FSB and supports Hyper Threading.
 
AMD one is cheaper and actually almost as fast as the Pentium. Don't be fooled by looking only at the Mhz number. AMD's are cheaper and are as fast. Remember that.


The only thing they lack is Hyperthreading... which isn't that bad anyway...
 
AMD. Much, much better then Pentium. Do not be fooled by numbers, as the prevous poster stated. Also, they run slightly hotter then Pentiums.
 
RealGoober said:
Also, they run slightly hotter then Pentiums.
Click to expand...
Why do you think this is necessarily a better thing? The retail heatsinks that AMD comes with has been known to be faulty and sometimes called inadequate.

The Intel processor has a faster FSB, includes HT, and it's L2 cache gives larger benefits than the L2 cache from the AMD.

I'm not trying to discount AMD as a whole. It's a good chip, but I frankly think that between these two, the Intel is a far better decision.

You can google up many reviews and look up benchmarks. You will get biased (some towards Intel, and some towards AMD) results now and again. But I think this pretty much sums it up quite well:
The areas in which the Athlon XP does quite well, including the new Barton core, are its conventional strong points; in business applications it dominates the Pentium 4, showing off a very conservative model rating, in games the chip is quite competitive with Intel but once we shift to the newer multimedia, encoding and rendering environments the Athlon XP is no longer able to do so well.
Click to expand...
 
I agree that the Pentium 4 is better than the Athlon XP, but its not as good as the Athlon 64 judging by most benchmarks. I would go for a Pentium4 over an Athlon XP if cost isn't an issue... but cost is always an issue.

If you can afford a Pentium4 3Ghz, then you should get an Athlon 64 3000+..its roughly the same price and you'll have the option of running Windows XP 64-bit at the end of the year.
 
What do you plan to do with this computer? If you plan on gaming, then the Athlon64 is the best choice right now. Even the 2800 model will run on par with a 3ghz P4 in most gaming benchmarks. Also, if you plan on gaming, Radeon 9200SE are pretty much bottom of the barrel. At least get a real 9200, if not a 9600 or faster. An Athlon64 2800+ with a Radeon 9600 video card will cost about the same as a 3ghz Pentium4 with a Radeon 9200SE video card, but the former combo will give you vastly better gaming performance.
 
I went for an Athlon when I brought a new computer but this thread has kind of confirmed to me that there isn't really much difference between the two and it just depends if you want to spend slightly more money or not.
 
Intel have a history of changing sockets like underwear, forcing mobo upgrades.
 
I've never had better than a celeron at home, so this will be the first "real" computer I get. I've also never had an AMD product. It seems the decision is close from the debating on here, so I'll give AMD a try this time around. Don't do graphics intense gaming, but I'll get them to upgrade to a full 9200 just in case CIV IV can make use of it.

BTW, if I'm prepared to spend the money to buy a new computer in 3 years, will not having a 64 bit machine have an effect on me? I don't think the Athlon 3000 they quoted me is a 64 bit machine.

Thanx
 
Hm, yes... the 64 Bit machines should become a huge factor for PCs in a few years, so watch out for that, right now it isn't as important though, since the technology will be refined and improved dozens ogf times before programs really take advantage of it IMO.
 
Most software will still be 32 bit. Some games might take advantage of 64 bit processing in the years to come, but not all considering how complicated and expensive it is. And just because Windows is releasing a 64 bit version of XP doesn't mean that the 32 bit one will be obsolete.

In my humble opinion, people are overestimating the difference of 64 bit vs 32 bit - it's not that noticable right now and probably wont be a huge factor for another 4-5 years.
 
Jeratain said:
Most software will still be 32 bit. Some games might take advantage of 64 bit processing in the years to come, but not all considering how complicated and expensive it is. And just because Windows is releasing a 64 bit version of XP doesn't mean that the 32 bit one will be obsolete.

In my humble opinion, people are overestimating the difference of 64 bit vs 32 bit - it's not that noticable right now and probably wont be a huge factor for another 4-5 years.
Click to expand...


That is wonderful news!
 
Jeratain said:
Why do you think this is necessarily a better thing? The retail heatsinks that AMD comes with has been known to be faulty and sometimes called inadequate.
Click to expand...

I never said this was a good thing, I was just pointing out the blatantly obvious. Well, I think its blatantly obvious. But anyway . . .
 
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