Which new CPU should I buy?
 

OK, I'm going to buy a new cpu and need to find some quality benchmarks and information comparing these new AMD chips vs P4, and also whether to wait for Prescott?

Which one to buy?

1. AMD Opteron 240 64Bit CPU Retail inc fan [3 yr.warr.] 940pin
priced at £176.25

2. AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 64 bit Retail inc.fan 2000MHz [3 yr.warr.] 754pin
priced at £204.44
(or even the 3000+ version for £162.15 )

3. Intel® Pentium ® 4 2.8GHz [800MHz] 512Kcache Retail inc.Fan [3 year warranty]
priced at £155.69

Prices quoted from Microdirect.co.uk on 260104

What do you think?

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

cant help you with the benchmarks but i would always buy amd over intel purely because they are not rip off merchants like intel :)

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

An interesting reply considering that the Intel is the cheapest of the three listed above. :)

I would personally not buy 64bit atm unless you fancy being a guinea pig - what OS are you planning to use ?

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

dammit how right you are , but which is the fastest and iirc intel 64 processors are more expensive than amd 64 of the same spec :)

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

3. Intel® Pentium ® 4 2.8GHz [800MHz] 512Kcache Retail inc.Fan [3 year warranty]
priced at £155.69


Price: £129.95 (£152.6 9 Including VAT at 17.5%) (www.overclockers.co.uk)


;) - I have the 2.6 pushed to 3.2 lovely :D

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

If you use the 64bit cpu's then you are going to need the 64bit xp pro. I have seen this running at work and drivers can be a b***h to find.

I think that xp pro 64bit is still beta !

I personaly prefer the amd chips for workstations but I only EVER use xeon cpu's for servers with genuine intel server boards.

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

Or a Linux distribution, which depending on what you want to use your system for might not be the best solution.

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

What are you doing with it? If you look at loads on your current CPU it idles a lot of the time (well mine does). The new CPU needs to be consideres in conjunction with the RAM (slow ram fast CPU - slow PC) HDD speeds and transfer rates 10k rpm SATA.
Graphics cards etc.

Personally I'd stick with a 32bit AMD for the time being and switch in 12-18months, unless you really want or need to be bleeding edge.

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

I would be tempted to steer clear of 64 bit processors until there's actually some software to run on them. As with all things new, you just know that there will be some pretty significant problem which is found and gets fixed on the second release of these new CPU's.

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

I have no. 2 .. and would recommend it.

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

Thats a nice cpu.... Hope you have a good cooler !

I use the coolermaster pipe cooler range and my 3000 runs at 31c :)

p.s. - dont forget that rep you owe me ;)

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

I just use a generic Coolermaster KK8, does the job, no idea what the temperature is.

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

You can get the P4 2.8 for £135.52 (inc) at Komplett plus postage.

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

The 64bit chips are far superier to the current p4's however amd are planning a 64bit 4000+ chip for the end of this year along with a slightly slower 3700+. By this time the prescott and newcastle chips will have been on the market for a little while and full benchmark tests and bug tests will be available so i would get an xp chip for the time being and wait for the markets to settle and the software to catch up if i were you.
I currently have a barton xp 2800+ and would like to upgrade myself but there really isn't that much between the chips at the moment in my opinion, i mean lets face it there isn't anything i can't do with todays software that others can. The days of software being ahead of the hardware are long gone and the roles have been reversed so until the software catches up why waste your money.


Regards

Snuffs

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

cheers everyone...I've decided to keep with my original thoughts and go intel p4.

I fancy the 3.0GHz version... :D

I'm sure someone has, but I'm a bit anxious about buying volitile goods of the t'Internet. What sort of after sales service in there, if the chip is dead etc..?

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

Much the same as the real world from a reputable company. With a chip, they will probably first accuse you of breaking it, but eventually conceed. Probably more likelyhood of success with them due to their higher turnover and greater ability to withstand the occasional problem.

Go for it.

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

Im so depressed you went for the intel offering, back in the early days of 32 bit workstations namley OS/2 I oculd understand it for compatability, but nowadays its not really the same kindda problem. With AMD you can get the same, if not slightly better performance and reliability at less cost... kinda begs the question of why buy intel.....


hmmm wonders if nike or addiddas have ever thought of bringing out a processor....

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

After sales service with OverClockers.co.uk is very good.

Try ebuyer first though, they tend to be cheaper for msot stuff, although OC.uk is good for processors.

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

My first chip was an AMD PR75, after that I've had a cyrix and an even mix of amds and intels. I am currently on a Athlon t'bird 1400.

The reason I prefer intels, is stability. I'm sure things have changed...but the bad history that I've had with AMDs is horrid! Intels run smoother, cooler and damn right easier to build (plus the stickers are smarter! :naughty: :))

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

Here's a two pence-worth....

I'm currently running an Intel P4 (2.4ghz) which I got cheapy cheap as everyone wants the 2.8+ versions. This is for my main desktop box, running Slackware Linux, so I don't need the absolute fastest CPU going. Got it from OCUK too - excellent customer service, and the one query I did have (which fan came in the retail box) was dealt with quickly and with more detail than I actually asked for!

With the Intel retail box, you'll get a CPU with the recommended Intel "thermal solution" (i.e. heat sink and fan) that you can confidently stick in to a board and it will just work and play nice.

Now I like AMD chips too - my spare server (web/ftp/dns) currently runs Slackware via an AMD thunderbird 950mhz - three years old, but still running like a champ! I've found with the new Athlon XP chips, you need to be *very* careful of cooling - not only the CPU cooler, but also intake case fans and exhaust case fans.

Simple rule of thumb - AMD chips run hotter than Intel (I know, doesn't always hold true but bear with me) so if running AMD, you *must* have a good quality case *and* plenty of good quality intake/exhaust fans. I have a rather poorly AMD XP1800+ on my desk at the moment that basically overheated and died (and this was with the supplied AMD heatsink/fan) due to poor case cooling.

As for 64-bit CPU's - yes, you could buy one now. But (and there's always a but!) I've used the 64-bit version of XP, and it's as buggy as a beta will be. IMHO, the beta of "longhorn" I have running on a 2Ghz P4 seemed more stable! Also, there are (as yet) very few applications available for XP64 - so yes, you could have one, but you ain't going to do much with it for now....now, you could run a 64-bit version of linux (I've done this too) and these are a little more mature and stable than the XP beta, and also there's plenty of apps available for the platform.

Remember the Intel Itanium? the "next big thing" (tm) - great chip, but....no software to run on it! Good server product, but the desktop...why?

Short term - next 12 months or so - on the desktop stick with the 32-bit chip. it'll take a while for anything useful to trickle up to 64-bit for the typical desktop computer, as all the application software needs to be completely re-written for the new architecture.

just a few thoughts....

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

They don't run cooler or smoother anymore and what are you doing building the chip yourself because in my experience there is nothing hard about putting a chip into a socket, i mean they only fit in one way. :confused:

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

The last two AMDs I've had were right bad to fix in. The lube was messy and I cracked one core :( Maybe I had bad seating of the m/board or don't know my own strength but when it comes to intels it's plain sailing! IME *Experience

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

When did this happen!

Intel Pentium 4 "Prescott" 3.2GHz (800FSB) with HT Technology - Retail (CP-047-IN)
(sorry no direct-link, it's down the bottom or CTRL+F ;))

£235 quid this is a bargain! :p :D

The only iffy thing is that the 'more info' button links to the EE, which is obviously wrong link.

Is this 'the' Prescott or is OC pulling our leg? ..or have I missed a trick and these babes are actually about to be released!

If it is, what motherboards will house this baby?

I was looking at the Asus P4C800, canterwood. I know about the springdale bios update to turn springdale into a canterwood, but for an extra tenner I thought I'd just fly the canterwood!..or is there another reason to buy the springdale?

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

Lube? LUBE??? Where the heck were you inserting them to need lube!?!?! :eek:

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

the release date is about right for for the prescott chip casper. quite cheap innit?

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

Did the Lubricated AMD's keep slipping out? :eek:

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

To clear a few things up ...

Prescott is due for release feb 2nd and shall be in stock in most places by then, distributer networks have them already! the more info doesnt work as it doesnt exist yet on the intel site, the EE is its closest match although its 1mb of cache and 90nm process

Clock for clock there marginally slower in some things vs northwood and then faster in others. Its quite close speed wise.
The price though is looking very good unlike there competitors atm.

Athlon 64 is very similar to the athlon xp. somthing like 80% of the core is the same, with more cache, basic 64bit support and integrated memory controller being the only difference.

Why buy intel - Hyperthreading (cant live without it now), runs at the speed said on the box, reliability, compatibility (mines overclocked shed loads and still no crash / bsd / anything stopping from working in what 8 months, couldnt say that for 8 hours or my amd/via setup)

Why not buy amd - only supported architecture under mainstream os (as in windows lets face it who willingly uses *nix as there main os) is outdated, 64bit support is very sketchy and not really showing much advantages yet, only decent performing one is the fx51 and that costs a bomb even more than the extreme edition. silly pr ranking system thats complete tosh, for starters they've called 3 different chips a 2600+ neither of them are as fast as a P4 2.4C nevermind a 2.6C and there performance is widespread and allover the place there hardly equivelent to each other.

On another note the Opeteron / Athlon 64 is in a completly different market secter to the Intel Intanium which when compared the intanium 2 whipes the flaw with the amd chip.

In my opinion its best you wait a few weeks at least for the pres'y to be released and then pulled apart to see if its worth getting.

K

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

Stability is down to the motherboard and other peripherals and not the CPU (Unless damaged obviously), the AMD K6 & K6-2 was plagued with bad motherboard design (I only ever used 1 stable K6 machine and I owned 3 personally plus all my friends had them at the time), Ironicly the K6-2 CPUs ran best on intel chipsets but I think there was only ever one designed for anything above 250Mhz and it was rare at best, yet still performed better and run more stable tan the PII equivelents, unless you had the fabled 440BX chipset.
As for the athlon platform in the early days the slot based Athlon Ran pretty good aslong as you stayed away from fully integrated motherboards (Was a general good bit of advce anyway until the most recent generation of integrated solutions).
For the Athlon T'Birds and onwards there have been very few bad designs unless you go for the cheap and nasty mobos.

It really irritates me when people compare an intel machine built from high priced components all brand new to an AMD machine built from bargain bin Low grade components (Might aswel be comparing apples to oranges)

e.g.
AMD 1800XP+ Intel P4 1.8ghz
256mb DDR 2100 (Generic) 256mb PC800 RDRAM (Crucial)
£35 pc chips mobo £80 Intel Mobo
Fully integrated components All ofboard components

Wich do you think would run more stable? I know its more of an extereme example but I think you get my point.

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

Nice choice there Cas you are just jelous of my pc, damn you and your upgrading, but i would reccomend Intel, mine has been running perfectly ever since ive had it, and HT is very usefull! :D

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

Proof? everything I have read states the athlon 64 as having full 64bit support unlike the Basic and mostly emulated 64bit support the Itanium has (Could be wrong though I normally am, prove me wrong if you can :D , I'd rather have my viewpoint corrected than to carry on spreading false info :) )

Why overclock anyway, even if your intel is running good now, you hav an extremely high chance of your CPU just randomly and permanently flaking out in the next year or so, good thing about Intels for long time is that when the cpu dies it doesnt take your motherboard with it. Even AMD chipsets have this now though and thats a motherboard feature anyway so I dont know why I mentioned it.

Also Keyword there 'Via' Notorious for making bad AMD mobos until the last year or so and even then you get mixed reports.

Any benchmarks to back that up? Im not doubting your statistics Ive just not seen anything to back that up :)

If you knew what you where talking about you would know that the PR system is designed to compare the chip to its counterpart (Nameley the duron and not the P4) wch is also why AMD chips are often about 2 thirds the price of the equivelent P4 CPU (Especially in the low end chips)

Re: Which new CPU should I buy?
 

Ref 'PR' system, if it does compare its performance against another system. Why are there 3 chips with the same ranking number thats performance varies so largely.

Also the intanium (1 & 2) are 64bit chips. They emulate 32bit for backwards compatibility though badly. They are though 100% 64bit in core design. The latest core design does contain some parts to help the 32bit emulator. See here for info http://www.intel.com/products/server...igh1_itanium2&
The amd stuff is x86-64, the whole idea being that it can do both properly.
Lets hope for there sake they get some help with m$ writing xp64 as here are some early benchies from it. Notice the large drops in performance when going to native 64bit mode.
http://www.anandtech.com/systems/sho...tml?i=1961&p=4

For a comparison of cpu performance this site list numerous cpu's results in spec inf perfomance, note the opteron wins the first test but then loses the rest.
http://www.aspsys.com/hardware/specchart/

K