Which new CPU should I buy?

[Caspar]

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?

[paulyoung666]

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

Originally Posted by paulyoung666

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

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 ?

[paulyoung666]

Originally Posted by pem

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 ?

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

[Ben]

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

[Stuartbe]

Originally Posted by paulyoung666

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

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.

[philip.j.fry]

Originally Posted by stuartbe

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 !

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

[SMHarman]

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.

[abailey152]

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.

[Bifta]

Originally Posted by Caspar

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?

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

[Stuartbe]

Originally Posted by Bifta

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

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

[Bifta]

Originally Posted by stuartbe

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

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

[Emperordalek]

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

[snuffs99]

Originally Posted by Caspar

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?

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

[Caspar]

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

I fancy the 3.0GHz version...

Originally Posted by Ben

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

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..?