Pentium4 Vs. Athlon

[sk8bloke22]

actually i think Intel now hav the faster proccessors (im talking their highest range) if u compare with AMD's highest range. but i dont think the performance gap is very big.

alpha: any idea how to unlock them?

 

[AlphaWolf]

If you look on the processor itself, you can see the metal exposures, you can bridge or break certain ones to adjust the multiplier. Which ones specificaly depend on the processor, and what speed you want to get it to. Look around on sites like tomshardware.com for more details.

 

[crhylove]

in my mind, for a variety of reasons there is NO reason to buy intel.

i have the same mobo and proc as eagle, and they run circles around every p4 i've used.

obviously i haven't used the 2.7ghz p4, though, but at that price i bought my WHOLE COMPUTER.

besides the claw hammer path beats the pentium path in the future.

the pentium can't deal with the transition from rambus to ddr that it has HAD to make cuz rambus was a stupid idea. (economically).

for the money, there's NO comparison, and you should just put out the extra $20 u saved on the athlon by getting the extra 100 mhz or so, so you don't HAVE to overclock.

just my $.02
rhy

 

[Slougi]

the p4 has a higher speed cuz intel name their proceccors 2.5 ghz when they are 2.0 really. Amd do a similar thing, a athlonXP 2000 1.8ghz is the equivilent to a 2ghz pentium 4. Pentium 4s have a few bugs, and if u dont belive me why are there patches to get game x to work with P4? So what do ya go for? AthlonXP cuz there price is awesome and they are better than pentium 4's benchmarks prove it

also most athlonXP motherboards support DDRram, where as harldly any Intel based motherboards dont (accordin to my m8)

Stez

Dude, get your facts straight. Intel to date has always used the real Mhz markings, contrary to AMD, cyrix etc. Also in general AMD systems are a lot more quirky than intel systems, especially on via chipsets.

All in all, if you have the money and don't care for price/performance get a p4, you'll have less trouble with it in the long run. If you are on a tight budget, or want the best price/performance ratio get an AMD system. I do recommend getting a mobo running a non-via chipset, like the sis 735/745/746.

 

[Eagle]

Dude, get your facts straight. Intel to date has always used the real Mhz markings, contrary to AMD, cyrix etc. Also in general AMD systems are a lot more quirky than intel systems, especially on via chipsets.

All in all, if you have the money and don't care for price/performance get a p4, you'll have less trouble with it in the long run. If you are on a tight budget, or want the best price/performance ratio get an AMD system. I do recommend getting a mobo running a non-via chipset, like the sis 735/745/746. [/B]

Roger, thats a negative on that one...

Its a well known fact intel lies about their processor speeds Slougi. Its kinda hard not to know since they are about to begin the biggest lawsuit since M$ vs Netscape over the whole thing. AMD has accurate speeds on their CPUs.

 

[Slougi]

Erm... Eagle, they may lay about mhz being a decisive indicator of speed, but they have always had the correct mhz markings on their chips. AMD is way more confusing with their pr ratings, and back in the pentium days with ibm and cyrix also being big players, the pr confusion was huge.

 

[Eagle]

Erm... Eagle, they may lay about mhz being a decisive indicator of speed, but they have always had the correct mhz markings on their chips. AMD is way more confusing with their pr ratings, and back in the pentium days with ibm and cyrix also being big players, the pr confusion was huge.

CPU frequency does indicate speed though Slougi, unless you fix the processor so it runs at a higher frequency but doesnt increase speed. Sure, technically it runs at 2 gHz but if they disable it so the increased speed is not available then its a lie about the CPU speed.

It all goes back to basic Chemistry. Frequency (Mhz, Ghz, etc.) is the measurement of waves, the higher the frequency the closer together the waves are and the faster the waves move. Thus the higher the frequency, the faster the proccessor, what Intel does is limit the effectiveness of this so that every 10th wave to come along does nothing, its just ignored by the processor. So, while it is running at a higher frequency technically, the measurements have been tampered with to reduce efficiency which makes it as if it were running at a lower frequency anyway.

AMD on the other hand has never done anything to prevent the full usage of their processors as the were designed. So as you can see Intel DOES lie about their frequency. There is no Cyrix or IBM about it, In the here and now, Intel lies and false advertises their CPU frequency and thus they are going to endure a long legal battle over it.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Originally posted by Slougi
All in all, if you have the money and don't care for price/performance get a p4, you'll have less trouble with it in the long run.

Slougi: Thats just spreading FUD right there, there is no trouble at all in the long run. You get an AMD and it will last, you won`t have "unspecified" problems with it later, at all. (I can't think of any at least, nor even the possibility of any)

(heres a definition of FUD: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Hills/9267/fuddef.html )

 

[Slougi]

Not FUD Alphawolf, I call it first hand experience. Most Athlon chipsets have a lot of quirks.

 

[Stezo2k]

well i havent noticed any "quirks" on amds, all of my freinds all own AMD's and i have used all of them for gaming etc, and i didnt notice any probs or "quirks"

Stez

 

[Slougi]

Try installing a voodoo 2 on any board with a via chipset. Then there's the SB Live! bug, bad pci performance (ever wonder why raid performs better on intel/sis chipsets?), huge power consumption, and heat production.

Ok, most of these are not AMD probs, but rather Via. But AMD still has a fair share of problems with the Athlon design, certainly more than Intel has with the P4.

 

[Eagle]

As mentioned in the Nvidia vs Athlon thread, these things always end in argueing, and in this one I got caught up in it as well, so its getting moved.

 

[Trotterwatch]

Some people have problems with Athlons, some don't... as long as you use the correct chipset drivers, bios settings, cooling solutions etc there shouldn't be a problem.

I still use an Athlon 900mhz, with quite a cheap motherboard based on the Via KT133a chipset. I experienced the PCI latency issue, which was fixed with an unofficial patch. Since then I have had not one issue with the Athlon, bar a minor overheating problem, but that was my fault entirely.

If you do a little research and know what you are doing with computers, then the Athlon makes an extremely competitive, and cost effective solution to your need for speed.

P4s, on the whole do in all fairness experience less problems due to better chipset support -, and the chip is not as bad as a lot of people have tried to make out (the high clockspeed advantage makes this happen obviously).

So if you have money to burn, then buy the fastest P4 you can

If you are on a budget, get either a slower P4 - or an Athlon, unless you have a long history of being plain unlucky with Via chipsets and the like!

 

[Slougi]

Trotterwatch said exactly what I was trying to say, maybe a bit more clearly
The only thing i never got resolved on my old amd mobo was the voodoo 2 thing. Since I got a ECS K7S5A (SiS 735), all problems disappeared.

 

[iq_132]

My Celeron sucks... It kind of soured me on Intel, so I'll probably get an athlon next time I get some cash.

 

[crhylove]

intel has a much higher history of processor bugs, FYI and they are the first adopters of on chip DRM, of course, amd is guilty too, so i think we should start a new company... LOL

 

[AlphaWolf]

Slougi: what your refering to is mostly problems with the older athlon designs, which don't effect a lot of people. Remember, the first pentiums were far more flawed than athlons ever were, they actualy had certain instructions that when executed would wreak havok. Most of the problems the athlons had in the early days didn't relate to the CPU itself, rather the chipsets that supported them.

IMO, AMD is going a long ways, you'd expect a processor as "flawed" as an athlon to not sell nearly as well as it does if its incompatible with intels chipsets.

 

[Slougi]

Alphawolf: You are right. But just as you don't really trust Ati, I can't bring myself to really trust AMD. I am sure you'll understand that. I have just had too many problems with AMD chips over the past.

You are correct about the initial pentiums as well, and don't forget the first batch of pentium pros! They were just as bad.

 

[Trotterwatch]

The first batch on Pentium Pros had some divide by zero error or something along those lines.

 

[Slougi]

Trotterwatch: Yep, I had one. It would lock up all over the place. Luckily Intel fixed that and replaced the faulty chips.