Pentium 4 vs Athlon XP (Barton)

[BladeRnR]

Well it wasn't so long ago that you'd get a tirade of technical abuse from me in support of AMD if you happened to be an Intel User. How things change eh? ;)

The following article is LONG (All 26 pages of it) but it goes into great detail as to why P4 is the better choice in CPU. AMD no longer holds the coveted 'Bang for Buck' award - that goes to P4 with their 2.4Ghz CPU able to be clocked to 3.3Ghz.

Read on to see why Blade was converted to the Dark-Side (Besides wearing black is kinda cool :) ) and now sports an Intel Inside badge on his case (eeeekkk!!)

Intel P4 vs AMD Athlon (http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/articles.hwz?cid=2&aid=845)

Cheers

Blade

[onslaught]

my HL2 motivated upgrade draws near :)

[Viss]

I dunno these people that put cpu's against each other that arnt even compatible for a start the athlon's core clock spped Is a whole gig slower than the intel and the bus speed is half why not put the same speed cpu up against each other and see the results I bet it would tell a different story then ;)

[PtP]

Hey AMD set the rules with its deceptive 3200+ bullshit not relating to 3.2mghz, It came back and bit them in the arse in '96 and it is biting them again now ;)

[onslaught]

but dont they execute 8 instructions per clock cycle instead of intel's 6 ?

[Juice]

I wouldn’t be getting in to the argument of which CPU is better, as without AMD you would be paying twice what you are paying now for your CPU and it’s as simple as that.

As for bang for buck, well unless you happen to know what you are doing with regards to over clocking which I guess most here would be, but most ppl in the real world wouldn’t be able to do then AMD still is the cheaper option.

3.2 xp is around $800 and a 3.2 p4 is around $1200. As for the 2.4 p4 being soaped up to 3.3, well that would still cost about $350. You can do the same with a 2.5xp Barton for $180 and still take it up to a 3xp.

But at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter. The only thing that does is that there is still compition to try and keep cpu prices down a little.

Also to answer your question I’d be more inclined to buy a p4 today then an AMD, but that doesn’t mean to say that in 6 months time, I wouldn’t buy an AMD either. Things change and its all good.
Juice

[BladeRnR]

Juice as always has hit the proverbial nail on the head - get the best (at the time) if you have the funds.

Cheers

Blade

[FrogLegs]

Well said Juice ;)

But no way will I buy an AMD :D

[Viss]

A good matched Amd mother Board and cpu with a good ATI video card can be made to produce some top frame rates, In the hands of somone who knows what thay are doing. And really what is more important value for money or 60 fps which is not noticeable around the 300 fps mark. I to have always been a pentium boy but I must say that my 2600+ is one fast little machine and for $380 for m/board cpu and 256 of DDR333 thats what I call good value :)

[Mowerman]

Originally posted by Juice@Sep 23 2003, 02:17 AM
3.2 xp is around $800 and a 3.2 p4 is around $1200.
only one problem with that, the 3200+ only performs equivalent to the P4 3.0ghz which is over $100 cheaper,
every review i read said the 3200+ should of come with a 3000 rating.

but shit yeah, competition is good.

.

[BladeRnR]

Actually one thing I didn't point out (And was a major factor in my decision to go P4) was Hyperthreading and SSE2 Support. The article explains this pretty thoroughly. This is something AMD doesn't have and I use quite a few Apps that take advantage of both. Contrary to popular thinking my choice wasn't based on gaming or maximum FPS (Although a P4 will give you a handy lead in Q3 Engine games unless you use those hacked .DLL's for 3DNow (Which work mind you but are limited to Elite Force & Quake3))

There's more applications on the way that support Hyper-Threading as well. Just something to think about. I'm quite adept at producing a fast AMD system (Well I hope so given I've used them for the last 4 years) but Intel simply wins this round with pure grunt and some nice features that Apps can take advantage of.

The fact the P4 produces less heat is also a bonus too. Wait until October for a large price drop for all Intel cpu's given Prescott's release date of December 03rd has been officially announced by Intel. Debut speeds for Prescott are 3.2Ghz & 3.4Ghz on the new 0.09nm die along with 23 new instructions specfically for Prescott and larger L1 & L2 cache. Believe me - this Cpu is going to rip.

Cheers

Blade