P4 530 3.0GHz (S775) or AMD 64 3200+

fatherdougalmag

I'll be upgrading from a PIII 800 and I was wondering which I should go for. I've not really been keeping up with tech things for the past year or so and I was wondering if anybody could help out. I'm off to the US tomorrow so I hope to know by then which I should plump for. I'm thinking that, for future-proof's sake, I should go for the AMD. The machine is a family PC (light to moderate use) but I'll also be doing a lot of video encoding.

[Edit: This is one of the places where I'll be visiting].]

Peteee

MMM i'd usually say AMD, but if your gonna be doing a lot of video encoding, i'd say go with intel, because they are superior in video (and audio) encoding. About the only thing they are superior at tbh

fatherdougalmag

That's what the conclusion seems to be on the benchmarks that I've seen so far. Here's another hat to throw in the ring. Dell are selling off Xeon-based servers for €149 ex. VAT. If I configure a system with a 2.8GHz I can get a machine for a shade over €300 incl delivery and VAT. Do you know how a Xeon 2.8GHz compare to a P4 3.0GHz?

Peteee

Not too sure, but they would definetly be comparable, max 5% difference between the 2.

The xeon is baasically a p4 with masses of cache, which would probably make up for the 200mhz loss.

You'll end up with a fine system whatever you get.

dubdvd

sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the dell deal has ended sold out they had 2000 sytems that went online at 9am this morning and are sold out

gline

i would say amd, in my experience they are beter allround. I have built both and i like amd's the best, and as they are 64bit, when windows xp 64 for amd comes out u will be ready for that, im sure encoding will be better in a true 64bit enviorment.

BloodBath

i would say amd, in my experience they are beter allround. I have built both and i like amd's the best, and as they are 64bit, when windows xp 64 for amd comes out u will be ready for that, im sure encoding will be better in a true 64bit enviorment.

There's nothing to back that up yet. The simple choice is gaming - amd, video/audio encoding/3d rendering - Intel.


BloodBath

astrofool

BloodBath wrote:

There's nothing to back that up yet. The simple choice is gaming - amd, video/audio encoding/3d rendering - Intel.


BloodBath

and the complicated choice is that it depends on what codecs and renderers you are using as some will favour AMD as much as some will favour Intel

Azza

3D rendering is very similar on the AMD 64's according to anandtechs benchies. But the 3200 proves better than the 3.0ghz p4. General office applications are also in AMD's court. Linux 64bit distrabutions using AMD 64's have proven faster than 32bit intel windows 32bit. Says as much about windows as it does intel. Windows XP 64bit is released in march and any user who has the 32bit version can get it for free.
Basically only media/audio encooding is the only reason to go Intel. Then again all intels chips next years even the celerons will be 64bit. Then again the next wave of AMD 64's are expected to have SSE3 and DDR2 compatibility.

BloodBath

What percentage of people use Linux tbh?

I think Intel should switch to dothan core for their main line of processors. That's the centrino mobile chip, low power consumption, a lot less heat and they perform a lot better clock for clock than the p4's and even slightly better than the amd's from recent benchamrks I was looking at. They had a 2.0ghz one overclocked to 2.3 and it was performing nearly on par with an fx-53 in games. If intel worked on a desktop version they could afford to crank up the voltage and cache and maybe push stock speeds above 2.5ghz. Maybe we will see somthing similar in their dual cores.


BloodBath

Azza

Less than 10% because I know windows takes up 90% of the market so the rest is split between the other OS's. But just because Linux is not as common as windows (no OS is) does not mean it should be dismissed. Reminds me of the arguing on the IL2 Sturmovik website about which aircraft was the best in World War 2 the YankWhinners as us luftwaffe boys liked to call em would say the P-51 or the P-47 to which we would reply what about the Me 262 jet fighter bah too few of them around to be even considered. Kind of mentality would mean follow the masses regardless of alturnatives.

As for the Dothans I have seen them benchmarks to witch you refer. But it was competing against stock CPU's of all varities which does an injustice to them. it would fall behind the 3500 at least or maybe even the 3200 if they where overclocked. For such old architecture and no support for hyper threading low fsb etc its a mighty showning. Alas the motherboards are mean't to be quite hard to get for them. Contradictory things coming out of AMD these days there road maps show nothing after the 4200 and fx 57 but most people reckon AMD have large headroom in terms of clockspeed to play with.

gline

Azza wrote:

Windows XP 64bit is released in march and any user who has the 32bit version can get it for free.
.

Most websites reckon it wont be released anywhere near march, even microsoft who i emailed said they havnt got a release time for it, they said they wont know until a month before it comes out. Most places are saying mid to late 2005

Inspector Gadget

Bloodbath:

I believe the changeover to the Pentium-M/Dothan/whatever-you-want-to-call-it core (and its successors) is already on Intel's roadmap (read it somewhere, can't remember to be honest) - for now, they're busily squeezing as much life as they can out of their "Netburst" (hah!) core.

Gadget
P.S.> On the general subject under discussion, you should price the P4 with your choice of motherboard and sufficient DDR2 RAM (assuming you go with a 9xx chipset) against the A64 with your desired mobo and sufficient (fast) RAM and what the price difference is - it may even help make your choice for you?

fatherdougalmag

Well I'm back. Boy you'd all love it over there. The fair was pretty much like a parish fete for nerds. Motherboards, CPUs, drives, monitors, PC's, case, gadgets, software as far as the eye could see.

I eventually settled on a P4 3G (socket 775) and a Gigabyte GA-8IP775-G for about €220. The chip by itself was €140. I picked up 256MB of PC3200 for €35.

However, it seems all was in vain. When I try powering up - nada. No POST. No display. No beeps. Just fan activity. Power LED comes on. Also responds to a 5-second power-button-to-power-off so I guess there's some kind of intelligence there. But as for what it is, I don't know. I don't have any other boards or CPU's to try and see which is failing - the CPU or the board. So if anybody has any suggestions, feel free to post them. In the mean time, I'll probably just bring it in to PC World for them to have a quick look.

gline

fatherdougalmag wrote:

Well I'm back. Boy you'd all love it over there. The fair was pretty much like a parish fete for nerds. Motherboards, CPUs, drives, monitors, PC's, case, gadgets, software as far as the eye could see.

I eventually settled on a P4 3G (socket 775) and a Gigabyte GA-8IP775-G for about €220. The chip by itself was €140. I picked up 256MB of PC3200 for €35.

However, it seems all was in vain. When I try powering up - nada. No POST. No display. No beeps. Just fan activity. Power LED comes on. Also responds to a 5-second power-button-to-power-off so I guess there's some kind of intelligence there. But as for what it is, I don't know. I don't have any other boards or CPU's to try and see which is failing - the CPU or the board. So if anybody has any suggestions, feel free to post them. In the mean time, I'll probably just bring it in to PC World for them to have a quick look.

u try clearing the bios (jumpers) and then rebooting??? (im sure u have) it sounds like the baord maybe fecked