AMD Athlon XP Vs. MP

[Kenny Red]

After countless tries running SOF 2 and MOHAA on my P3 1.0GHZ, 256MB RAM, GeForce 4 420, and getting nothing better than 10-15 FPS on each I have decided that maybe it is time for a new mobo and CPU.

I have my eye set on the AMD Athlon 2.0GHZ in XP or MP trim.. I noticed that the price of the XP is significantly cheaper, but I'm not that great with hardware.

Could someone run down the differences/advantages to either?

 

[Kenny Red]

In addition, I wanted to ask if maybe overclockin would be a better option for me? If so, could you direct me to good links with tutorials and guides?

Hate to sound like uber-noob, but I've become desperate!

 

[Arris]

MP is the multiprocessor version.
Unless your planning on running it in a MP board then there is little point paying the extra. Thats about the only difference. There are some articles floating about the net on how to unlock the MP on a standard Athlon XP but again there is little point if your only using a single processor system.
Before you go and change your board and CPU how does your system perform in other games? Do you get low fps in those as well? Or is this specifically SOF2?

 

[MrGaribaldi]

Another thing... You got the the Geforce 4 MX, which isn't exactly good for gaming...

And your system seems good enough to me... It's not top of the line, but then again, nothing is for very long...

So I'd say wait about one or two months, then buy a new gpu... In those two months, nvidia and ati will (probably) have announced their new cards, and the parhelia hit the market, which should push prices down a bit (and give you more to choose from...)

.02$

 

[young&wild]

The reason why MP are expensive as they are meant for servers and workstations. So i think you are better off with XPs.

 

[Didou]

Originally posted by young&wild
The reason why MP are expensive as they are meant for servers and workstations. So i think you are better off with XPs.

Yeah that means there's an extra testing phase ( to see if they'll work in a reliable manner in a multiprocessor environment ) before they are released. The other difference is the AthlonMP doesn't have his L1 bridges cut like the AthlonXP.

 

[Kenny Red]

I actually used to run a GeForce 3 MX, and all my games, SOF2, MOHAA, The Sims even. All had lousy framerates and choppy gameplay.

The only game that seems to work ok is Jedi Knight 2. Weird huh?

 

[Didou]

You mean a GF2 MX ?

Check out this thread, there's someone else with a 1GHZ P3 that's also been having performance problems -> CPU bottlenecking?

 

[LNCPapa]

Also, you'll be waiting a while for an Athlon 2.0 Ghz to come out - it's not available yet. However, if you mean Athlon XP 2000+ then that is only 1.67 Ghz - but it's plenty fast enough for SoF2 if you get another video card.

LNCPapa