Athlon 64 Or Pentium 4

[Paul]

I know this is a stuipd question, but i must post it anyways :slurp:

Ok, i'm going to be building half of a new computer very soon with my income tax money. when i say half, i mean a new motherboard and cpu (poss video
card). I have been looking at the P4's and the athlon 64's. When goign to tomshardware.com and checking them both out they seem to be fairly matched, with a few more benchmarks leading to the p4. However i know the athlon 64's will also be cheaper. So to make the long story short i wanted your guys input on it. If you have an athlon 64 or a P4. I want to spend around $500.00 give or take a little.

My current systems is :
Pentium 4 2.4 (800FSB)
Radeon 9800 Pro (128 meg)
512 Megs of OCZ (ddr500)
Soundblaster Live
Lite On 12x cd burner

Now the computer i'm using now i can't overclock, i'm guessing it's beacuse of the motherboard, damn cheap gigabyte. Anyways the next computer i build i want to overclock. And i have been VERY VERY interested in SLI Interface. All opinions are appreciated !!

Well athlon are nice for gamers but i wouldnt buy one,I repair them and thats all,I usally stick with a good asus board,I now run a P4C800E deluxe and cant see a dif in speed as others mention where they find speed i dont know,could be all in their heads,P4C and a 3.2 is excellent i recommend to any gamer !!. :hotbounce

 

[Caerbannog]

In our heads?? Not a chance. I used to have that exact same board with a P4 3.0 on it and between that and the Athlon 4000+ there is no comparison whatsoever. The performance difference is so large (particularly in gaming) that one doesn't require a benchmarking tool to notice what ammounts to about a 25% performance gain let alone mind trips.

Gaming Benchmark

 

[Paul]

In our heads?? Not a chance. I used to have that exact same board with a P4 3.0 on it and between that and the Athlon 4000+ there is no comparison whatsoever. The performance difference is so large that one doesn't require a benchmarking tool to notice it let alone mind trips.

And tell me where is the performance difference in boot up/gaming/programs?
If its in gaming that all depends on what video card you are using.Also i must add you must have had a poor quality vid card i would say if you are talking game speed,I am running one of the fastest video cards you can get a NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra.If you can afford one get one you will see speed if thats what you are after,Cheers :hotbounce

 

[Caerbannog]

If its in gaming that all depends on what video card you are using.

Say what??? Not sure where you got that idea from but aside from CPU horsepower other factors that contribute to gaming performance are memory bandwidth, cache size etc. Look at the benchmarks listed here along with some very good explanations of why the AMD chips, particularly the FX-55 and 4000+ with their higher memory bandwidth and larger L2 caches blow away the Intel chips in games like Doom 3 and Half Life 2.

You are greatly underestimating the performance of the CPU in gaming if you think that only the choice of video card makes a difference here as these test systems all used the ATI Radeon X800 XT with the Intel model actually having the advantage of PCI-Express and still falling way short.

This memory bandwidth and larger L2 cache also contribute to its performance in business apps, 3D rendering etc.

And I do have a nVidia 6800GT myself...

AMD 64 4000+
Abit AV8 Motherboard
nVidia 6800GT
2GB OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 2-2-5
2 X Seagate Baracuda ST3250823AS
SB Audigy 2

 

[Paul]

Say what??? Not sure where you got that idea from but aside from CPU horsepower other factors that contribute to gaming performance are memory bandwidth, cache size etc. Look at the benchmarks listed here along with some very good explanations of why the AMD chips, particularly the FX-55 and 4000+ with their higher memory bandwidth and larger L2 caches blow away the Intel chips in games like Doom 3 and Half Life 2.

You are greatly underestimating the performance of the CPU in gaming if you think that only the choice of video card makes a difference here as these test systems all used the ATI Radeon X800 XT with the Intel model actually having the advantage of PCI-Express and still falling way short.

This memory bandwidth and larger L2 cache also contribute to its performance in business apps, 3D rendering etc.

And I do have a nVidia 6800GT myself...

AMD 64 4000+
Abit AV8 Motherboard
nVidia 6800GT
2GB OCZ PC3200 Platinum Rev. 2 2-2-5
2 X Seagate Baracuda ST3250823AS
SB Audigy 2

Hmm well my 4 slots filled with 4gig of infinion ram is still smokin through the games :hotbounce

 

[Caerbannog]

Hmm well my 4 slots filled with 4gig of infinion ram is still smokin through the games :hotbounce

If you say so..but I don't care to get into a p*ssing contest of what is in who's head now. To each his own.

 

[Paul]

If you say so..but I don't care to get into a p*ssing contest of what is in who's head now. To each his own.

Just a question for you--By the way when you mention factors that contribute to gaming performance are memory bandwidth, cache size etc,? "when your cache on video card is all filled up during gaming where do you get extra memory from before your computer pooks? I have tried more motherboards/cpu's/video cards/memory etc on all kinds of built systems,I have built well over 5000+ so if you dont know what your talking about dont respond.

 

[Caerbannog]

I have tried more motherboards/cpu's/video cards/memory etc on all kinds of built systems,I have built well over 5000+ so if you dont know what your talking about dont respond.

LOLOL I have been building computers for 20 some years and all I have done is correct a number of mis-statements by you. I even went as far as taking the time to provide links showing you evidence of what I was saying yet you choose to ignore them and make some half-*ssed reply like that. I guess that doesn't suprise me with your half-baked response of the performance differences just being in peoples heads in the first place.

Your credibility just hit the big ZERO. You get no respect making comments like that man...everyone just sees you for what you are.

 

[zephead]

Look at the benchmarks listed here along with some very good explanations of why the AMD chips, particularly the FX-55 and 4000+ with their higher memory bandwidth and larger L2 caches blow away the Intel chips in games like Doom 3 and Half Life 2.

very true. the ddr2 intel has thrown at thier pentium systems has higher theoretical bandwith, but on account of timing issues DDR2-533 falls short in performance. current DDR2 clock speeds are too slow to take advantage of DDR2's timings/design. should a faster clocked solution become available it will help intel's performance to some extent.

 

[Paul]

LOLOL I have been building computers for 20 some years and all I have done is correct a number of mis-statements by you. I even went as far as taking the time to provide links showing you evidence of what I was saying yet you choose to ignore them and make some half-*ssed reply like that. I guess that doesn't suprise me with your half-baked response of the performance differences just being in peoples heads in the first place.

Your credibility just hit the big ZERO. You get no respect making comments like that man...everyone just sees you for what you are.

What zero,What comments?.have you actly tried running these different systems to see if there is a differents other than just reading sites and believing what you are told,amd likes to push products to out due intel.And my half -baked response that i am giving you here is that it tells me that you have pulled the side case from a tower the odd time.

 

[zephead]

that was fast, i just finished posting.

 

[Caerbannog]

Your a very funny man indeed.

Your mistatments say one of two things. That (A) you are the one who has done nothing more than pull the side off of a tower or two or (B) you have built a lot of systems and have learned nothing from that and still don't know what you are talking about.

Either way I attempted to explain to you why you where wrong with your statements and provided you with some links showing you why you where wrong and the results of the facts I provided.

In turn you responded with the basic "I got caught not knowing what I am talking about so now I want you to go away" response by telling me if I didn't know what I was talking about to not bother replying.

Clearly I do know what I am talking about with the statements I made and have provided you with links backing up what I am saying. Since your so Godly in your computer knowledge why don't you humor us with similiar statistics clearly showing how your choice of video card is the only factor in gaming performance? Or how about an essay written by a noted psychologist on the large performance differences are all in the head of the gamer? Or how about a good expose on AnandTech and how they crew there are all just a bunch of hacks who have done little more than pull the side off of a tower or two since you don't seem to agree with his efforts and hard work on benchmarks.

When you make statements such as the one you made in regards to how many systems you have put togeter (5000+? Obviously NOT) and telling people to not reply because they don't know what they are talking about. That gets you ZERO credibility with anyone.

I DO know what I am talking about and have shown you evdidence that I DO. So don't ever tell me NOT to post somewhere as you lack the authority, the credibility and the respect to do so.

that was fast, i just finished posting.

Well I think he was responding to me...and honestly I didn't mean to start a flame war here, but it seems that is what it turned into. Apparently he doesn't take people disagreeing with him well.

I was at first only trying to show him that the performance gains are very real and very significant and not just in my head or anyone elses and then I was completly blown away by the statement "If its in gaming that all depends on what video card you are using" and tried to correct him on that.

I appologize for this thread being hijacked into a "fanboy" flame war because that was never the intent. I have nothing against Intels and have 3 intel Boxes myself as well as an Intel based laptop. So I obviously have nothing against Intel processors or people who use them, but I am very well aware that my AMD based boxes outperform my Intel based boxes and I understand why they do and only wished to point out that there are many factors besided choice of video card that greatly impact gaming performance.

Sorry for this good and informative thread becoming the mess it has become.

 

[Brian_Kuhlman]

AMD Pentium 4

Not a professional or anything but i have put together a few systems, some were fast and others slow ..to say AMD is Better than a pentium 4 well i guess it would depend on the components in both.get a crap mobo..great ram and a 40 dollar video card and all you have is nice ram..now if you get good ram a good mobo and a good video card then you would have a rig..the only difference i can really see between the two chips is what they are put on and with because a pentium 4 3.4e with a riva tnt2 64 value ram would suck but that same pentium 4 with a geforce ultra and some corsaire xms would rock..but in fact pentium does perform better for some things and amd for others ...many times they have been benchmarked and many times they both win..but i also do not think you should compare an AMD 64 with a Pentium 4 anyway because one is 64 bit the other 32 bit although pentium does have a 64 bit chip but haven't seen one as yet lol

 

[Caerbannog]

Brian,

Hi! As I had said I wasn't trying to get into a flame war of Intel vs AMD. I have both Intel and AMD boxes and I enjoy both companies.

The point I was making is that in high end gaming the AMD 64FX-55 and AMD 4000+ hold a clear advantage over the P4 3.2 and that the differences are due largly to technological advances not some flight of fancy or a head trip on the part of the gamer. It's not smoke and mirrors, but due to things such as an independent full duplex system bus, an integrated DDR memory controller, higher processor to system bandwidth than the 3.2, larger L1 cache to name a few.

Your post pretty much re-states my second point though and that is that there are a lot of factors in a systems performance in gaming or otherwise. The video card is but one of several factors that have a significant impact on performance. As far as side-by-side benchmarking goes I don't need to go far, my wife has my older Intel system and I have to say after playing on mine I get spoiled even watching her play on hers (and then I get to feeling guilty thinking I should upgrade hers, but she is a much more casual gamer lol) and swapping my 6800U for her 5950U doesn't even begin to bridge the differences.

Sorry for getting into a novel here, but the points I was making was that there are performance differences that amount to much more than AMD pulling out the smoke and mirrors or it "just being in our heads" and that there is a lot more than just choice of video card in impacting game performance. That was what the point of the benchmark I provided was. That given a more or less equal test bed with the same video card (Intel actually had the advantage of PCI-E) on one of their systems that they still fell short showing performance differences when video card choice is not a factor.

As far as the AMD 64 goes though that is pretty much of a non-factor for now as Microsoft has yet to release anything more than a pre-release of Windows XP 64. Drivers for that have still been kind of fledling and poor performers (initial tests of the pre-release have shown between a 10% and 20% decrease in gaming performance as a result) and of course where are the 64-bit apps? So for testing purposes both systems doing 32-bit computing using Windows XP Pro.

 

[Paul]

Brian,

Hi! As I had said I wasn't trying to get into a flame war of Intel vs AMD. I have both Intel and AMD boxes and I enjoy both companies.

The point I was making is that in high end gaming the AMD 64FX-55 and AMD 4000+ hold a clear advantage over the P4 3.2 and that the differences are due largly to technological advances not some flight of fancy or a head trip on the part of the gamer. It's not smoke and mirrors, but due to things such as an independent full duplex system bus, an integrated DDR memory controller, higher processor to system bandwidth than the 3.2, larger L1 cache to name a few.

Your post pretty much re-states my second point though and that is that there are a lot of factors in a systems performance in gaming or otherwise. The video card is but one of several factors that have a significant impact on performance. As far as side-by-side benchmarking goes I don't need to go far, my wife has my older Intel system and I have to say after playing on mine I get spoiled even watching her play on hers (and then I get to feeling guilty thinking I should upgrade hers, but she is a much more casual gamer lol) and swapping my 6800U for her 5950U doesn't even begin to bridge the differences.

Sorry for getting into a novel here, but the points I was making was that there are performance differences that amount to much more than AMD pulling out the smoke and mirrors or it "just being in our heads" and that there is a lot more than just choice of video card in impacting game performance. That was what the point of the benchmark I provided was. That given a more or less equal test bed with the same video card (Intel actually had the advantage of PCI-E) on one of their systems that they still fell short showing performance differences when video card choice is not a factor.

As far as the AMD 64 goes though that is pretty much of a non-factor for now as Microsoft has yet to release anything more than a pre-release of Windows XP 64. Drivers for that have still been kind of fledling and poor performers (initial tests of the pre-release have shown between a 10% and 20% decrease in gaming performance as a result) and of course where are the 64-bit apps? So for testing purposes both systems doing 32-bit computing using Windows XP Pro.

I did not want to start any thing here or argue,All I mentioned is I and many others such as friends with big rigs and the plenty i built including amd 4000 with the same video card we never seen a differents in speed playing games,I did not say intel or amd was faster maybe you misunder stood me,doing 1/2 life or doom 3 they were both comparable with no flaws.I run my system at 3360 with more than enough memory and it runs pretty quick but where the differents for speed on other systems i quite dont understand.Now on a AMD 64FX-55 there could be some more speed here depending on games you load i have not played with these systems to much,As for opening up programs on your desktop the amd maybe a little quicker due to the l2 cache.sorry if you did not understand my point that i was making.

 

[Justin]

Holy Boat. I just saw a page and a half of run-on sentences.

 

[Vehementi]

LOLOL I have been building computers for 20 some years...

I do very much hope that someone who has been building computers for "20 years" would find something better to say than "LOLOL"

And so tell me, what kind of PCs were you retailing (or, "building" I should say) back in 1984?

I see a page and a half of big ego's and bigger incompetence.

 

[Caerbannog]

I do very much hope that someone who has been building computers for "20 years" would find something better to say than "LOLOL"

And so tell me, what kind of PCs were you retailing (or, "building" I should say) back in 1984?

I see a page and a half of big ego's and bigger incompetence.

IBM XT/AT systems. Speak for yourself on the incompetence for you should know the answer to that without having to ask me.

What the heck is wrong with you people. Run on sentances and grammar aside the information I provided in my answer was correct. Somehow I guess I missed the "rules and regulations" post about all grammer having to be perfect and all spelling correct to post.

I have never seen a board with so many folks who apparently quick to flame and short on knowledge. Man what the heck is wrong with you people.

I do know what I am talking about and as a "Paladin" on this board it is my guess that you know that I do as well. Thats fine, your comments don't bother me, but I am smart enough to take a hint as well and it seems to me that new folks comming in contradicting a member is something thats not welcome on this board. Thats fine.

I didn't find any insight here to the problem I came here looking for anyway, but just thought I would participate along the way.

 

[zephead]

that sure escalated quickly.

 

[Didou]

Original question +/- answered.

Thread locked.