Wanting to build a new PC using Athlon64 Any sugestions?

[scustalow]

I would like to get some suggestions on a good MB using the Athlon64 (Winchester) as I have read this chip runs cooler?..and a good video card ?Thank you for any suggestions..
PS:the last pc I built used a 2gig pent chip and a Asus board with 1 gig of memory..what kind of performance difference should I see compared with the Athlon 64

Or is the Intel Pent the best route to go?

[studtrooper]

Mobo Here and Vid Card Here.

[waheed]

See my sig

[redwudz]

I'm happy with my Gigabyte board. (See my profile for specs)

I didn't need SLI or a high end video card, so I went with an inexpensive one. Make sure you get a hefty power supply, especially with SLI. 400W+ is good. I would definitely recommend a motherboard with the Nforce 4 chipset.

[kini]

Go for a P4. Video rendering and encoding with the Athlon 3500+ is 30-70% slower than with my P4 3.6. Of course with the Athlon you will be able to upgrade to a dual core in 6 months or so, which should alleviate the poor performance of the single core 3500+.

I owned both, and the P4 is WAY faster at video stuff

[Zisguy1]

Go for a P4. Video rendering and encoding with the Athlon 3500+ is 30-70% slower than with my P4 3.6. Of course with the Athlon you will be able to upgrade to a dual core in 6 months or so, which should alleviate the poor performance of the single core 3500+.

I owned both, and the P4 is WAY faster at video stuff

I find this very hard to believe. Athlons are far better at floating point math than P4 (really better at all calculation-intensive stuff)... basically they grind/crunch numbers like industrial trucks crushing gravel. That's what you want for serious, heavy-duty apps.

P4's are like expensive, trendy, flimsy sports cars, good for people who do a lot of instant messaging, check their Hotmail, browse MSN groups, stuff like that...

P.S. many people at Doom9 have stated the opposite of what you say above.

[glockjs]

amd and intel are pretty close in all areas except for a few.

games-amd
video encoding-intel
$.....AMD

take a look at what quality chip you can buy for around the same price


mobo - i would go with msi or asus nforce4

vid card - 6600gt is the best for the price right now.

[Zisguy1]

If you encode video with apps that use a lot of floating point math (vs. SSE2, MMX, etc. integer stuff) AMD will whop the pants off Intel. And it seems the higher quality apps do use high precision floating point for best video quality.

[ClayBuster]

I just upgraded my Abit IC7-Max3, Radeon 9800XT with a 3Ghz P4 to a MSI "K8N Neo4 Platinum", Radeon X800 and a 3500 and cannot believe the difference between the two systems. The only thing I changed was the three items above and it was one of the best $100 upgrades I ever made.

[Soopafresh]

Man, if I had a dime for every AMD vs Intel thread...

They're both monsters when it comes to performance.

The big difference: The A64 is less expensive than the Intel, and it will be relatively simple to upgrade to XP 64 down the line, if you choose to do so.


http://www6.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20050103/index.html

Here's a good review of most of the new 939 mobos out there. Performance wise, they all seem to be pretty close in speed.

[kini]

Go for a P4. Video rendering and encoding with the Athlon 3500+ is 30-70% slower than with my P4 3.6. Of course with the Athlon you will be able to upgrade to a dual core in 6 months or so, which should alleviate the poor performance of the single core 3500+.

I owned both, and the P4 is WAY faster at video stuff

I find this very hard to believe. Athlons are far better at floating point math than P4 (really better at all calculation-intensive stuff)... basically they grind/crunch numbers like industrial trucks crushing gravel. That's what you want for serious, heavy-duty apps.

P4's are like expensive, trendy, flimsy sports cars, good for people who do a lot of instant messaging, check their Hotmail, browse MSN groups, stuff like that...

P.S. many people at Doom9 have stated the opposite of what you say above.

Maybe I should clarify. I don't use any high end apps, just a home user, DVDShrink, Adobe Premiere Elements and some other consumer apps.
Example using DVDShrink, same movie, same compression and quality settings- 3500+ 43mins
3500+ @2.475Ghz 39mins
P4 3.6HT 28mins

Adobe Premier same video file output to DVD
3500+ @2.475Ghz 30mins
P4 3.6HT 20 mins

That's what my in home test showed. In fact I was so disappointed in the 3500 that I sent it back and got the P4. Maybe I should've kept it and waited for the dual core, but it was hard to live with as when doing the encoding the system was essentially useless, took several minutes to open firefox and browsing was painfully slow.
Plus overclocked it wasn't exactly stable and at stock speed it was SLOW.

[ViRaL1]

For the price of the P4 3.6 you could have an Athlon64 3800+ , so your comparison is a bit skewed.

[rallynavvie]

It's hit or miss now on which apps run what better on which processor. A lot of high-end software is still being optimized for Pentium platforms (such as Adobe apps) since that's what the industry is still using. However when it comes for server applications the AMD processors are putting a lot of hurt on the Intel offerings. It's kind of grab bag lately, but you really can't go wrong with either right now.

A couple fallacies to dismiss, however:

Do not believe in the marketing that you must buy an A64 so that you are ready for 64-bit computing. I do not believe, in my quasi-professional opinion, that 64-bit computing will gain the foothold broad enough to become a standard for at least a couple years. My guess would be more that three. Remember that everything needs to be optimized for that: drivers, hardware, software, etc. I just don't think the transition from 32 will be so quick. I also have an awful suspicion that once true 64-bit home computing takes off the A64 will be less than entry-level what with its 32-bit compatibility.

Secondly AMD no longer carries the "most bang for your buck" title. A quick visit to Pricewatch shows low prices on an A64 3200 at about $170, the P4 3.2 at $145. The A64 3500 at $260, the P4 3.4 at the same. I'm comparing the Northwood P4s since Prescotts are trash and you shouldn't pay any more for them. Now wether or not the PR naming for the A64 holds up to the Intels is a matter for debate, but for this comparison we'll regard them as they were meant to be.

[dimtim]

Hey thats cool your buliding your own PC. I am too, but I have to wait to get the right video card before I can boot it up.

After a lot, and I mean a lot, of research I went I went with the AMD 3500 winchester, the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI motherboard, 1 gig corsair value ram, the powmax 580 watt power supply, and a cheap raidmax case which still looks awesome. I have no idea how my setup runs because, like I said, I can't boot it up yet, but it looks cool and thats what counts!!

[glockjs]

@rally i dont think that price comparison is fare. some of those retailers are full of shi** on pricewatch. well noted for bait and switch and it even shows in their rating. pull up newegg and search cpu's by price. you cant seriously tell me that intel has more bang for the buck.

[Cobra]

Intel or AMD - What's better?

Well, hopefully this will go some way to resolving these disputes. Neither type of CPU is better at any one thing!

On the whole, as Glock has stated before, the P4 is better at video encoding and the AMDs are better at tasks like gaming. Why? Modern CPUs use a process called "pipelining". This means that the CPU works on tasks like a factory line - the first part finds what is needed, then the next bit does something to it, passes it on and so on. This is extremely efficient! P4s have pipelines of about 30 units, and AMDs have something like 11-12 units. So, this should make the P4 much, much more efficient than the AMD in all cases, right?

Wrong! The first step is what limits the P4. The CPU isn't psychic, and although it makes a damn good guess as to what has to come next it sometimes makes a mistake and fetches the wrong data. In this case, the CPU must "flush" the pipeline. On an AMD chip, this carries a small time penalty due to the short pipelines and on a P4 this has a large penalty.

So, when it comes to predictable tasks such as video encoding a P4 will be a quicker chip. However, AMD CPUs leave the P4s behind when it comes to unpredictable tasks such as gaming.

This is only one factor contributing to the different strengths and weaknesses of each CPU type. It should highlight for all those arguing about which is better that they are trying to compare two different things.

If you could choose between a Lamborghini or a JCB tractor, and you were to be doing either farming or track racing, you would choose a suitable vehicle, wouldn't you? Same thing here.

Go for a P4. Video rendering and encoding with the Athlon 3500+ is 30-70% slower than with my P4 3.6.

Well, if those are the results you got then I suppose I can't argue that they are wrong. However, I think there are more factors at work here than your CPUs alone. My AMD XP3800 keeps up quite nicely with a P4 3.0GHz when encoding video. The AMDs are damn fast at video encoding.

For all those who are wondering, I have always used AMD CPUs in my own machines. They are more cost-effective for me. However, I am unbiased between CPU types - I will take whatever offers me the most bang for my buck at the time, regardless of who makes it.

Cobra

PS - I've tried to be as accurate as possible here, but if I am incorrect about certain facts feel free to put it right, guys!

[glockjs]

did you get your 3500+ oc'd to 3800+?


oh yeah and here are the latest benchmarks including intel's 6xx

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2353&p=4

[Cobra]

did you get your 3500+ oc'd to 3800+?

I certainly did. No multiplier overclocking (the opposite - dropped it) but I did it using the FSB. My system bandwidth is incredible!

As for those benchmarks, whilst they can be a very good way of comparing processors sometimes I think real-world tests are better. rallynavvie's benchmark thread could do with some more input so we can draw conclusions about it! I think AMD and Intel are very evenly matched, though. It's just the price premium you pay for an Intel - they don't do it deliberately. They own their FAB plants, whereas AMD skim off the deficit in production in everyone else's FAB plants and so save on the millions it costs to make a good plant!

[Zisguy1]

Do not believe in the marketing that you must buy an A64 so that you are ready for 64-bit computing. I do not believe, in my quasi-professional opinion, that 64-bit computing will gain the foothold broad enough to become a standard for at least a couple years. My guess would be more that three. Remember that everything needs to be optimized for that: drivers, hardware, software, etc. I just don't think the transition from 32 will be so quick. I also have an awful suspicion that once true 64-bit home computing takes off the A64 will be less than entry-level what with its 32-bit compatibility.

Agreed it'll take a while to transition to 64-bit computing. However, if the current A64 ends up being "less than entry level" it won't be due to backward compatibility (can't we still run 16-bit apps & OS's on current 32-bit processors?). If anything, it'll be outdated speed-wise by the time 64 bits really gets going. If you recall the first 16-bit processors, they weren't much faster than their 8-bit predecessors when running 16bit code (if anything, they were slower). And recall running the first 32-bit OS's on the hardware of the day (OS/2 and early NT), they were slow and hoggish.

64-bit computing is going to require almost double of everything -- RAM, processor speed, HD space, etc. Personally, I'm not all that convinced of the need for 64-bit in the consumer space. Not that it matters, we're gonna get it anyway.

[rallynavvie]

You have to consider that the shoddy retailers on PriceWatch are going to undercut prices on both Intel and AMD processors. Also NewEgg is notorious for marking up prices on Intel processors, thus the reason I bought my Xeons elsewhere at a fraction of the cost. Supply and demand issues? They're charging a lot more for Northwoods over Prescotts so perhaps that is the reason.

Also compare the top two CPUs from both schools. The FX-55 is $1000 at NewEgg and the oddball 3.46 EE P4 is only $40 more. The FX-53 is $727 currently and the P4 570 is $693. And according to most of the benches out there the FX processors don't outperform the Intel counterparts in every aspect so it does really only come down to what you're going to use the system for. No one processor is the victor here. In fact I think chipsets are becoming more a factor these days.

[vitualis]

If you encode video with apps that use a lot of floating point math (vs. SSE2, MMX, etc. integer stuff) AMD will whop the pants off Intel. And it seems the higher quality apps do use high precision floating point for best video quality.

The proof is in the testing.

High end P4s are somewhat faster than the A64 for video encoding.

I prefer A64's myself though...

Regards.

[kini]

For the price of the P4 3.6 you could have an Athlon64 3800+ , so your comparison is a bit skewed.

I don't think so. If you'll look closer at the post I had it overclocked to beyond what the 3800+ is and it was still much slower.

[Cobra]

If you look closer at my post, kini you will find that I have done exactly the same. My XP3800 can run with the 3-3.2GHz P4s in video encoding, easy. I think you need to tell us more about both your rigs for a fair comparison to be made.

[Zisguy1]

If you encode video with apps that use a lot of floating point math (vs. SSE2, MMX, etc. integer stuff) AMD will whop the pants off Intel. And it seems the higher quality apps do use high precision floating point for best video quality.

The proof is in the testing.

High end P4s are somewhat faster than the A64 for video encoding.

I prefer A64's myself though...

Regards.

I guess Cobra's explanation of pipelining makes sense as to why (I prefer AMD CPU's as well). I actually have few complaints about my current 'workhorse' Thunderbird 1.2, but am thinking about upgrading anyway in a few months .

[scustalow]

So many different mb's..it is hard to choose..also the video encoding speed views seems to differ on the intel and athlon64 so price difference would be?

[rallynavvie]

If you go the Intel route get an 875 chipset board, unless you absolutely want PCI-E. The 9xx chipsets aren't quite up to the 875s performance yet. If you're really looking for a treat get one with the 6300ESB ICH (Hance Rapids southbridge) 8)

If you go the AMD route get the latest nForce chipset (I think it's nForce4 now isn't it?). At least AMD implemented PCI-E halfway decent.

[Cobra]

It is the nForce4. I use a VIA chipset which is quite nice (the K8T800 Pro), and this was a much nicer chipset than the nForce3. I hear that the nForce4 really sorts things out though, and from past experience the nForce boards are usually excellent.