AMD 2500 Barton or 2.0 P4?

[Topher5000]

I'm going to upgrade & can get this package for $329 CAD (+15% tax):
AMD XP 2500+ Barton
MSI K7N2D-L
256M DDR PC2700
Sound
10/100 Base Ethernet
ATX Case w/ Power

But some is selling this for $400 CAD (no tax):
Intel Pentium 4 desktop 2.0 GHz, 80 Gb Hard drive,256Mb Memory, CD-RW, Ati Video card, Sound card, Network card
O/s Windows XP professional, CD manual.

I plan on using my computer to rip dvds & encode to xvid, eventually add a capture card like the Hauppauge PVR-250 & convert my vhs tapes & use the computer as a server for either a dedicated htpc or a Prismiq MediaPlayer/Recorder when it becomes available.
My mind tells me to go with the P4 since it's already set up & is a good deal, but my heart says go with the AMD since it's a faster computer.

Advice would be appreciated.

[Craig Tucker]

If you are planning on doing a lot of encoding go with the AMD Barton. There is a thread that has just compared these 2 cpu's here
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=199695

[gmatov]

Did you give all the specifics on the AMD?

You don't list a HDD, CD-RW, OS, or Video Card. With tax the AMD is 379, 10 bucks more for HDD, WinXP, CD-RW, and Vid Card, a no brainer. I'm AMD all the way, but for the price I would be buying my first Intel in about 8 years.

If you can get it upped to about a 2.5, or higher for not too much more, that's the way I would go. That would be about the equivalent of the 2500.

Cheers,

George

BTW, if these other items do come with the Barton, that would be my first choice.

BUT, XP Pro, near 200, 80 gig, 60+, CD-RW, 30+, ATI 50-300, depending on model, unless it's onboard, even tho' they say "video card".

For 400 Cdn, doesn't sound right.

[Cobra]

It's completely up to you (and you do so at your own risk), but I read in Custom PC magazine, and I hear a lot about the XP2500 happily overclocking to 3200 speeds. Apparently, AMD make a lot of them the same and clock the chips back.

If you wanted real bang for your buck, you could go down this path. It's a little dangerous, and you'd void your warranty, but save a whole load of money if it worked.

Even if it didn't quite manage 3200 speeds, you could get a 2800 or 3000 out of it. Just don't skimp on the cooling if you're overclocking - full copper heatsinks for me....

CobraDMX

[thayne]

I can tell you the 2500 Barton absolutly smokes the p4 2.0GHz. I have both and have run tests, it's not even close.... I encoded a DVD to Divix with the exact same settings on both machines and the AMD finished 55 minutes faster than the p4.

See here:
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=199695

[Craig Tucker]

Check my post thayne

[ClayBuster]

I build a lot of systems and have yet to get an XP2500 that would not do XP3200 right from the get go. Be sure to get at a minimum PC-3200 Ram though as is is made for the 200Mhz FSB.

[Cobra]

ClayBuster,

I am going to be getting an Athlon 2800 to try to overclock to 3200 speeds. I am doing this in case it doesn't want to overclock - if I got a 2500 that did this I'd be a bit stuck!

Obviously you can't guarantee anything, but do you think I should be going for a 2500 and save £40?

Thanks,

CobraDMX

[redwudz]

I use the 2500 Barton running a 400FSB and it works great. I give a lot of credit to the MB. I think it's important to get the MB-CPU combination working together to achieve the best results. I used a XP1800 before and my DVD2SVCD encoding times were cut in half, much more than I expected.

[Cobra]

I'll be running an Asus A7N8X Deluxe MkII, so an nForce2 mobo. I know that they're stable and dependable boards, and support 400Mhz FSBs etc.

Also, I'll be using two 512MB PC3200 RAM sticks.

I'll be building this in the summer, as my trusty old Dell is getting a bit past it now.

CobraDMX

[gmatov]

We're getting a little off topic here. What we can OC to, is not the question. The ? is which setup, for nearly the same momey should he buy

Great, that the AMD can be OC'd. So can the Intel. SO, that is bye the bye.

Which would YOU buy, no o'clocking involved?

My choice, the second if the first doesn't have an OS, a HDD, a CD-RW, etc.

Stick to the subject, please.

Cheers,

George

[ClayBuster]

Dollar for Dollar you cannot beat the XP series of CPU's I kick myself in the ass every time I think about how much I spent on my P4 3.0 chip compared to my wife’s XP2500 @ XP3200. $275 P4, $90 XP2500 and it is only slightly slower.

I currently have a P4 OC to 3.6 I just made a computer for the wife last night using a XP2500 and an Asus A7N8X-E with 512mb PC-3500. After I got all the parts in I went into the BIOS set it to 200FSB rebooted as an XP3200 installed XP and have not had a problem. I pulled my Lite-on DVD-Rom out of mine installed it in hers. Ripped Spiderman using DVD Decrypter in 15 minutes then used Shrink to get the files to size another 6 minutes. While the same thing on my P4 was 14 for DVD D. and another 5:23for the encoding.

gmatov:

$275 vs. $90 for the same or close enough speed don't make it a "Bye the Bye" Whatever that means Also If I were going to buy one of the above systems it would without a doubt be the first one only because I'm sure the second one is going to come with a 5400rpm drive and an ATI onboard video card which will both need to be replaced for his needs Well probably not both but the HD will need to go if it is a 5400rpm model.

The first system has an awesome Mobo the chip is outstanding but the memory needs to upgraded to PC3200 but only if he wants an "ALMOST"
Guaranteed overclock. Like I said I have never had a XP2500 not O/C to an XP3200 out of the 25 - 30 ones I have used. All were retail chips and standard cooling.

[gmatov]

Clay,

There's not a 275 v 90 involved. He might get one system at 320 bucks, no mention of any peripherals or HDD or OS, second system he says he gets all that. I'd have to go with that, he could throw away the rest of the sys if he gets an OS, a HDD, and an ATI card

As I said, if the card is a chip, no, if the AMD comes with OS and an equilavent HDD, buy it. We were not talking OC'ing the sys.

I don't OC anymore, as the rest of the sys can't handle the speed of a regular CPU, so what the hell.

A bottleneck is a bottleneck, and the great bottlenrck is the Buss. We get a 9 gig processor, with the same boards we have, forget it, still slow machines.

Cheers,

George

[ClayBuster]

It will be an Micro-atx MoBo with an onboard ATI 9100IGP and the drive will more than likely be a 5400 rpm model with 2mb cache if he is lucky. as for the OS which can be purchased with the new HD for around $200 for both he will still be ahead of the game with a better system. Also he already has Win98SE so a new OS is Not necessarily necessary.


Straight up with no O/C that AMD system will smoke that P4.

[Cobra]

Topher5000,

Why don't you build your own PC? It's really not that hard, as long as you take your time with it.

Price it up and see if it's cheaper for you, if you fancy doing it.

www.ebuyer.com - There's a start.

CobraDMX

[Topher5000]

The P4 is being sold privately, so no tax. The AMD is an upgrade kit, so I'd have to supply my own HD, fd, cd, os etc. I've looked at piecing together these parts, but I don't think I can find them cheaper. Another computer store has an upgrade kit with an Asus A7V8X-MX mobo, for $309 + tax.
My current setup is a Celeron 433a, Asus P2-99B mobo, 13 gb hd (system), 80gb hd (data) & 256mb PC133 ram, running W2k Pro, so I don't mind re-using parts, though I'd like to try setting up my present computer as an HTPC client. I'm going to have to get a CDRW\DVD drive, though.
I think I'm going to go with the AMD so I can get the processing speed.

Thanks for the advice.

[thayne]

George,
When I made my comparison between the 2500 XP and the 2.0GHz P4, niether were over clocked. the 2500 is just plain faster over clocked or not. I think what the other were saying is with the 2500 you have the added advantage of being able to seriously overclock it where you cannot with the p4

[gmatov]

Clay,
Just what the hell OS does he have? His details are 98, 2 posts after your post at 00:14, the Micro ATX post, he says he is 433 is running Win2k.

And, we've been all over the 5400-7200 drivel. A 2 meg 5400 will transfer/write more than fast enough for any type of video work. Do the math. Even DV is way overmatched with any drive made today.

And, re O'Cing, again, he's trying to go 5 to 6 times his present mach speed. But, he gets additional hardware, which he would have to buy, making the AMD way more expensive..

Then again, the Intel system IS used from what he says.

Makes the first seem like a better deal, strip out what he can use from the old machine.

There goes his server. Now spend more money for that.

Cheers,

George

[ClayBuster]

gmatov,

Hell I dunno know. I didn't know the P4 system was a used one it might have an actual ATI card in it and a good HD and Mobo.

[Piccoro]

I would get the AMD system personally and I would strongly suggest upgrading 256mb to 512mb DDR if at all possible.

[thayne]

I have to take back some of what I last said. All this overclocking talk made me decide to try it out. I was unable to OC the Athlon Machine, mainly due to limits on the MoBo, However, I was able to OC my p4 2.0GHz to 2.66 GHz and it's running nice

I need to test again!

[mujahid7ia]

And, we've been all over the 5400-7200 drivel. A 2 meg 5400 will transfer/write more than fast enough for any type of video work. Do the math. Even DV is way overmatched with any drive made today.

So what's the point of 7200 RPM drives? What effect does PRM have on speed? I'm guessing shorter access time.

[gmatov]

Thayne,

I don't know if it still works, but have you tried the "pencil trick" with the L1, L2,L3, laser cut traces?

They are frequency locked, and this is from a couple years ago. Probably still works, lookat anandtech, overclockers, tomshardware, etc..

In the "old days" it was strictly MoBo settings. FSB program to change the FSB was one way around it.

The CPU, even then was to connect the tracesto unlock.

Give it a go, after, of course, you go to one of those site to see IF it can be done.

Most new boards detect the parameters of the CPU, and I don't know how many you can get away from the locked freqs. Most are autodetect.

I don't know, mebbe I'll try with my 2000, an 2400 just to see if it can be did with my boards.

Cheers,

George

[gmatov]

Mujahid,

Sorry, wrong guess.

I just looked at an old 40 gig, albeit 7200 RPM, 133 drive, and the access time is 9.7 ms.

Jesus, what the hell has access time got to do with anything? 10 milliseconds is 1/100 of a second. And we worry about faster access time? How in the hell can you go to a file on a BIG drive, with a BIG TOC any faster?

Non issue, pal.

Cheers,

George

[Craig Tucker]

George,
I don't think the pencil trick works on later chips, the gap is too large.

[thayne]

Thayne,

I don't know if it still works, but have you tried the "pencil trick" with the L1, L2,L3, laser cut traces?

They are frequency locked, and this is from a couple years ago. Probably still works, lookat anandtech, overclockers, tomshardware, etc..

In the "old days" it was strictly MoBo settings. FSB program to change the FSB was one way around it.

The CPU, even then was to connect the tracesto unlock.

Give it a go, after, of course, you go to one of those site to see IF it can be done.

Most new boards detect the parameters of the CPU, and I don't know how many you can get away from the locked freqs. Most are autodetect.

I don't know, mebbe I'll try with my 2000, an 2400 just to see if it can be did with my boards.

Cheers,

George

LOL that sounds way to complicated for me!

Another problem with my Athlon machine is the memory speed. The CPU is already running at 166MHz X 2 FSB and the ram is running at 333MHz so if I overclock it at all I need PC3200 ram and right now I have PC2700.

My P4 was default at 100MHz X 4 FSB so I bumped it up to 133MHz X 4 with no problem

http://www.thayne.us/cpuz.htm

I did a real quick divx encode and it's definitly faster, it's upto or maybe slightly faster than my Athlon now. Tomorrow I'll run another head to head test to find out for sure...

[gmatov]

Craig,

They came out with a new one, but it needed a steady hand. You used a conductive material, used straight edges, layed down the paste, and had an unlocked CPU.

I have not tried any of them, assume they work, as toms, anandtech, O'C, all spread it about..

Again, the buss is too damn slow for the CPU speeds we already have, why worry?

Cheers,

George

Sorry to quit now, but Thayne, I don't know if this 2700/3200 means anything, but way back then, pipple said that a machine with 66 buss couldn't use 100, or 133 RAM. It did. I think you can get away with 2700 RAM, with, MAYBE, a little hit to performance. Not guaranteed that there would be a hit, just makink an ******* of myself, you know, assuming?

Cheers,

George

[thayne]

I'll prolly give it another try tomorrow, I'm too tired right now LOL. Mybe I can underclock the ram then overclock the cpu or something....

[Ripper2860]

I'm sorry to report that the newest XP 2500+ Bartons (week 34+, I believe) are "hard locked" on multiplier. The old silver trace pencil and fill in the bridges tricks no longer work. The wire wrap tricks and such do not work either. They are now like Intel with FSB O/C'ing only.

** It's not just XP-2500+'s, it has also gone up the line and down into the T'Bred's as well.

As for hard drives and their RPM speeds, the only thing I can think of where higher RPM's would be of benefit is in sequential reads/writes from the same sector, where the head must wait for the platter to spin back around to do the next read/write. (latency?) Not access time, which is the speed at which the head moves from track to track.

How much that really matters in REAL user benefit is not known to me. While I am sure it does contribute significantly to filling the drive buffer, we are still left waiting on the ATA100/133/SATA150 bus to move that data from the buffer to a place where we can use it -- RAM.

Just my 2 cents !!

[Piccoro]

Well 5400 vs 7200 rpm helps with how long it can hold high transfer rates.

They did switch to hard locked CPUs although they just started to produce them. The old type are still out there and they look different. So if you get a hard locked one it is like a P4 where you can only increase the FSB but if it isn't one of the new hardlocked ones then the 2500's are unlocked and you shouldn't even need the pencil trick.

My 2800 was unlocked and I just went right into bios and increase the fsb from 166(333) to 200(400) and changed the multiplyer to 11 from 12.5 to get 3200+ speeds.