AMD vs Intel? - Building a new PC

[Valnar]

I have searched the forums here and find spotty references to problems with both P4 and Athlon systems doing video capture, conversion, etc. Some programs like Premiere work on Intel, but flaky on AMD, etc.

Please! Everybody please post on this thread all the pros and cons I need to be aware of when making this decision. I want a dual Athlon board because it's cheap, but not at the expense of compatibility. Thanks.

Robert

[JBC2000]

I run a PIII Coppermine on an Asus CUSL-LV mobo with 256k L2 Cache, 256 MB Ram with an ATI AIW128 PCI capture card on WinXP. Outside of having to change drom VDub to iuVCR because of capture driver incompatibilities with XP, I find this system setup to be first rate.
The Athlon T-Bird proc consistently outperforms the P4 from Intel on every system I have tested, and I have not run into any serious problems running capture, conversion, editing or burning apps.
Basically, it boils down to the subject of personal preference.
Hope this proves helpful

[Shabubu]

Intel is kind of the gold standard of processors, so if your wanting compatability it's probably the way to go. However they make the system, especially the dual one, exceedingly costly. Thus In your case go athlon (go MP, they going to disable multiprocessing on the XP's, and there's no garuntee when it's going to happen).

Note that dual processors bring compatability probs all of there own, mostly with other hardware.

I would serioulsy suggest going to http://www.tomshardware.com and reading up as much as you can.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Shabubu on 2001-11-28 18:01:42 ]</font>

[jugernaut]

AMD have the most powerful processor out there. I have two computers, both with amd (one with Athlon 1.4 and the other duron 800). Even the Duron is very impressive, of course not comparable with the Athlon.

Every ripper, every DVD author program, every capture program i try work flawlessly (flask, tmpgenc, premiere, virtual dub, DVDx, SmartRipper .....)

[Valnar]

Shabubu,
What kind of hardware incompatibilities have you seen with a dual-processor PC?

[homerpez]

I'll field that question, while you wait for him.

I run a Dual P4 1.7 Ghz at work (FAAAAST) and I've also noticed some glitches here and there. But, no more or less than any Windows or Mac machine normally does.

I would make sure to 1-read up on motherboards, make sure you grab a good one, and 2-make sure your OS is fully dual-CPU compatable. Windows 2000 or XP preferred.

Any hardware trouble he's noting is likely a half-crappy MB, or just the OS doing crap. A fully Dual-CPU capable OS (2000 or XP) will usually treat your 2 CPU's as one anyway, splitting threads between them (at least it is on mine, someone can argue with me if they like).

[nerdfragger]

Fastest Processor out there: Depends on what you are using. Most likely a Dual P4 2Ghz rig would be a little faster in Premiere (Intel loves Adobe) compared to a dual XP 1900 machine. Hoever, in most everything else, I would think that the AMD's would be faster.

Best bang for the buck: There is no doubt, AMD.(period).

Stability in Athlon based machines has been great ever since we stopped using the AMD 750 chipset. I have built 3 AMD computers, and all of them are very stable. The thing to keep in mind is, there is no right or wrong answer. I just feel that with the money you'll save going to an AMD based solution can be used later to upgrade the machine ($300 savings with the processors alone, plus you can use DDR RAM and save more money there, and I think the Tyan dual Athlon MOBO's are significantly cheaper than dual P4 MOBO's). The one thing that Intel does have going for it is the fact that Intel has recently introduced a new procesor packaging system and socket, which means that you probably have a greater chance of upgrading just your processors down the road. If you can wait, you might want to wait for the new 166Mhz based MOBO's to come around for the Athlon. Either platform should make you very happy.

One more idea. The more you "skimp" on this machine, the more money you'll have to upgrade to an AMD clawhammer based machine next year. The Sledgehammer based processors are supposedly very fast in 32 bit code, and using video software that is optimised for 64bit processors will be incredibly fast. Just an idea...

[tinycorkscrew]

I have a dual-Athlon MP system. I can encode a standard-compliant VCD in TMPGEnc at better than realtime. I use Premiere often, and it is much faster in the dual-AMD than in either of my Pentium computers.

I don't know that there are many hardware incompatibilities that you'd need to worry about. Soundblaster Live! cards are known to perform poorly in dual-CPU systems (both Intel and AMD), but that's the only piece of hardware that I'm aware of that could be a problem. I have a Soundblaster Live 5.1, and it didn't work well until I used Windows update to get new drivers for XP.

I have run into software incompatibilities with the dual system. For example, old versions of ZoneAlarm don't work with more than one CPU. I think their latest release solves the problem. Elements of Norton Utilities don't work in a dual-processor system (specifically Cleansweep, maybe more). I don't believe Morpheus likes dual-proc systems, either.

[Valnar]

That's the kind of info I like. Thanks. I don't use Zonealarm, but do have Morpheus. I also have Norton Utilities 2001 (I plan on running Win2K Pro). Other than Cleansweep, how about the other Norton apps?

I am awaiting Abit & Asus to get their AMD-MPX dual-proc boards out next month, then I'm jumping on it.

Funny, I've been running a PIII-700 I built awhile ago and it's done everything I needed it to do. I've had no reason for more speed as all the general mainstream apps requiring good speed already perform well at 700Mhz. Well, VCD's, DVD's and MPEG encoding to me is the next "killer" app requiring all the speed possible.

Upgrading PC's, after all these years, is finally fun again. Thank God for digital video.

Robert

[alexcomp]

I noticed a reference to the Tyan dual processor boards. I was giving very serious consideration to building a system based on these until I read the Tyan threads on AMDMB.com

Lots of problems - enough that I backed down from any consideration of that route. Be warned.

I'm hanging right now with a fairly modest K7S5A and XP1700+. The most impressive part of this system, (other than the fact that I built it into two side by side cases for extra power, roominess and breathing), is the fairly impressive Sandra disk benchmark on my primary storage array.

Two WDC 100's with the 8mb cache configured on a Raid O using the Promise Raid controller - UltraFastTrak100Tx2.

Best number I've seen yet with an ide drive, 51,700!

[tinycorkscrew]

alexcomp - I also read the threads at the Tyan forum at ambmb.com. Some people there have had a lot of problems, especially with the Thunder K7. That's the motherboard I have, and I've never had a problem with poor stability or crashing. The only negative I can think of is that it used to take the system a long time to post before I took out an old hard drive and replaced it with a newer drive.

To anyone out there considering a dual AMD setup, I suggest http://www.monarchcomputer.com. I bought the motherboard, heatsinks, and processors from them, they assembled it all, tested it, and shipped it within a week. Their prices on the processors were the lowest I could find, and they were within $10 of the lowest on the motherboard. I bought from them in August, so things might have changed by now, but you'll read nothing but good things about Monarch on the amdmb forums.

Cleansweep is the only Norton program that I know of that won't work in a dual-processor configuration. However, besides Speed Disk, I only use Norton Antivirus and Norton Ghost, so there could be others that don't work that I don't know about.

Occassionally you might find a shareware program that won't work in a dual system unless you set the affinity to one of the processors - just open up the task manager and assign the program to processor 1 or 2.