Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Dace on February 13, 2006, 04:42:48 PM
-
Im building a new computer with tax money. I'm on a low budget and dont know a whole lot bout the new stuff. So here are my 2 options....plz tell me which y'all would get.
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ 2.0 Ghz 939 socket
or
Intel P4 3.2 Ghz 775 socket
I've always had AMD (well, since I've been gaming) and it would be a sure thing .....but the new Intel 775 boards support the new dual-channel PC4200 RAM, so I'm torn :confused:
HELP!!:rolleyes:
-
Intel. For various reasons. These reasons include the ability to withstand heat better (some of them run hotter, yes, but they also can TAKE the heat as well), the ability to overclock better if you are so inclined, the general stability of the modern Pentiums (talking single core here) and so forth. I got nothing against AMDs per se, but I have built up a trust for Intel chips over the years, they have served me very well
-
See Id say the opposite, the AMD's are reknowned for offering more gaming power for less money.
AMD Athlon X2's are sweet...but any of the Athlon 64 lineup are nice.
For my work, servers or laptops....Intel. For a gaming rig, AMD.
You're going to get a lot of responses...its much like asking whose better...Ford or Chevy (Answer: Honda! LOL)
-
If you want to game on it, go single core. I'm serious here. Most games (AH included) do not work with dual cored CPUs.
As for AMD chips being better in games: They run at a higher front bus speed (the chips are, essentially, all the same but overclocked at different speeds, whereas Intel chips have all the same FSB but progress through more powerful chips at that FSB). This basically runs games at a slightly higher FPS but doesn't really give much of a computing benefit (from what I've heard).
-
"What i've heard" isnt a very sellable position. :)
If you check out http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/index.html (http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/index.html) you can see countless CPU comparison articles between Intel and AMD. I wont hide my bias towards AMD in the gaming realm...but here's what the experts purport.
Clip from one Intel vs AMD article...
Energy Consumption: Intel Needs 30 Percent More Juice
The gulf separating the AMD and Intel platforms in their use of power is nowhere clearer than during simple operation of the Windows user interface: The Intel system consumes 13 percent more power than AMD. This rises to up to 30 percent when both systems are running under full load. This once again demonstrates just how power-hungry Intel's processors are, which can be traced back to their much higher clock speeds.
Suitability In Practice: AMD Plainly For Gaming Fans
If you're looking for a high-performance system for 3D games, you could do no better than to go with the AMD system. In particular, it does not create problems in the SLI setup with the nForce4 SLI chipset. The extra performance produced by the increased frame rate makes itself noticeable above all in mainstream 3D games.
The downside of the Intel system is the automatic deactivation of SLI mode when using the 955X chipset from Intel - the NVIDIA graphics driver is the guilty party here.
Buying Tips: AMD More Efficient
So what should you be buying if you're about to shell out a large sum of money for one of the top systems? In the business sector, an Intel system would be the better choice, especially considering the better availability and service offered by partners and solution providers. As far as power goes, Intel is an inefficient energy-guzzler with up to 30 percent more power consumption than the AMD system.
For enthusiasts, meanwhile, the choice is clear: The Athlon 64 X2 system has the best performance when running individual power-hungry applications and shines with exemplary stability. Generally, the same cannot be said for the Intel system: it only worked without a problem with boards with an Intel chipset - the nForce4 SLI setup for the Intel platform still causes difficulties.
Source (http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/07/14/live_stress_test_rundown/page3.html)
-
Regardless, all the gaming benchmarks I've seen have the AMD chips either beating the equivalent P4 hands down or at worst coming in a tie. I've not seen that any of the Athlon 64 chips have any overheating problems, unlike the old 32 bit XP series. You cant say the same for the P4.
Also, just because a game doesnt take advantage of dual core, thats no reason not to have it. 32 bit apps run just fine in a 64 bit environment, and its hedging your hardware bets for the future. Not saying go out of your way for 64 bit, but no reason to avoid it either. Thats silly.
*edit
Dont just rely on Toms. They are a bit biased too. There are several other sites out there that do the same thing though, and they agree in this case.
-
Yep, if Dual Core was such a bad AMD idea, why's Intel doing it too?
;)
-
Dual core only works as long as the software can use it. There are problems where people running dual core AMDs have to disable one of the cores inside Windows before AH will run properly. There are several posts on the matter in these forums. That is why I mentioned that part.
I think that Intel chips will take more juice, simply because the nature of the chips. Working at a set FSB of 800MHz (for example) each chip successively gains transistors and the number of computations each cycle grows, but the cycle frequency stays the same. In AMD You have the same set of transistors but the number of cycles is increased, you're fudging the results by simply upping the frequency over and overy and over again, for the same number of computations.
So naturally Intel chips will take a little more power, they've got something on the order of millions of more switches to toggle each cycle, each of which takes a fraction more juice.
In the long run, power consumption isn't a big deal. General performance is. I have also heard reports of biased opinions on Tom's, including setting the tests up to favor one chip or card versus a competitor's, then saying "the results say this one is better" when the test was biased. I think the example I have in mind was the bench testing of Intel's dual core and AMD's X2... can't recall exactly.
-
This is hilarious.
More power usage is better?
You heard Tom's Hardware is biased? Fine, search other sites. But for the love of God, back up your statements with some sort of data versus this 'Well, I heard the world was flat so Im inclined to think that'
The man was asking for feedback and suggestions. Not flat out myths.
Here's a novel idea...if you dont have a clue what you're talking about...fight the urge to post.
-
Dace,
The amd 64 will be better for gaming and would be cooler as well. More importantly, mke sure your new motherboard is PCIe and get a good vid card.
Regards
Acetnt
-
Awhile back I was digging into the AMD Sempron 64s and got a link to an article from ExtremeTech.com where they tested an Athlon 64 and Sempron 64 on the same motherboard vs a Pentium 4 and Celeron D on the same setup. Everything was identical except for the CPU in each test. Things were close in the benchmarks but when they tested them in ACTUAL GAMES, this was what they found.
When it comes to running real games, though, there's just no contest. Intel's budget Celeron D chips simply don't run games nearly as well as their more expensive Pentium line, and even those are left in the dust regularly by AMD. Sure, the Athlon 64 with its larger cache (and larger price tag) is faster than the Sempron, but the budget chip still manages to hold its own, and it just creams the Celeron D.
-
?
These reasons include the ability to withstand heat better (some of them run hotter, yes, but they also can TAKE the heat as well), the ability to overclock better if you are so inclined,
Here's a novel idea...if you dont have a clue what you're talking about...fight the urge to post.
LOL , Krusty , how did you come to the conclusion that Intels are better overclockers? I'm just curious what cpu's you are compairing? Where are you getting your info, Intel.com? Intels withstand heat better because they have to in order to mantain a decent lifespan .
Edit : here is a simplified explaination of the two different chip architectures. http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2005Dec/bch20051215033811.htm
-
Can't believe I'm first to say that it all comes down to personal preference for the most part. From your post, I'm guessing you won't be doing l33t overclocking anyway, maybe a tiny bit here and there. Both chips work for that. The Intel chipset has the faster RAM. But the other still works just fine.
AMD people will bash Intel, Intel people will bash AMD. It's the circle of fire. I myself am an Intel person, but I'm not going to start flinging statistics at you.
-
I thought I'd chime in here, as I'm seeing some inaccurate information being posted.
Krusty I think you're a bit confused on what a "FSB" is and does, and I thought maybe everyone here might want to learn something. (And I have 20 minutes until my next meeting, so I've got time to burn...)
The "FSB" is simply an acronym for the "front side bus." (A bit of a misnomer that dates from the old days when a CPU had a front side bus and a separate bus, sometimes called the "Back Side Bus," to its Level 2 cache.) The Front Side Bus is simply the link between the CPU and its northbridge/memory controller. AMD Athlon 64 series CPUs don't have a "front side bus" by the classical definition of the term, because they have the memory controller on the CPU. What they do have is a Hypertransport 1600 or 2000 MHz (effective rate) bus to the rest of the system.
You CANNOT and should not compare CPUs with such a totally different architecture because of anything relating to "FSB." The front side bus does not have anything to do with power consumption, at all.
Power consumption of any CPU is related to its capacitance, voltage (squared actually), clock speed, and static leakage currents. The number of transistors does not have any direct impact on power consumption either. (There is a loop hole here, but that's WAY beyond the scope of this post...)
AMD Athlon 64s draw much less power because of two key features. 1. Lower clock speed. 2. Silicon on Insulator (SOI) construction. SOI reduces the capacitance of a transistor, which results in lower overall power consumption. The drawback of SOI is that it is more expensive to build chips using it.
To put it quite simply, the Pentium 4 (netburst architecture) draws more power because it requires a higher clockspeed than the K8 architecture of the Athlon 64 to achieve the same level of performance.
The Athlon 64 perform better in games because its on die (built into the CPU) memory controller decreases the latency (time to access) to access system memory. Games benefit more than most other applications from reduced memory latency.
I personally look at either CPU as a great option these days. Both are very fast and priced very competively that you really can't go wrong either way. They both have very mature and stable platforms available if you go with Intel 9xx series for Intel and nVidia nForce 4 for AMD. AMD is a bit faster for gaming if you have a very high end graphics card that can take advantage of it. If you don't spend good money ($300+) for the graphics card you are going to be bottlenecked there with either high end CPU.
My answer to the question is that unless you have $2000 to spend on the system to afford the $500 GeForce 7800 GTX 512 MB or Radeon 1900 XTX graphics card with the AMD FX CPU that the review sites are testing with you probably won't ever notice a difference.
This whole "dual core is bad/buggy for gaming" is also somewhat unfair, as this is really an issue with the operating system and games not being written to support dual core processors properly. The stutters in games will effect AMD and Intel dual core CPUs. You can make things worse though by loading special drivers (Cool and Quiet for AMD and enabling Speedstep for Intel) that change clock speeds based on CPU load, as games sometimes seem to behave badly when the CPU clock changes on the fly. The fix is to set processor affinity on the game to only use one CPU. I'd also expect Microsoft to release a patch to address the issue at some point as well.
I personally run an Athlon 64 X2 4400+ CPU on an Asus A8N32 Deluxe motherboard with a GeForce 7800 GT and am very happy with it. My laptops are both Intel Pentium M based. All of them are perfectly stable and very fast.
-
One last thing... DDR2 memory is *not* faster than "good old" DDR memory just because it has a bigger number at the end of it. ;)
DDR2 memory has higher latencies than DDR (1) memory, which actually makes it marginally slower in some tasks, gaming being one of them. Those expecting DDR2 memory on the Athlon 64 coming later this year to result in a big performance boost are going to be in for a bit of a disappointment. DDR2's real advantage over high speed DDR1 memory is simply that it's cheaper to produce and able to support higher memory density configurations (being able to support lots of memory in a system) because of better bus termination. Don't expect a clear cut performance advantage out of it for gaming, all other things being equal, until you can compare DDR 2 667 or faster with DDR 400. DDR 1 running at the unofficial 466 and 500 MHz (effective) speeds will be faster than DDR2 400/533/667 for gaming.
-
In bloom I trust. Although he doesn't know it, I've used his advice in threads many times over when building systems for myself.
-
hiya Bloom long time man
38MAW
-
Originally posted by bloom25
(really friggen big snip)
Oh sure, bang on my entire system why don't you! :rofl
-
Its not a matter of personal preference,
AMD
I havent own a non laptop Intel since my Celeron 366.
-
Originally posted by Pongo
Its not a matter of personal preference,
AMD
I havent own a non laptop Intel since my Celeron 366.
Wow...that kinda just proved my point. :huh
-
Quick clarification on dual cores -
1) The problem is with Windows XP and applies to both AMD and Intel dual cores.
Microsoft changed the thread handler in Windows XP and it loses threads when switching them between cores.
Windows 2000 works flawlessly (look at my sig).
2) AH2 does take a slight advantage of dual core. From speaking with Skuzzy the networking portion of the game is handled by the 'other' core.
3) More and more games are being written or patched to support dual cores. I assume (eek) most people don't play AH2 exclusively.
4) Dual and multi core, for better or worse, are the way both Intel and AMD have said they are moving to almost exclusively.
Power consumption -
Anyone who thinks thats its good a CPU runs like a toaster oven, and draws the average output of a power station doesn't have a clue.
Considering one of the mobos in Toms Hardware test (that was mentioned) was replaced because it was damaged by heat from the CPU.
I'll leave it up to you to guess which CPU it was.
DDR2 - Bloom is correct.
Although it has higher speeds than DDR, it suffers from high latencies.
The thinking is the new AMD socket (M2) that will use DDR2, has enough design changes to negate the high latencies (along with the on die mem controller). Only time will tell.
-
LePaul: I said power consumption DOESN'T matter, not that it does. As long as you have a PSU you're set.
38Ruk: This is the perception I have gained by generally hanging out with people that know more than I do on the matter. I also wonder why, if Intel chips can't be overclocked in a more stable manner, that only have tests been done on Intel chips to overclock them to 6GHz, 7GHz, and even 9GHz (I don't think that was stable enough to boot OS, though).
Bloom: Very informative!
-
Of course power consumption matters. The more power it draws the hotter it runs!!!
Got a screenie of an Intel (or AMD for that matter) running at up to 9Ghz?
Hell we're still waiting on the long overdue much promised 4Ghz P4.
-
Kev give me a few minutes I'll do a search where I read about it.
UPDATE: Turns out I read about it on a forum that I can't log into from here. Will have to wait til I get home later. It was some wierd setup with liquid nitrogen or some schtuff to cool the rig. It would POST but not load windows (or some such). That's all I remember right now.
One of the runners-up: Linky-thingy (http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=50149)
I ran across a new comment while searching for that link up there. No idea how true, but might explain why all these experiments are done on Intel stock.
"The highest overclocks should be separated by processor architecture. I think Intel is around 7.1 and AMD is around 3.9-4.0 from what I have seen at xtremesystems."
I'll give the other forum a search when I get home.
-
Hey bloom, good to see you're still around
-
Krusty the problem with your argument about the Ghz a processor runs at is all but moot.
My little 1.8ghz athlon rig compared to my old 2.5 p4 rig is no comparison.
The 1.8 eats the p4s lunch.
AMD worked hard to prove it's not all about clock speeds and as far as i can tell they did.
Nothing wrong with a P4 system its just not the better gaming rig.
Bronk
-
Bronk I'm not making an argument anymore, just replying to a question :)
-
Thnx for all the info guys, tis excactly what i was lookin for.
:aok
-
Ahhh sorry i read it wrong . I thought you were touting the P4s clock speeds make it the better choice.
Bronk
-
Follow-up to Kev: I did a search for every set of keywords I could think of on the other forum I was talking about, couldn't find anything. Couldn't find much, actually. I think the forum got culled. There was an article on some website and the forum was just discussing it and posted the link to it. I never bothered to save it. Might still be out there, but a fast Google search has turned up nothing. Sorry.
-
Thanks Krusty, interesting site.
Highest speed for an AMD was on a AMD64 3000.
Default is 2.0Ghz, overclocked to 4.81Ghz, so about 2.4x original speed.
Highest speed for Intel was on a P4 Prescott (surprised me considering its the hottest running P4).
Defult is 3.8Ghz, overclocked to 7.47Ghz, so about 1.96x original speed.
Suppose the point is that none of these overclocks would be carried out by the average user, probably used all sorts of exotic stuff for cooling etc.
Also shows that the AMD64 can overclock just as well, just they start at a lower speed to begin with.
But as has been pointed out for CPUs 'speed isn't everything', it's what is done during each clock cycle.
Both have their good and bad points, but for a gaming rig, bang for buck the only choice is an AMD64 or one of the FX series.
-
Originally posted by Kev367th
Thanks Krusty, interesting site.
Highest speed for an AMD was on a AMD64 3000.
Default is 2.0Ghz, overclocked to 4.81Ghz, so about 2.4x original speed.
Highest speed for Intel was on a P4 Prescott (surprised me considering its the hottest running P4).
Defult is 3.8Ghz, overclocked to 7.47Ghz, so about 1.96x original speed.
Suppose the point is that none of these overclocks would be carried out by the average user, probably used all sorts of exotic stuff for cooling etc.
Also shows that the AMD64 can overclock just as well, just they start at a lower speed to begin with.
But as has been pointed out for CPUs 'speed isn't everything', it's what is done during each clock cycle.
Both have their good and bad points, but for a gaming rig, bang for buck the only choice is an AMD64 or one of the FX series.
Kev AMD 64 3000 is 1.8 , 3200 is 2.0
I know cause i run the 3000.
Bronk
-
Yup your right 1.8Ghz, makes the overclocking even better -
1.8Ghz up to 4.81Ghz = 2.67x overclock.
Think most AMD users don't go to long lengths to overclock, maybe as far as a vcore increase with a good cooler, a multiplier drop and a 'fsb' increase.
-
Its just so easy to do . My friend has a fx57 @2.8ghz stock , cost him right around 900 dollars . I turned my 3700 up to 2805 mhz (255X11) bumped the vcore from 1.4 to 1.450 used the 333 memory divider and the 4x htt divider, now here i am at fx57 speeds for 250 bucks. Our benches are almost exact in 3dmark and aquamark . Not bad for a stock 2.2ghz chip . Will the cpu last , time will tell, im not putting much vcore to it and the water is great ,no temp difference . I usually upgrade every year so if it makes it 8 months i can live with that heh . 38
-
Originally posted by Krusty
If you want to game on it, go single core. I'm serious here. Most games (AH included) do not work with dual cored CPUs.
Not quite right Krusty. Aces High II is one of a few games in the industry who do make true use of multi-threading. However, there is a problem with the AMD dual-core systems, particularly when using an NVidia video card. MS has been working on the problem, which indicates there is something amiss in the operating system.
Dual-core/HT enabled Intel CPU's have no known issues with Aces High II, at this time.
Things that are automatically threaded in the Windows gaiming environment include, networking, and sound (if the sound card has real hardware available - AC97 is not hardware). We also add threads for some other background stuff in Aces High II.
Bloom, good to see ya!
-
scuzzy...something amiss with windows?? do we want to start a new thead about this, or leave that big can of worm closed
-
Guess I'm 'lucky'.
AMD dual core
nVidia graphics card
Works great.
Only difference is I use Windows 2000 not XP.
As I mentioned earlier Microsoft changed the thread handler in windows XP and this seems to be causing the problem.
It is losing track of threads when switching them between cores.
-
That doesn't bode well for Windows. The new resource hogging behemoth of theirs is meant to be for dual core CPUs. I wonder if they porked XP to make everybody buy the new one??
I've heard folks post in these forums that XP was fine until they released an update, THEN the threading got screwed up, and knowing Microsoft... I wonder if it was intentional.
-
You really really need to loose the term "heard" and document things better. This is not meant as any sort of personal attack. But when you are going to have a hardware discussion about things, backing up your opinions (or hunches) with articles, etc would certainly give you comments more weight.
Just saying.
-
Well, i built my first rig using intel. p4 2.6. and although i am very pleased with the performance, I run hot. So i am moving to AMD, just to do a compare for myself. I heard the new intel p4's run hot also so I want to get away from the heat. I'll post the results.
-
I'm not getting into the Chev/Ford debate on this one!! I like them all, my AMD K6III 450 O/C'd to 475 is still working great!!! It's great for Email and typing in Wordpad.
Power up:aok
-
Question, when folks claim "The Pentium runs hot" -- how much are we talking here? Ballpark it. For a comparable performance between 2 similar chips, how many more degrees will the Pentium be over the AMD?
(rough average, guesstimates are okay if you have an idea of what you're talking about)
-
Krusty my AMD runs at 29C. I've seen people with the Prescott P4s running in the high 40C range and calling it cool, and low to mid 50's is normal. At 60C you are risking component damage.
-
Originally posted by Krusty
Question, when folks claim "The Pentium runs hot" -- how much are we talking here? Ballpark it. For a comparable performance between 2 similar chips, how many more degrees will the Pentium be over the AMD?
(rough average, guesstimates are okay if you have an idea of what you're talking about)
Well, I cant give you a compare. But, when I back up a dvd on my burner, my puter will run up to 70C according to Hardware doctor. That cannot be correct, obviously, and I think the temp sensor in my board is off by about 12C. So lets say idle at 35c and load 58C. Ambient temp is between 68 and 78F winte and summer. After my amd system is up and running I will post my personal comparison. Dont get me wrong, my rig has served me well and runs really good at stock speeds. I just want to get away from the hot chips.
-
Hrm... I don't think that 60C is the level you can damage chips at, though, because a couple of different cpu temp programs don't start warning you until 65-70C.
My older 500MHz FSB P4 2.6GHZ runs around 28-30C most of the time, and 45-50C under load. That might be because it's older technology, however.
-
Originally posted by Krusty
Hrm... I don't think that 60C is the level you can damage chips at, though, because a couple of different cpu temp programs don't start warning you until 65-70C.
My older 500MHz FSB P4 2.6GHZ runs around 28-30C most of the time, and 45-50C under load. That might be because it's older technology, however.
Like i said. My hardware doctor program says 70C and I am just assuming that is not correct. I do, however, have definate heat related problems occasionally. When I am burning a dvd, I can wathc the temp edge up and up and up and then lockup. Is it the CPU? I dont know that for sure. But something is getting hot and locking me up, and all the other temps are reading normal. I have reapplied the thermal paste too make sure it wasnt too thick. When I pulled the chip out and cleaned the old paste off, the lettering was all gone and the metal was discolored, like that of a drill bit that has been overheated. But this is the first time ive ever had a used CPU out so I dont know what it supposed to look like. The chip still works great, so maybe this is a testimonial to the durability of the damm thing, but my OCing days are over as far as this rig is concerned. It runs great at stock speeds. Just to clarify, my MOBO has a number of manufacturing defects and could well be the problem here. I just dont know enough about this stuff to give a definte answer.
-
AMD.....
-
AMD 64 4000+ (939) with nForce4 chipset, w/ 2 gig ram and nvidia 6800GT 256mb ram vid card runs AH at 35 degrees C max, and delivers a framerate of 100 (limited only by refresh rate) max and 85 minimum.
AMD processors run games FAST, and they run COOL! I love em to bits. Even my old AMD 1800+ will deliver FR of 30 to 85 in AH with an nvidia 6200 256 meg plain vanilla vid card (texture size 512).
I think that AMD systems are the best thing since sliced bread if you are into gaming. And they are plenty fast enough for work apps as well.
-
if you buy a nice CPU then DO NOT try and save on a cheap chaintech MOBO...get a an ASUS or Gigabyte.
i had an AMD 64 3000 go bad...um ahem ..it mighta been my fault..but you can't prove that in a court of law so we won't go there...i sent it back and 4 days later the new one is OTW. i sent the Gigabyte MOBO back as well. and thats taking about amonth and half so far...a new one is being sent to me but it has not been shipped as yet.
and RAM is "you get what you pay for". same goes for the power supply
video card is the real kicker...it'll make or break your setup...get a good one.
then lay it all out on the floor plug everything together and fire it up!!!!!!!
oh...if your a neat freak i guess you could get a case to put it in.
-
Regarding PSU: I got mine for $5 (I kid you not, 1-day sale, usual price around $40), and it's a 450-watt that's been pretty danged steady since I got it. I dont' have much experience with PSU problems, but this sure hasn't given me any problems.
But I would suggest reading reviews about a cheap PSU before buying it. I got mine off newegg, so I read all the user reviews first, made sure it wasn't a lemon.