Duron or Tbird?

[MrMaN383]

Hey I haven't posted here in a while (or much ever) so hey to everyone =)

anyways I'm building a system to take to school with me in the fall but I'm not sure which way I should go. So far I've picked out my motherboard (KT7E) and ordered it yesterday. I can't decide what chip to put in it though and from what I've read:

durons o/c better
tbirds cool better

The tbirds are faster but is it worth it in price? (1200mhz tbird = $80-$90 more than 800mhz duron) I'm on a slightly tight budget, I can afford either chip but I'd like to go as cheap as I can. If I get a duron 800 will I be able to o/c it to the point where it won't be horribly behind a tbird? (I'm a newbie mind you) And will it cost me a lot more ($$ and headache) to cool it? Even though the tbird is more expensive and doesnt o/c as well, will it be the better buy considering cooling costs and later upgrades? Any advice, tips, or corrections are greatly appreciated so thanks in advance.


Justin

[UnseenMenace]

Obviously we all want to go as fast as we can however I personally believe that the Duron will be enough for 'most' tasks and they do overclock well. A unlocked 800 Duron should somewhere around 1 ghz and the cost saving compared to a Tbird can be spent on a good HSF, more RAM or put towards other hardware.. And as your a 'newbie' you must be aware just by reading some of the posts on this message board that it is possible to damage a CPU and a few people have chipped the core, so should this unfortunate situation happen to you, what would you rather loose ? A cheap Duron or a TBird ?.
Cant loose with the Duron, great CPU for the price
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Duron 800 @ 1050 with Global Win FOP-32 (140 x 7.5)
Abit KT7A-Raid Mobo
512 mb (Crucial Stuff CAS 2)
Hard Drive Cooler
Elsa Eraser X2 Gforce with Blue Orb (modified to display as a Quadro and overclocked http://www.tweakhardware.com/guide/quadro/ )
Sound Blaster Live Value
Full Tower with 5 (120 mm) case fans with seperate PSU

[Da Whip]

Go w/ the Duron and take the extra money saved and get a bigger/better hard drive or video card. You can always get a T-bird down the road.

[mrpcman]

the video card makes more of a difference in games than the cpu. get a cheap duron, overclock it a get a nice video card and more ram.

[Stolid]

I'm going to disagree, go with the lowest (or close to) T-Bird, they have more surface area meaning a better overclock because heat is spread out more, and I think that the price difference is something like $20 tops. The duron would work, but the TBird's larger core and more operations/hertz make it the better deal. IMHO

Stolid

[Tacoman667]

Stolid (May 23, 2001 06:14 p.m.):
I'm going to disagree, go with the lowest (or close to) T-Bird, they have more surface area meaning a better overclock because heat is spread out more, and I think that the price difference is something like $20 tops. The duron would work, but the TBird's larger core and more operations/hertz make it the better deal. IMHO

Stolid

Plus most 1gig TBirs will OC to around 1400 like mine. That is a 40% increase in speed then what you bought it at, 1gig. The next one I'll get will be the Athlon4. But I'm just a tekkie like that. =)