Question to the duron owners and tbird owners can also give their opinion..heh

[onidc]

Hey everybody

I am about to build a system and am having a little trouble deciding on what cpu I should put in it. Here are the important parts of the system.

850duron OR 1.2 tbird 266
Epox 8kta3
256mb pc133 crucial
30gb 7200rpm IBM
Asus v7700 gf2 gts
heatsink will probably be a glaciator

Now here's my question. I can save about 80-95 by getting the duron over the tbird. Of course the tbird is faster. I would definitely oc the duron. Duron users, do you ever regret not getting a tbird. Are you glad you saved money by getting the duron? In most applications will I notice a difference between the 2. In games, I know I will, but I dont care as long as my fps is decent...heh...im not obsessed. Give me your opinions about the future and whatever you think I should do. Somedays, I think duron, other days I think, why dont i just splurge and get the tbird...heh.
Thanx guys

[Gunjaa]

I dont regret it at all... gotta Duron 800@950.
Once the price of the 1.2ghz thunderbirds drop down some more i will then be purchasing one. My duron will then be just a back up (better then nothing)
I dont have problems running anything (am currently playing b+w full tex and 800x600 res ,smoothly) and im only using a asus v7100 mx, so would have NO probs whatsoever)

All it comes down to is wether u want to save some bucks now and get a duron, waiting for prices of thunderbirds to drop more, or just gettin it straight away... (if u can afford it u might as well get it as it)

[ken257]

The Duron is a fine chip and it will not dissapoint for gaming. I guess it depends on just how strapped your cash flow is. Only you can make the decision based on your needs vs. bugget. If you can swing it why not go for a 1 gig TBird. They OC as well as a 1.2 but for a lower cost.

[William]

well I got a duron now for budget reasons, but if you have the money to spend go with that Tbird. You can push it easily to 1.4 or 1.5. My friend has an AVIA 1ghz Tbird at 1.4 with a cheapo cooler(i think coolermaster, but we put a delta on it) and he had no problems with it. So they are very overclockable. If you get a duron, get the cheapest one you can find, they all generally overclock to the same speeds.

[krakerman]

friend of mine w/ a duron loves it. gets good fps in ut and other games, and it performs solid and well, even overclocked to slightly over 1ghz. i myself have an older core tbird overclocker from 1ghz to 1.3ghz. the new ones (im dyslexic and cant remember the letters offhand) overclock even better. with the costs as it is, my chip of choice if i was building a new comp would be the 1.2 tbird you chose, even if i wasn't limited to the two chips you listed. i think its a great value for its price. however, you wont go wrong with a duron either. i guess it all comes down to whether you wanna save some cash and maybe upgrade later (even to a palamino!), or get the best now. with the cost of the duron, you can always even upgrade to the tbird later if you dont like it and sell the duron on ebay or something ;-)

[!-=sky=-!]

duron 750@990

i had no choice but to get this chip b/c limited amount of money but when i got it i didn't know it could do this! so now i m pretty happy with it and will stay with it until i get more money

[wildone]

Honestly you wouldnt really see a great performance gain with the 1.2 over the 850 except maybe in benchmarks , the reason for this is that video card's gpu takes most of the load off of the processor , more or less the card does most of the figureing itself without the processor
wildone

[Fiz]

I went with the T-bird and love it to death. I think the only difference you are going to see is mostly in benchmarking and just plain MHZ. If you want to OC up into the high GHZ then go with the Athlon, if you are just looking to get a fast proc to OC and play games with then I would get the Duron. I have read in a couple of places that the Duron is a bit harder to cool because of its smaller die size. Good luck and happy OCing.

Fiz

[seadog]

There is no question that Durons are great overclockers, but Pricewatch shows only about $50 difference between the Duron 850 and the T-bird 1 gig. If you can handle the extra cash outlay go for the 1gig Bird - you should be able to get at least 1.3ghz out of it with proper cooling. These latest T-birds are great overclockers too and there is very little difference in top end between the 1gig and the 1.2.

[tim]

I had a 800 duron oced up to 1066mhz. Then recently I decided to upgrade to 1G Tbird. My new Tbird Oced to 1370mhz with ease... but franknly I could not tell the difference in performance between the Duron and Tbird. So I returned The Tbird, saved cash for other uses. Now I am very happy with the 1066mhz Duron but... backed off to 1028mhz for maximum stability.

[Bender]

I have no regrets, just look at my signature. 1102 isn't to shabby for spending $45 many months ago. My next step will be water cooling and then maybe a T-Bird when they come down a little more.