P4 now or later?

[high_lander]

Thant's the question. I definatly want to go to P4. But it's definatly wait time. Intel is going for BIG price cuts this month, but the the current version of the P4 will be phased out in Q3, with the release of the Northwood chip and Brookdale chipset, which is DDR. in the fall. But from what I've seen from DDR and Athlon, there has been only a slight margin of perofmance gain over PC133. I guess I should wait for Q3, but the question begs, is going to be worth the wait?

What do you guys think?

[Spike]

Later ... much later. I feel that the curent crop of P4s are nothing more than eye-candy for those looking for a new status symbol. If you want a fast chip that you do not intend to overclock then I would say go with the PIII 1G. If you do intend to overclock then get a cele/PIII in the 600-700 MHz range. Many of these hit 900MHz + and some over a gig. YMMV 8-)

[Door Knob]

Spike is correct. Deffinatly later on the P4 the performance doesn't come anywhere near the price right now. You can make a P3 700E run @ 1 gig for almost half the price of an OEM P4 and if you build one yourself the processor, board, and Rambus ram are far from cheap.

[Door Knob]

And yes...It'll be worth the wait. The current P4's are basically an unfished chip, they were rushed for marketing reason's to be out on time. The Q3 changes will take much more advantage of the chips potential...Also this will be the format that Intel plans to stay with so this will be a much more upgradeable system.

[Phil]

One question though, why do you definately want to go with the p4, I can see no reason to choose it over an athlon system, nevermind the reasons not to choose it

[high_lander]

I am currently running a 700@933 on CUSL2. I have got it rigged w/ a Luefkens Alpha Peltier kit and Mushkin mem, blah blah blah.

I think once the SSE2 code is optimzed by the software folks, the P4 is going to start smoking the Athlon. I think the new Willys are going to start @ 2Ghz. And they will be out before the palaminos. I will probably wait for the P4 to mature and really come into it's own.

Then it's time ta boogey....

[Mr B]

high_lander (Apr 19, 2001 04:50 p.m.):
I am currently running a 700@933 on CUSL2. I have got it rigged w/ a Luefkens Alpha Peltier kit and Mushkin mem, blah blah blah.

I think once the SSE2 code is optimzed by the software folks, the P4 is going to start smoking the Athlon. I think the new Willys are going to start @ 2Ghz. And they will be out before the palaminos. I will probably wait for the P4 to mature and really come into it's own.

Then it's time ta boogey....

I read the Willy2, due in 2002, runs at 2.2 GHz. Might be worth the wait.

Mr B

[William]

maybe never, the p4 is such a bad chip right now, hopefully it becomes better though.

[batboy]

The new generation P-4 chip due out towards the end of the year will definitely be worth the wait. The current P-4 chips and motherboards will suddenly be obsolete with no upgrade path. The new P-4 will require a totally different chipset.

[#3# RIP]

Timing for me plays an important role in how I upgrade. I started with a 100mhz and upgraded about every 6 months since then. I'm very pleased with my current system and am not gonna make a move until its a BIG ONE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.......2.2 does sound good....I just hope I can wait.

[Placid]

I am sticking with my p3 for now.
Even thou the amd's are faster (but hotter) finding a motherboard thats as stable and trouble free as the ones for p3's seems to be a problem.
I would wait for the next generation intels or maybe get a faster p3 to speed you up until they come out.

[Spike]

My philosophy has always been to remain one generation behind what's 'new'. This gives all the mfrs time to work out the CPU bugs, BIOS bugs, chipset bugs, compatability issues, etc. It also allows the other sectors, hardware and software, to catch up. Why pay a premium price for some neat whizbang features that nothing can take advantage of? Or even worse, get stuck with a dud configuration that gets re-worked and has no upgrade path except for a complete rebuild? I'll sit nicely on the sidelines while the 'new thing' matures and let others pay the premium price for beta testing it. 8-)

[logos]

not to mention the price factor of staying behind the latest... you can build a p!!! system for the price of a p4 chip... when I put this box together it cost about the same as just a gig-a-chip -and the benchmarks aren't that far behind