Pentium vs AMD?

AMD In this Corner -- Pentium In The other!
Well, I was so "stoked" about overclocking an AMD chip, that is less than 100 dollars, to hopefully 2.2ghz, maybe more. However, it seems as if some people think the best deal for the money now is to go with a pentium setup, and overclock it. I have heard you can get a P4 2.2 or so, and hit 3Ghz and beyond on air? Is this true? Is this less expensive?


Also.. My main question, if the answer is to go with AMD.

I would like to go with the AMD XP 2100 T-Bred B chip, with the stepping of AIUHB (The one that overclocks so well).

If that is the case, how in the world can I find a place that will ship that particular stepping of the 2100 to me? It seems to me, that they would just ship whatever they have, and I may get stuck with a poor performer?


So, AMD 2100 Type B, or P4 Low 2Ghz chips to start out my overclocking on? Which is going to give the best bang for buck, and best performance obvioiusly.

A budget is a MUST! I really don't want to spend more than 250 or so on Chip and Motherboard combined. Give or take.


I know this is a highly debated battle, but please for the sake of money and time. Try and give me an honest answer. I know some will be biased either way, but with the answer, please give a reason.

Thanks so much!

I can't answer your questions about where to find a specific AMD stepping. But, I can tell you "some" folks are reaching 3 gig on the low end P-4 Northwoods. Not everone can reach that high with the cheaper P-4's though. The best bang for the buck is the 1.8a P-4 Northwood (make sure you get the 512k cache P-4). These later 1.8a generally will overclock to 150 FSB or 2.7 gig, not bad for a $140 CPU (and it'll out perform any AMD too). Match it up with a $95 Abit BD7-II and you're still within the $250 budget.

batboy said:

These later 1.8a generally will overclock to 150 FSB or 2.7 gig, not bad for a $140 CPU (and it'll out perform any AMD too).

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You mean any stock speed AMD? It certainly will not outperform any AMD if you include OCed AMD chips as there are plenty of AMD ocs that are faster than a 2.7ghz p4...

As far as this goes, I am an AMD guy. P4's do overclocker higher as far as MHz goes, but the AMD's are typically better performers per MHz....basically they perform equivalent even though they clock lower. In my mind, the true kicker is that AMD chips are much less expensive and so you can start out with a higher rated processor and overclock it and get it in the realm of a similar priced P4. I know that there are bound to be exceptions to this so I don't consider it a hard and fast rule or anything, but I like the idea of it all. The only issues are heat, but overclock any chip and you run into heat issues. Don't get me wrong, I like Intel as well. They make a great product and I bet they would just SCREAM if you could unlock the multiplier...

Anywho, I guess my reccomendation would be the 2100 Tbred B which does overclock so well. Where to get it? That's the easy part. PCNUT guarantees a 2100 Tbred B AIUHB week 48/49 CPU.... http://www.pcnut.com/parts/cpu.htm
And since they sponsor www.overclockers.com , everyone wins!

That's BS, an overclocked 1.8a running at 2.7 gig (150 FSB) with the memory overclocked using the 3:4 setting will out perform any AMD even if it's also overclocked. The Intel mobo chipsets are also the best and most stable on the planet. Yes, I'm aware the AMD will perform most benchmarks better than an Intel if you compare same clock speeds and same memory speeds head to head. I also will admit that if you are on a super tight budget, then an AMD system has a lot to offer. But, when you crank up the P-4's FSB and memory bandwidth, they can't be beat... period. If you have to crap in a Intel thread, then at least post some links to back up what you claim.

batboy said:

If you have to crap in a Intel thread, then at least post some links to back up what you claim.

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Could you follow your own advice too please?

I don't really have any experience with AMD, but my guess would be that if you didn't know what chip was inside the computer, you wouldn't be able to tell a difference in performance. If you can, you spend way too much time in front of your computer

neofate,

I'm no intel or amd fanboy...
infact I've built more amd rigs then intel. (mostly for friends)

that 2100 and a good nforce mobo may be what you should be looking at....
yet once OCed, you'll find that you'll have the performance of a intel 2.4ghz(at stock) max.

2.4ghz or so is not a bad OCing rig.

yet batboy is right, a 1.8a OCed to 2.7ghz is a far better rig then what you'll get with the 2100xp.

Oh if you only said you can spend around $300 for a chip and mobo......

I would then say get the 2.4b and an albatron PE mobo.
why?

well for $190 you get the 2.4b, and for about $100 you get a great mobo....
combind, they could get you into the 3.0ghz land.

this topic (amd vs intel) has been done before.

if you read the first two pages, you'll see that I as well as others debunk all the myths that an amd fan will tell you.

infact I show how a $300 amd cpu (2600xp) can't keep up with my $190 cpu once it is OCed.

good luck

mica

thef0x82 said:

Could you follow your own advice too please?

I don't really have any experience with AMD, but my guess would be that if you didn't know what chip was inside the computer, you wouldn't be able to tell a difference in performance. If you can, you spend way too much time in front of your computer

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LOL

I just posted a link that has some proof.

mica

batboys original reply is right on. i think it is a question of money...decide how much you want to spend and then see if you can afford a decent intel rig with that cash. and you can. if you were spending $100 instead of $150 AMD would be the way to go, but for $150 you can get a decent intel cpu and a rockn' board for $100. i am blown away at how fast of an AMD rig you can build for cheap, but at a certain cash threshhold AMD does not quite keep up.

one more plus for AMD is upgradability, they do not keep changing sockets and the cpu's come down in price more than intel so you can always score a better faster chip down the road.

Deathknight said:

You mean any stock speed AMD? It certainly will not outperform any AMD if you include OCed AMD chips as there are plenty of AMD ocs that are faster than a 2.7ghz p4...

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show me results and ill show you some too. p4's win hands down.

Intel still rules the roost for Max OC, and not to crap in an Intel section of the Forums, but AMD still holds the lead for bang for the buck (very close there though, I believe.)

At the performance levels we are talking about though, real world use will show little or no difference: once you are at - or NEAR 2GHZ things go so quick the cpu is NOT what holds up the system!

So it comes down to more like personal preference, in reality.
I have more AMDs than Intel, but I do not favor either- I'm pulling for Via's cpus