help help: soon to be walked on by roomys A64

[lowbaby]

i need some help. my roommate is moving up from a 1.8 xp to the A64 3000. the mighty celeron dose not stand a chance. ive been looking to upgrade anyway but what can i get to slay the giant with. i have no fear of overclocking to the moon but funds are not unlimited. so no EE chips. i was wanting to spend 300 to 400 on a chip and mobo. im soon to have a w/c kit so the heat of a presshot dosent bother me. he dose not overclock so i do have that going for me..

any help will go a long way.
i could not stand taking second place to an amd.

 

[InvisGreenMan]

Grab an ABIT (IC7 series) or ASUS (P4C800 series) motherboard and a 3.0C (good for 3750 250FSB) or more usually (you got water so you should be good). This combo should score you some good points without breaking your budget.

 

[batboy]

Depends on what benchmark you're going to be measuring. The A64 will be hard to beat in some of the gaming matchups, but the Intel system like Invis mention will kick it's hinny in video encoding and memory bandwidth. It'll be an even match... you'll win some and he'll win some. That's a lot of cash to spend on CPU, RAM, and mobo just to match your roomy. If you guys are gamers, maybe consider getting a better vid card than him instead.

 

[SimGuy]

2.8C or 3.0C, Asus P4C800-E, 2x512 MB KomUSA Adata PC4200.

Pair it up with your W/C kit and you're off to the races. Like someone else above said though, you'll win some and you'll loose some against the A64.

 

[lowbaby]

thanks for the info.
he is pairing the A64 with the ati 9800 pro (256) ouch.
im getting the 9800 pro 128. but i will o/c it and he will not.

should i wait for a newer presscott (3.2/3.4)and see how they stack up
or run the snot out of a 3.2/3.4 northwood?
and im still kinda partial to the albatron 875 board. my845 has been good to me so far.

what bencheys would reflect the strenth of my intel.
i currently have
sandra 04
3d mark 01 and 03

any more thoughts would be great.

 

[batboy]

There is very little performance difference between the 9800 Pro 256 and 9800 Pro 128 (not many programs or games can make full use of vid RAM above 128 MB yet), so if you're overclocking yours, then you'll be ok. Will the roomy be running the A64 at default speed? If so, then you have a chance at whooping his hinny at more things. I'd get either the 2.8C or 3.0C and overclock the heck out of it. Benchies that will favor Intel are Sandra CPU and memory benchmarks, PCmark2002, and PCmark2004. The 3Dmark2003 mainly just tests vid cards, so if you are running a good overclock, that might go well for you. I'm not sure about 3Dmark2001, but the A64 might do pretty good at that. Find a video encoding benchmarking program too.

 

[Chris_F]

The 3.4C is the best IMO. I doubt the 3.4E will be very good as the prescott's are running very hot.

I'd say the 3.4C will beat the pants off a A64 3000. Especially when overclocked.

 

[lowbaby]

sweet bayboy thats just what i was hopeing to hear.
then the race is on