Keeping it in the family

[MRip]

Lately I have been itching to upgrade. I currently have a 1700+ Palomino, with a zalman flower cooler, a Shuttle Ak31V3.1(KT266A), ATI 9700PRO with a heatpipe cooler, and a brand new stick of HyperX pc3500 512mb. I just bought the new ram thinking it was my memory that was choking my OC, but it hasn't helped. It simply will not post above 147fsb. Every day, getting a new mobo and chip sounds better.

The question is, what to get? AMD, or Intel? I know that some of you say Intel is The Man and we shouldn't give Him any of our $ on principle, but if He gives me better performance I don't think I can resist.

A barton 2500+ is about $170. A P4 2.53 is about $180. The performance is close, but the general consensus seems to be that the P4 will OC to better benchmarks and fps. An nforce2 board will run me about $120 with shipping. A good P4 board will run me about $150 with shipping. The prices are pretty close.

Lets fast forward a few weeks. Intel releases their new chipsets that are supposed to blow everything else out of the water. Oh, and one will support 800mhz fsb. AMD releases... not much.

In addition, I can't stand comp noise so a quiet comp is important to me. P4 seems like it runs much cooler, so quieter fans can be used. I don't really want to go watercooled as I just can't justify the price to myself.

So... Intel runs cooler and quieter. They are releasing a supposedly amazing new chipset. Their chips overclock higher. The price gap isn't nearly as large as it used to be, with AMD's fastest offering being generally more expensive than Intel's.

I don't want to buy a P4 system, but I might have to. Am I overlooking anything? Help!

 

[Trent]

go with an nforce2 board, from either asus or epox, even the msi board looks good, and the xp2100+ chip because it is an overclocking fiend.

 

[Top Hat Theater]

You're right about the P4s running cooler and therefore quieter. However, you can't really run much voltage through 'em without incurring SNDS and killing your chip. AMD .13 micron chips don't seem to suffer the same fate. Here's a possible solution for you. Get a Tbred B 2100 from newegg and an EPoX 8RDA+ motherboard. Then, as a cooling solution, get an SLK-900 with a low decibel 92mm fan. The chip will OC too XP 3000+ levels and you'll only have spent $90 on it.

~THT

 

[MRip]

reply

Sounds like a good idea, but do you think that laying out a few extra $ for serial ATA would be worth it?

 

[FastFSB]

i would reccomend intel. wait a few weeks for the new stuff to come out, and get a granite bay board as the price will have dropped. i dont want to start an intel vs amd thing here, but intel seems to be ahead performance and noise wise, and i dont see that changing anytime soon. the cost advantage of going with amd is not really there anymore. i wouldnt base my decision on one company being percieved as "the man" and the other as "the underdog". they are both for-profit corporations. they are both in existence to make money for their share holders. whatever you choose im sure you'll have a good system. good luck and have fun

 

[MRip]

reply

Lets put it this way.
With approx. $300, what mobo cpu combo will go the farthest with quiet cooling?

 

[Top Hat Theater]

it's a toss-up but I'd suggest the 2100 with a nForce2 board. It's cheap and the runs real cool. I wish I knew more about Intel chips/boards but for the same price as the 2100, you could get a 1.8 Northy that'll probably hit 2.4

~THT

 

[Shade00]

You wouldn't be able to buy a 1.8a for the same price as a 2100+, unless you bought it used or off Ebay. They still go for around $130 at best, $140 is more the average. Compare that to $88 for a 2100+ at Newegg.

I would seriously recommend that you go with the 2100+ and nForce2 as stated before. You'll be able to get the board and CPU for about $200, and I guarantee they'll outperform what you could get for that price in the Intel flavor. As THT stated, you'll be getting 3000+ out of an overclocked 2100+... we're talking P4 3ghz performance, probably more. And I'd bet you'd be able to continue using your Zalman, although if you have the CNPS3100 you might need to upgrade to the CNPS6000. You'd have to spend a heck of a lot more to get anywhere near that performance with a P4.

Sure, Intel's new stuff will be coming out soon, but you won't be able to buy the brand-spankin'-new stuff with $300. You could get a 2.4B and a good mobo for about $300, but then you're still most likely not going to get the performance you would with the AMD.

I understand your need for a quiet system. My P4 stuff is about to be relegated to the closet because it's running too hot. I'm going for either a 1700+ B or a 2100+ and I'm going to push it as high as it can go with a Zalman.

 

[FastFSB]

on pricewatch i found a 2.6 p4 combo for $288, and an xp2600 combo for about the same. the p4 combo has the i845g chipset and the athlon combo has the kt333. if you go for nforce it will cost more. the p4 runs quieter and cooler, and will probably overclock further. here is the info on the p4 combo.

Gigabyte
Info...

ONLINE ORDER ONLY -
845GL - Socket 478 mboard - (IN STOCK & ACCURATE AD - GUARANTEED) with cpu -Pentium 4 2.6GHz 478-Pin,cooling fan & Heatsink, (IN STOCK & ACCURATE AD - GUARANTEED)
(Part - P4CBO2666)
Price: $288
MinOrder: 1

Ship 1 : $4.92 Flat Fee
Updated:3/12, 11:46AM
$292.92 SMKSuperstore.com
Info...

800-490-0626
.

CA

 

[Top Hat Theater]

No resellerratings.com rating for that place though....be careful of placing such a large dollar amount order with a company without a rep. And besides, those Northys and SNDS are enough to keep me from overclocking a P4 very far; I'd hate myself for smoking a chip that expensive.

~THT

 

[FastFSB]

No resellerratings.com rating for that place though....be careful of placing such a large dollar amount order with a company without a rep. And besides, those Northys and SNDS are enough to keep me from overclocking a P4 very far; I'd hate myself for smoking a chip that expensive.

~THT

that was just the first site listed. more well know sites that i have bought from are just a few $ more. bzboys.com and partspc.com are less than a dollar more.
As far as sudden northwood death syndrome, i dont think that is a problem in this case. first of all, it is not that common. it seems to happen mostly when people push the vcore to 1.85 or more and use poor cooling or really exotic cooling where the cpu is below freezing. if you check the thread, you'll see a lot of people there have vapochill or prometa, or they have the stock heatsink in a poorly ventilated case. regardless, he wont be overclocking that much if noise is a concern. my 2.66 does over 3.0 on stock voltage, as most do, so he wouldnt even have to touch vcore.

 

[Twister]

I think you need to take into consideration "What YOU want to do with your computer". Both companies make great products now. The playing field no longer has the BIG LEAN on either side when you start talking about their prices on their "Latest & Greatest "products. Clock for Clock it takes more MHZ from Intel to beat AMD. Is my finger on the scale ?

 

[FastFSB]

I think you need to take into consideration "What YOU want to do with your computer". Both companies make great products now. The playing field no longer has the BIG LEAN on either side when you start talking about their prices on their "Latest & Greatest "products. Clock for Clock it takes more MHZ from Intel to beat AMD. Is my finger on the scale ?

true. p4 is much weaker clock for clock than the xp, as its pipelines are 20 stages deep. this also makes it a great overclocker and a cooler running chip. The xp2600+ runs at 2.13ghz. i listed prices for and xp2600+ and a 2.6 northwood. These systems are *about* equal, with the xp doing better at x87 floating point operations and the p4 pulling ahead in sse2 and memory bandwidth (as the xp doesnt support sse2). He is concerned with noise, and when it comes to noise/performance, intel is ahead for the time being. regardless, both systems are great. i just feel that the p4 is a better fit for this application...

 

[MRip]

thanks

Thanks for all the input! I think I'm going to wait until the new Intel chips are released and see what happens to overall prices before I buy anything. It will be hard to wait, but I'm going to try.

 

[Emericana]

the performance for both setups would be incredibly close if you oc them both....

i am assumin that p4 could oc to around 3.3ghz on air or around there (but dont take my word on it i dont do intel ) and the 2500+ barton should oc to around 2400-2500mhz on air which should give it around a 3300+ PR rating so it would be around the same speed

 

[FastFSB]

the performance for both setups would be incredibly close if you oc them both....

i am assumin that p4 could oc to around 3.3ghz on air or around there (but dont take my word on it i dont do intel ) and the 2500+ barton should oc to around 2400-2500mhz on air which should give it around a 3300+ PR rating so it would be around the same speed

thats probably true, although i would give an ever so slight advantage to the p4 as im pretty sure the athlon xp listed for that price is not a barton but a tbred. he wants quiet so i think the p4 will go further with a less agressive (and noisy) cooling solution. Both will be nice though.

 

[MRip]

actually

Actually, pricewatch was 2500+ Bartons for $170 and Newegg has'em for $172. The prices dropped pretty quick.