P4 X Athlon: Upgrade Dilema

[Guest LLopes]

Hi all,I'm about to upgrade my sys, and later was looking for some precessor options... On my search through the net, I've noticed that there aren't AMD processors much higher then 2Ghz, while the P4 can get as high as 2.8Ghz... So, if I would to choose between an Athlon machine 2.*Ghz(2000+, 3000+, etc.) not so powerful as the P4 2.4Ghz, or the P4 2.4 itself, wich one would you recommend me buying(considering that all other specs would be the same in both cases)????PS. I'm building it up for FS2004... Many Thanks,Lucas.

[Guest daveg4otu]

I believe that we are going to get a lot of differing opinions re your question.My own opinion as a long time AMD user in several successive PCs is that I like them and find them reliable. Regards the speed- it has been said that the reason for the naming method on AMD is that a AMD XP2800(for instance) is as fast as a P4 2.8 altho it only runs at 2.083Ghz.This apparently due to differing configurations etc within the chip.I'm not qualified to comment about that but this I do know - my XP2000(at 1667Mhz) is every bit as fast as my son's Pentium 2.0Ghz ,and was a whole lot cheaper,and runs FS9 better on a system that is otherwise similar to his.I'm also thinking of an upgrade in the New Year and I will stay with AMD.Perhaps someone with the tech knowledge can elaborate(in simple language please ) on the difference between the two types.CheersDave

[Sarge27 0]

I'm another happy AMD guy. I used AMD for years, jumped ship for a Pentium 4 2.8 for a year, and now I'm back to AMD. Don't get me wrong, the P4 ran fine, but AMD seems to be the most bang for the buck. I'm now running an Athlon 64 3200 and it's a great chip. If you're gonna upgrade to the level of 3.2, you may as well get a Athlon 64, because it's only a few bucks more than the Athlon 32 bit chip. Then you'll be ready for Win XP 64. By the way, the Athlon 64 3200 overclocks quite nicely too...been up to the equivalent of a 3700 mhz Pentium with only air cooling.(By the way, I'm selling my P4 2.8, motherboard, and memory in case you might be interested!;) )Mark

[Guest cw1011]

Go to Tom's Hardware Guide for some objective testing of processors. This should help you.

[michal 44]

At the moment (may change tomorrow !) the best performance for your $ in FS9 you will get using Intel CPU. This results stands out very clearly if you go and look at studies done by tomshardware or simhq.Michael J.http://www.reality-xp.com/community/nr/rsc/rxp-higher.jp

[Guest SlimDady]

That p4 thing is not true any more the athlon 64 will beat the fastest p4really the best value for your dollar would be the athlon barton 2500+, I just built a system with one. Very first thing I did was set the fron side bus to 200mhz to overclock it to a 3200+ at 2.2ghz, it hardly effected the temp, and I saved myself like 300$ rather then getting the 3200+I guess if u have monet to blow go for the pentium 3.06 or the a64, but otherwise the 2500+ is prob the best option, if you would like to overclock it to 3200+ speeds you need to make sure you have 3200 ddr memory

[Guest Stratus_Fractus]

Tom's Hardware...cough...sponsored by Intel...cough...biased. I concur with Slimdady, my 2500 is rocking, overclocks well and blows 3Ghz P4Cs out of the water in Sandra's benchmarking, and keeps neck to neck with the 3.2Ghz P4Cs. And for only $120 CAD you can't go wrong! Motherboards are also cheaper for AMD in general.

[Guest cw1011]

You can get a p4 3.0 for around $250 - easilly overclocked with standard cpu cooler and an aluminum case. As above, an overclocked cpu below the newest standard is probably the overall best value for the money, whether it be either AMD or Pentium.