I'm still planning my future computer. (Calling all geeks)

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Asher
And I'm not sure what you mean about Pentiums being "alot more expensive".

I guess it may of just been my choice of motherboards. Eitherway, the ones I looked at for the pentium didn't seem to be as good as A7N8X. (not that I'm that great of a judge...)


As for the video card, I did take a look at the radeon website and the '9xxx' series did look appealing, but it didn't seem to be for sale - if it's going to be out in a couple weeks, then that's what I'll get.

[Asher]

Well, The A7N8X is the Nvidia-based motherboard, right? They are pretty speedy, but there's also a lot of compatibility problems. It's only Nvidia's 2nd motherboard chipset ever, afterall...

I'd prefer to go with an Intel chipset over Nvidia, ALi, Via, or SiS myself, but I've heard both Via and Nvidia aren't too bad these days.

As for the Radeon9xxx, they've been for sale for a long time now for the most part. The 9700 is about 6 months old, same with most of the others, the 9800 is the one not yet for sale (but will be soon), it was just announced on the 6th.

The 9700 Pro is one of the most expensive ones. FutureShop has it for $500CDN: http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/pro...d=&newdeptid=1

The 9500 Pro (128MB) is $369CDN at CompuSmart: http://www.compusmart.com/product.as...rPartID=557035

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Like here

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1783&p=12

well you can see that the athlons are a few speed grades faster than PIV's ... even with the + ratings... that is UT2003 engine on which many new games are on like Splinter cell etc... anyway it does seem that where computation power is required Athlons are better and where bandwidth is the benefit, PIV's rule, adaptation of SSE2 will see PIV's gain much more speed however this is very unlikely for games so... go AMD

and for the radeons, like Asher said 9700's have been for sale for 6 months or so, and 9500 lhave been for sale for 3 months at least... howevr 9800's and 9600's should come to stores by the end of the month... still 9500 are already DX9 capable and 9500pro is faster than GF4 ti4600/4800 and is a DX9 part so do not look for less than that it will be money well spent.

as for the chip I would risk going for an AMD 1700+ as they are well known to go up to 2000 mhz if you just change the multiplier in the bios without changing the voltage and such (just make sure it is thoroughbread B copre that you are buying), but perhaps needs a bit better air cooler... these chips are around 60$ or so... and you can run them at at least 166 mhz fsb or maybe even 200 mhz.. as you will buy Nforce2 chipset and PC 3200 memory... even if you have it at 1800 mhz and FSB at 400 it should be faster than regular 2000 mhz chip at 266 FSB... (and that is 2400+ chip) anyway, just to tell you that there are ways to go about this computer.... anyway that would leave you some spare money for a Radeon 9700 non pro which will be a kick ass card for a long time to come.

[Provost Harrison]

Monolith, bog off you mac using freak

Well I have decided that for my next computer I am going to get a 21" monitor...they are cool

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Monolith, bog off you mac using freak

Well I have decided that for my next computer I am going to get a 21" monitor...they are cool

And they cost almost as much as the computer itself.

[Asher]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave
well you can see that the athlons are a few speed grades faster than PIV's ... even with the + ratings... that is UT2003 engine on which many new games are on like Splinter cell etc...

Splinter Cell is based on Unreal Warfare, the UT2003 is also based on Unreal Warfare...if anything, Splinter Cell is optimized for the Pentium III more than anything else.

UT2003 isn't the only game out there, obviously. Q3 and Q3:TA run quite a bit faster on P4s, as does games like Comanche 4, Jedi Knight 2, etc. And 3DMark, if that matters.

Out of the 5 "gaming" benchmarks in the Anand article you linked to, the Athlon won 1.

anyway it does seem that where computation power is required Athlons are better and where bandwidth is the benefit, PIV's rule, adaptation of SSE2 will see PIV's gain much more speed however this is very unlikely for games so... go AMD

I'm very confused.
Why would SSE2 be unlikely for games? Over half of the SSE2 instructions were made explicitly for gaming...3D transforms with 64-bit precision, that kind of thing. Seeing as AMD's Athlon 64 will support SSE2, its adoption will only be more widespread now.

Video card drivers also extensively use SSE2.

Seeing as John Carmack has been saying how great HyperThreading is, you can expect the DOOM III engine will be optimized for HyperThreading as well as SSE2, which is why I think seeing as the P4s are already generally faster for gaming, the gap will only grow larger with new apps...

Not to mention how well the non-gaming apps on P4 are, like encoding.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1783&p=18

Notice how a 3.06GHz P4 renders 97.9fps converting a MPEG2 (DVD) file into DivX, while a 3000+ Athlon does it at 71.1fps. Quite a big difference.

Or in Windows Media Encoder where the 3GHz P4 takes 8 minutes to encode a video, the 3000+ Athlon takes 10.23...

Or in 3DStudio, where a 3GHz P4 takes 169 seconds to render a scene, the 3000+ Athlon takes 227...

Or in Lightwave, 3GHz P4 takes 101.5seconds, 3000+ Athlon takes 134 seconds.

[faded glory]

Just built my system. No regrets. May I recommend a place to buy parts? A really....cheap reliable place?

https://www.newegg.com

AMD or Intel?
AMD, More bang for your buck. Get an XP 2400-2600. Dont buy the latest P4 3.06 ghz or XP 3000. Your wasting your money. In 6 months there prices will be cut in half and you would have been taken to the cleaners.

Mobo? Get the MSI (K7N2) or Asus (A7n8x) versions of the Nforce2 Chipset. It works like clockwork with your nvidia based graphics card. Make sure you get the non-IGP (Integrated GF2 Mx 400) graphics. Unless you want that...

Video Card?
Nvidia GF2 mx.x is just fine for now. Or I could recommend a Ti4200?

RAM.. Get 2 x 256 DDR PC2700. On an Nforce2 board you got your dual channel DDR which actually runs as if I got 3 sticks of 256. Yes its true, skip the middle DIMM. You can buy DDR for 26$ on Newegg.com. Crucual -Micron (good brand)

Get yourself an IBM hard-drive. You wont regret it. There nice and cool. Maxtor and the others are garbage.


Since when did asher become a Intel Pitchman?

The 2.53 Ghz P4 isnt as fast as a 2.1ghz AMD XP 2400. Toms hardware proved it! They also proved the P4 3ghz isnt as fast as the XP3000+ *cough*

[faded glory]

Also Osweld. Raid, Serial ATA...all that stuff isnt a bigdeal.

Raid is just 2 HD, to prevent crash. I have Raid Stripe on a 3.4 gb Seagate from my old comp and a new 60gb IBM drive. The 3.4 gig is in case the 60 goes down.

Serial ATA. Another transfer rate they will never use.

[Asher]

faded...it's not as simple as you make it out to be.

In general, they perform equivalently. Some apps are faster on P4s (encoding, most games), some apps are faster on Athlons (scientific apps, MS Word *cough*).

Mid-range P4s and Athlons are nearly identically priced, and has newer technologies that most apps haven't taken advantage of yet (SSE2, and HyperThreading on the newer ones).

Given that P4s and Athlons in Osweld's pricerange are nearly identical in price and performance, I don't see any reason at all someone would choose an AMD over an Intel.

Serial ATA. Another transfer rate they will never use.

Never use?

I wouldn't put much money into what faded is saying, Osweld.

[faded glory]

Oh asher I read Hyperthreading was a load of crap.

It doesnt matter how much processers your system has. Its still goes through on 1 clock cycle, IMO even a dual processer system is one 1 clock cycle. The processers just share responsibilities. Imagine a bunch of cars at a intersection. Each knowing where they go... When the light is green, everybody goes. When its red everyone lines up. All "HT" technology means is the intersection is a little wider. In the end the cpu still cant process 2 instructions at the same time.

[Asher]

Originally posted by faded glory
Oh asher I read Hyperthreading was a load of crap.

It doesnt matter how much processers your system has. Its still goes through on 1 clock cycle, IMO even a dual processer system is one 1 clock cycle. The processers just share responsibilities. Imagine a bunch of cars at a intersection. Each knowing where they go... When the light is green, everybody goes. When its red everyone lines up. All "HT" technology means is the intersection is a little wider. In the end the cpu still cant process 2 instructions at the same time.

You really have no idea at all what you're talking about, cut your losses...

[faded glory]

Serial ATA? pfffft...

A busline is a busline. IBM owns the patents for buslines. Everybody pays IBM for buslines, and buslines havent changed in 10 years.

[Asher]

Look, it basically works like this. At any given time, a minority of the CPU is in use. There's basically a bunch of different "subprocessors" in each CPU. There's the ALU, which does integer/logic operations, the FPU (x87 floating point operations), and the SIMD unit (SSE/SSE2 operations).

A single "thread" (string of instructions) doesn't use all of those segments at once.

What HyperThreading (otherwise known as Simultaneous MultiThreading) does is allow two threads to run on the same processor, rather than one. If one thread is doing AI work on the ALU, another thread can be doing physics calculations using the SIMD and/or FPU units at the same time.

Single-threaded apps show 0% performance increase with it, multi-threaded apps almost always show a boost.

"Load of crap" it is not. HyperThreading 2 on Prescott will be better, though.

[Asher]

Originally posted by faded glory
Serial ATA? pfffft...

A busline is a busline. IBM owns the patents for buslines. Everybody pays IBM for buslines, and buslines havent changed in 10 years.

Is this some kind of joke?

[Asher]

Look, HT is a "load of crap". Makes no difference.