AMD chips - your opinions please...

[bujin]

I'm about to upgrade my computer & would like a professional (and/or informed) opinion.

I am torn between an AMD Duron (for cost-efficiency) and an Athlon (for raw power). I mainly use my computer for gaming. What are your opinions on these chips for that purpose? If I can get away without spending too much money, I would be happy!!!

Also, which motherboards would you recommend?

BTW, I currently have an AMD K6-2 500MHz computer with 128Mb PC100 RAM.

 

[jgoodman00]

I myself would recommend intel. There are quite a lot more expensive, but 'you get what you pay for'. I have tried quite a few AMD chips, & whilst they are very good, they just don't appear to be as stable as their intel counterparts. Don't buy a celeron though, the PIII/4s are far superioir & well worth the extra money.

As for motherboards, i believe the same is true here. Definately buy branded, & try to get one with an intel chipset (assuming you buy an intel CPU). Apparently the intel chipsets (815x) get unhappy with inferioir quality graphics cards. I can certainly vouch for this, having experienced lock-ups when the video becomes highly stressed (such as during games). I bought a Geforce 2 card & since then it has been plain sailing.

You are probably going to be looking at around £500 for a cou, mainboard, ram & graphics card. This is quite a lot, but at least then you know it is up to date & decent quality.


James Goodman
j.goodman00@btinternet.com

 

[butchrecon]

I have to disagree on the stability issue with AMD. It all depends on what you want to use it for. I admit that for servers Intel is the way to go. BUT for Gamers, AMD is far better. I gave an Intel system myself and am not impressed as far as games. But one should always keep in mind that everyone has different likes/dislikes. Intel is more expensive. AND for the "you get what you pay for" is crap when it comes to Intel vs. AMD Athlon. AMD is half the cost of Intel for a chip that runs nearly as well as Intel. Also stick with the Thunderbird and skip the Duron. As far as Motherboards are concerned stick with a Asus (again based on personal preference) board. They seem to be quit nice.

The whole AMD vs Intel debate is decades old. At one time AMD was not worth any amount of money. Since the release of Athlon, AMD has solidified itself os one of the top chip makers next to Intel. It is all based on personal preference and everyone has his or her opinion.

 

[jgoodman00]

I agree with some of what butchrecon, especially the bit about being personal preference. At the end of the day, if you buy good hardware (namely ram, mainboard & graphics card) you shouldn't have too much trouble. But it does depend on what you are running.....


As for mainboard, I also chose an asus, but this seems more highly debated than the AMD v Intel war, so again it is up to you.

I think your best bet is to try & find a supplier who will let you try different configurations. Several of the suppliers I have used in my time have allowed me to do this, meaning I can produce 'my' perfect computer.
James Goodman
j.goodman00@btinternet.com

 

[jgoodman00]

As for my preference to Intel, i forgot to justify my decision. I used to always use AMD, with my last CPU being an AMD K6-2. However there were a number of problems related with them overheating & then producing fatal errors within windows. This was particularly well documented in windows 95, & whilst they claimed to have solved it for windows 98, I have my doubts.

For this reason I switched to Intel, & since then I have never looked back..... James Goodman
j.goodman00@btinternet.com

 

[Karl Blessing]

after the K6-3, AMD has always been the better performer for me, I have used an Athlon, and a duron, currently their Duron/Tbird chips are superior at the moment, for a price to price basic, a Duron/Tbird performs the same or better than a P3 chip, also they're much much cheaper, thus far all I seen from intel lately were PR Stunts, and overpriced gimicks to get the higher spped.

even due to the cost of the duron, it is a better option to celerons.

When most of the chips out there are in the same pool of quality, it never really hurts to goto the bigger bargain (just be careful or what motherboard chipset you get, I recomend Abit KA7 for the SlotA Athlon, and Asus K7v for the SocketA Duron/Tbird) Karl
kb244@kb244.com

http://www.kb244.com

Experienced in : C++(both VC++ and Borland),VB1(dos) thru VB6, Delphi 3 pro, HTML, Visual InterDev 6(ASP(WebProgramming/Vbscript)

http://www.brainbench.com/transcript.jsp?pid=629151

 

[gunthnp]

it look like you open a can of worms but amd right now has a problem geting good chipsets out of via and the ones they have carsh more, but seeing that you asked about which amd to get there a lot fewer problems with the althon the chip is good and you get your bang for the buck. So long and thanks for all the fish.

 

[hc25036]

I have just switched from lifelong Intel to an Athlon and would recommend the Athlon on performance/price ratio - but you should take into account your own confidence with modifying your PC. For instance, if you want it to have less chance (virtually) of problems from the start, whatever modem, video card, sound card etc you put in, then pay the extra for Intel. If you are happy that you may have to look for updated drivers, or to modify BIOS settings to get optimal speed/stability with some combinations of video cards (I had a real problem with Geforce2)or whatever peripheral, then get that nice warm feeling of going a bit quicker a bit cheaper with Athlon. The Athlon is also easier to overclock...

If you are in the UK, I would look at

http://www.overclockers.co.uk.

I have no link with them, just a satisfied customer.

 

[Karl Blessing]

I have so far, have never had a problem with any hardware that I have gotten, the only time I had hardware compatibility problems , and crashes and such, was when I used AMD's IronGate Chipset, I have found much more realiability with Via's KX133 and KT133 chipsets, I have not had a problem, you just have to make sure you have drivers updated and everything. Karl
kb244@kb244.com

http://www.kb244.com

Experienced in : C++(both VC++ and Borland),VB1(dos) thru VB6, Delphi 3 pro, HTML, Visual InterDev 6(ASP(WebProgramming/Vbscript)

http://www.brainbench.com/transcript.jsp?pid=629151

 

[RGC]

I run an AMD 1.2 @ 1.4 , and leave a P snoozning 4 in the dirt by 3500 pts., in Sandra. I even have friends who run little T700's who are out benchmarking P4 1.5's. Intel Is Dead. With in the week I will Have a 1.267 DDr to test, which the math works out to 1.596 mhz, I think I can out Benchmark the P4 1.5 by 6000 pts. BYE BYE Intel

rafales@alltel.net

 

[CitrixEngineer]

RGC

Remember that the P4 is a new chip and requires software to be written for it that will optimize it's new instruction sets.

It's a bit like when the Pentium Pro came out. Many people scoffed at it because it appeared to be slower than the ordinary Pentium. But it was optimized for 32-bit code, and only ran 16-bit code slower than the ordinary pentium.

Now you can still find servers in organisations that use pentium pros, but ordinary pentiums have given way to PIIs, PIIIs and Xeons.

Back on topic ;-) my own experience with AMD chips shows them to slightly outperform the current crop of Intel pIIIs.

An 850Mhz Duron can be overclocked (if you're into that sort of thing) to over 1 Ghz, and there are benchmarks online that show performance to be very close to that of an Athlon at the same speed.

If price is not a major concern and you don't want to overclock (and possibly damage) the chip, go for a T'bird for price/performance value.

Also look at ABITs KT7A motherboard, which lends maximum performance capabilities to this chip.

Hope this helps

 

[Karl Blessing]

Citrix

Remeber the Duron/Tbirds are new chips, and thus they need software written to be optomize them, the P3 1.13G was in a way a new chip needs software written for it, I mean heck, if you think about it, the guy who usally gets things done first when it comes to developer reasources, is Intel, but that should work, since existing software should be supported, the P4 is not a flagchip like the IA64 is going to be.

when new chips come out, I dont expect to have to obtain new 'tweaked' software to make it run better. I expect to grab whatever CPU works best on all applications that I use, wheter optomized or not.

[sarcasm]
"Look we have a brand new chip, supposed to really rock, but you wont see the light of it's performance until you patch all your software, so that it uses our special codes" Karl
kb244@kb244.com

http://www.kb244.com

Experienced in : C++(both VC++ and Borland),VB1(dos) thru VB6, Delphi 3 pro, HTML, Visual InterDev 6(ASP(WebProgramming/Vbscript)

http://www.brainbench.com/transcript.jsp?pid=629151

 

[gunthnp]

the real test is how it work for the user and guess what most of the time it an intel that run faster and longer then amd. how cares if the chip is one persent faster on a test made for the amd if your down 5 times more then with a intel. So long and thanks for all the fish.

 

[teknoguy]

good, this question is almost answered. I am also looking for a new system. Im almost on the edge of buying an Athon with a abit kt7 motherboard. What do people think of the IWill KA266 motherboard. The specs are incredible. if i buy an athon will i get the stability that i would from an intel chip.

Also what do people think of the VIA's Apollo Pro 266 Chipset. The only thing that i hate about this board(Asus CUV266) is the 133mhz bus. I do not understand why they would put in DDR capabilities on a motherboard that has a 133mhz fsb. DDR's bandwidth is definetly wasted.

I guess if i want stability i should stick with Intel. Shit!

 

[Repairs]

INTEL...BAD.....AMD....GOOD

 

[jgoodman00]

you cannot run reliable benchmarks through sandra, becuase that is not it's primary aim. run the ZD tests & you will see the difference diminish. the zd tests show very little difference between the chips, tending to go 'tit for tat'. i did find however that the intel chips made a significant gain on the microstation benchmark, & generally scored higher on business graphics (incl high end business graphics) than their amd counterparts. i think you will find that these programs are actually written for the intel instructions, hence they score better..... James Goodman
j.goodman00@btinternet.com

 

[ladin]

I have an Athlon 850 and an ABIT KA7, this was the first compute I ever built. I had to go through 3 motherboards to get this darn thing to boot properly. I went through an FIC SD-11, and a Star something POS which both had AMD Irongate chipsets. I personally am satisfied with my athlon/abit combo since i would have saved mad cash over intel if i wouldnt have had to pay shipping for new mobos like 8x but thats okay. The only problem I have really had is occasionally (happened for 6 months regularly with win98se) is that my computer will freeze right before the desktop comes up while i can see the cursor and nothing else and these vertical yellow lines appear at the top of the screen. No one had ever heard of this so I just assumed it was the vid card but someone in my study hall put in a similar combo and got the same problem with a different card so I think its an AMD thing but with a little tweaking the problem seems to go away. It hasn't happened to me in about 4 months. So like was stated earlier, AMD is a good performer for the price, but you got to pick a good mobo to accompany it or you may be in for a world of hurt and you will most likely have to tweak the bios which is no big problem if it saves you a few hundred dollars.

Peace Ladin
matchu_14@hotmail.com

Build computers, C++, Tech support for 1 1/2 years, Web Development using MySQL, MINTI, Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Homesite, and of course, HTML.

 

[brendanhedges]

I have just built the following system and it is great.It booted first time. Loaded windows first time and so far hasn't crashed. On first impresions I would recomend this combination to anybody.

AMD athlon 1 gig
HSF
Epox 8kta3+ mobo
IBM deskstar 30 gig HDD
128 mb pc133 ram
32mb ATI rage pro graphics
1 extra case fan
Midi tower case with 300w psu
DVD player
CD RW player

One thing AMD cpu'do like is to run cool. Check out this forum for some good advise, both on AMD systems and Intel systems.

http://www.overclockers.com

 

[CitrixEngineer]

kb244, I don't disagree with what you are saying - I'm just playing "Devil's Advocate" a little here.

I think that, with just a little help from their friends at Microsoft, Intel might just pull something out of the bag fairly soon.

This link says what most are saying right now, though - the P4 IS lagging behind AMD somewhat, although it looks great on paper.

http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2001q1/p4-vs-athlon/

In the real world, AMD is giving real performance - for now ;-)...

 

[Karl Blessing]

just a quick overview to my general thoughts of each chips (bash away if you please, everyone needs a learning experience)

AMD K6 1/2/3 = The K6 series were nice low price options from AMD, problem though was that often you'll find it can be as stable as a tetonic plate.

Intel Celeron = Another said to be Price effective option( I know not of the new Celeron 3) however it is not a good option, it is "intel" but it is castorated at 66Mhtz bus, tho some are 100mhtz, the cache is still small because the L1 cache is copied over into the L2, thus limiting the actual usable L2 cache.

Intel P2/P3 = both of these are in some ways similar to me, they are top notchers , but I found them to be hotter, and more overpriced than I would reasonbly consider (not to mention some tricks here and there, to fix bugs, seems to become a more and more elaborate process)

AMD Athlon 'Classic' (slot A) =
these were great when they came out, outperformed the P3 at the time, even with the off-die cache, the only problem is, recently found out the classic athlons dont tend to last very long on life when overclocked, even if they are stable.

AMD Durons (socketA) =
This is one of my best bets, they outperform the castorated 66Mhtz Celerons, they're cheaper, they have ondie cache, and they also seem to last longer than overclocked slotA Athlons.

AMD Thunderbird (socketA) =
much like the duron, only difference is instead of 64K cache. it has 256K cache (128K more than classic off-die athlon) so , this guy is a really good speed demon. stability is also a match


the only problem I have with AMD, is that currently you have two major choices, VIA or AMD's Chipset, I like via's better, havent had much of a problem at all, but the irongate(AMD's) I've had much more problems.

this is how I compare Intels to AMD

Duron = Celeron
K6-2 = Pent 2
K7 (Athlon) = Pent 3
Thunderbird = Pent 3 Coppermine core


with the exception of the K6 series, AMD has been performing somewhat admirably.

Karl
kb244@kb244.com

http://www.kb244.com

Experienced in : C++(both VC++ and Borland),VB1(dos) thru VB6, Delphi 3 pro, HTML, Visual InterDev 6(ASP(WebProgramming/Vbscript)

http://www.brainbench.com/transcript.jsp?pid=629151