AMD or Intel??? 3

[djb3752]

Ok, I know there are a lot of bias answers to this question and I have read up on both AMD and Intel just as much as the others....

Heres my question....

I am building a computer strictly for gaming. Video Card will be an ATI RADEON 9800XT. Im trying to pick a motherboard and processor. I am looking at two options. Both boards are ASUS. One option is an AMD platform with a Athlon 64 1MB L2 cache and 1600 MHz FSB with Hypertransport. Option two is Intel P4 platform with a 3.0 GHz 512 MHz FSB and 800 MHz FSB with Hyperthreading.

Which is better for a gaming system?

 

[nlm9802]

asus p4c800e dlx with a P4e 3.0 (1MB L2 cache) 800fsb

yes you will need good cooling.

 

[TheLumberingAdmin]

Anandtech.com has a few good benchmarks of both CPUs (based on FPS in certain games). If its between the Athlon 64 3000+ and the 512K L2 cache P4, then I think the Athlon is going to have it. If its the 1MB version of the P4 3.0GHz, I think that one edges out the Athlon 64 in most places. But all three of them are pretty comparable performance wise. The Intel chips seem to beat the AMD offerings at things like encoding/decoding (Like MPEG4 conversions)... ok, they don't seem to, they thoroughly trounce the AMD chips in that. But for most games, an equivalent AMD CPU seems to have just a little edge over Intel.

Take a look:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1937&p=5

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1956&p=18

Personally, since they're pretty close to each other, I'd go with whichever one had the better price! (Unless I was planning on doing a lot of video rendering and encoding; then I'd definitely go with the Intel)

 

[Sympology]

I'm Biased toward AMD but will say do some research first at the end of day it's swings and roundabouts, ones best at one thing, another at another !

Try

http://www.tomshardware.com

and see what he has to say. They tend to benchmark and have the stats to back up the claims.

STu..



2 decades from retirement, 2 minutes from a breakdown

 

[cdogg]

http://www.tomshardware.com

~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle
[navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[ceh4702]

I was looking at a benchmark for DX9 games the other day and not all games are affected as much by the processor speed as by the quality of the Video card. One benchmark showed a wide variety of processors of varying speed playing Halo. The frames per second rates were all between 50 and 60. So it made no difference between an AMD 3.0Gig processor and the Intel 3.4EEGig with the Extreme Edition CPU. I have seen a lot of nice computers with over 3GHz FSB systems just through in a nvidia 5200 and claim to be a gaming rig. It is a big joke. There has been a suggestion lately that the price of the Processor and the Video card should be equal, or at least somewhat comparable. I can not see spending close to $300.00 on a fast processor and then using a $60.00 bargain basement video card.

The video card is very important. Maybe slightly more important than the speed of the processor.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[teknikal]

First off, I'll just say that I don't believe that this site is a good place to discuss gaming. I've seen countless threads removed for it in the past.

With that said, ceh4702 is right on the money. That ludicrous-fast processor isn't going to do squat for you unless you compliment it with a stellar video card. They go hand-in-hand when it comes to overall performance.

Good choice to go with the 9800XT! I don't think the difference between the two CPU's you're looking at is going to be that noticeable. If the price difference is more than $50, go with the cheaper solution and relax knowing that you've got one of the best available.

 

[SirNuke]

AMD's 64 bit chip is better in for gaming. It uses DDR cache (the big reason for its speed not the 64-bit chipness). The p4 has better multithreading, so if you want to host games and play at the same time the p4 will be better, but for either hosting or playing I recommend AMDs. In all honesty, however, the CPU is very overrated. I would get a VERY nice video card, and dedicated sound (look at sound blaster), dedicated ethernet, a sata hd or ata133 7200rpm hd, and a gig of memory that matches the cpu's bus rate

SirNuke (first 1014)

 

[djb3752]

Thank you all. You have been very helpfull. I thought they would be somewhat the same but I have had Intel so long that I wanted to see if I was going to get the shaft if I stuck with the P4. Again thanks to all!

 

[paparazi]

It's not a good time to upgrade especially when you are looking at high end components like these.
PCI Express and the new Nvidia NV40 are just about to appear, both of which will leave you feeling seriously sick after shelling out this much cash.
OK if you are going mainstream but at this price point I would wait.
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[lucasm]

I have an AMD 64 system with a ATI AIW 9800 Pro, and it has been rock solid for gaming (Far Cry, UT2004, etc). The reputation that AMD had in the past as a somewhat unstable discount processor is ancient history. Via chipsets are much improved, and there is a great selection of motherboards out there - but I would wait a little longer before doing a system overhaul at this point, as paparazi said.

I used to have Intel systems, but there is just some intangible quality to being part of the "AMD community" that I enjoy.

 

[DreXor]

i'll throw in my 2 cents here as well...
i'm biased to p4's than the amd line and here's why :

my best friend and i built gaming machines/workstations back in the fall of 2001 i put together a 1.7 p4 on an aopen motherboard.

my friend put together a amd athalon system i belive, i never kept much track of it due to the fact he went through : 4 procs and 3 mobos.. kept cooking it and NO, he didn't overclock
he got a different power supply twice just incase of power issues, got a UPS to condition the power just in case of spikes.
he even bought thermal-take cpu coolers to try and help after the 2nd proc just in case the one in use was substandard.

i'm still using the same old mobo, same old proc, and the hunk of junk generic cpu cooler that came with the proc to this day.

we used it for the same things 90% of the time, and if anything i ran mine harder than his doing software development and gaming.

nonetheless, he scrapped that system and got a p4 after almost 2 years of headaches, and coming up on 2 years he's had a rock solid machine.

 

[DreXor]

and one more quick note, i tend to be leary of overclocking.
why buy something that's already being stressed?