AMD Athlon XP 1800 or Pent. IV 1.8 Ghz

[fingerprints]

I am getting a new comp pretty soon and I can either get an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ or an Pentium IV 1.8 Ghz. Which one should I get? I have heard that the Athlons run much hotter and are a much more high maintenance chip but have higher benchmarks. Wouldn't I be better off having slightly lower benchmarks and not having to worry about heat so much? The comp is coming with a CPU fan, heatsink and 2 extra case fans by the way.

 

[Dexion]

Totally untrue with the heat. Intels are just as hot, you should see how massive those retail HSF are.

First of all your comparing 2 different clock speeds. AMD 1800+ runs at 1.533mhz, which the P4 is at 1800mhz. Secondly, the P4 1.8 is a bit more pricer than the AMD counterpart. Thirdly it totally depends on which P4. 1.8 your talking about, the Northwood(which you recognize with an A) is a much cooler processor and able to be overclocked well over 2Ghz.

It really depends on your preference, if your tight on cash, and don't know much(and don't want to bother) about overclocking. AMD is the way to go, the price your paying compared to the performance is the best.

 

[LP29]

Athlons are definitely hotter. Pentium 4 northwoods can still run even with only the heatsink on. athlons would fry if it's run without a fan.

 

[Migroo]

I'd take the Athlon every time. Cheaper and faster for what I use it for.

 

[Barrei]

I agree completely with Dexion, however with the P41.8a you can overclock to 2.4 ghz and beyond , I dont know the price difference , but the P4 is stable and highly overclockable. Good luck in whatever you choose

 

[Aragorn992]

P4's run a little cooler than an XP, however they have a larger surface area so they can dissipate the heat more efficiently.

Also P4's have a built in thermal diode that throttles the clock speed down if the heat gets to high, tomshardware had a video showing them removing the heatsink off a P4 and it still continued to run a Q3 timedemo.

The XP's build in thermal diode is less effective and simply shuts off the processor, however it can only cope with a fan failing. If you remove the heatsink it will burn up the processor and motherboard.

 

[CubicZirconia]

<< athlons would fry if it's run without a fan. >>



Not right away at least. While putting together my pc, the heatsink fan got unhooked...don't ask me how, but it did. I didn't notice cause there were 4 other pcs running in the room so noise wasn't a factor. I installed windows with the fan not running. The cpu temp when I restarted after the windows install was 55 degrees. Hot, but hardly frying.

 

[Tom]

Either processor can be a good choice. If you decide to get a P4 I would definately make sure it's the newer Northwood type. The following are my opinions assuming you are not contemplating overclocking..

Athlon advantages
1. less expensive by about $50
2. small advantage in the majority of benchmarks

disadvantages
1. fairly easy to chip processor during assembly if not careful
2. needs a bit more cooling which means it potentially can make for a louder system
3. if used with a Via motherboard it might require slightly more maintenance in terms of updating 4in1 drivers, but this is not the hassle it used to be so not really a big deal.

P4 advantages
1. Northwood runs cooler so system can be a bit quieter if designed for that purpose.
2. small advantage in a few benchmarks. If used with RDRAM does even better
3. on chip thermal protection
4. if used with an Intel chipset has a very high reputation for stability which is probably at least partially deserved.
5. retail version is very easy to assemble and comes with a nice HSF which is very quiet.
6. has additional instruction set SSE2 which can increase performance with applications designed to use these instructions

disadvantages
1. more expensive


Out of all this there are three things that I think really matter, performance isn't one of them because in the real world either one will perform very well.
1. If you're building it yourself assembling the HSF to the cpu on the Athlon is not that difficult, but it's a lot more difficult than doing the same thing with the P4.
2. Overall system noise. With a P4 system the power supply fans and case fans and hard drive are probably going to be the loudest things, so by using quieter ones you can end up with a very quiet system. The standard Athlon HSF is not especially noisy but some of the aftermarket HSFs are very noisy.
3. Money. P4s are better deals than they used to be but Athlons still have an edge.


Now if you are interested in overclocking the whole picture changes..

 

[dnoyeb]

I disagree.

First because the AthlonXP is more efficient, it should not produce more sound. If you use a fan thats regulated by temp the athlon should be equal to the pentium becaue the athlon is not doing as much work so will produce less heat per task than the pentium.

Second, the AthlonXP also has a diode Inside of it (like the pentium), as soon as the MB manufacturers start using it, it will autoshut down too when it overheats. I think Asus already has one MB which does this.

I will not buy another VIA.


Unfortunately I would recommend the Pentium to someone who does not want any trouble. I cant use my Athlon + VIA with win2K. Lots of other people have not had this problem though. Im going to ditch the VIA MB first.

 

[jiffylube1024]

<< I disagree.

First because the AthlonXP is more efficient, it should not produce more sound. If you use a fan thats regulated by temp the athlon should be equal to the pentium becaue the athlon is not doing as much work so will produce less heat per task than the pentium.

Second, the AthlonXP also has a diode Inside of it (like the pentium), as soon as the MB manufacturers start using it, it will autoshut down too when it overheats. I think Asus already has one MB which does this.

I will not buy another VIA.


Unfortunately I would recommend the Pentium to someone who does not want any trouble. I cant use my Athlon + VIA with win2K. Lots of other people have not had this problem though. Im going to ditch the VIA MB first. >>



I'm sorry but most of your theories do not hold water. Because the athlon is more "effecient" as you say (its IPC is higher: it can do more work in fewer clock cycles), and because it has a shorter pipeline (10 or 12 stages instead of 20 of the P4), it actually runs hotter. Also, the Athlon architecture runs hotter in general: The athlon is built on a .18 um process whereas a P4 is built on a smaller (cooler) .13 um process.

Tom's Hardware Guide did a test on the internal diodes of the P4 and Athlon, and the tests showed that the P4's "clock throttling" kicked in and saved the CPU when the Heatsink/fan was disconnected by slowing the CPU down significantly; the Athlon and Athlon XP CPUs both fried within seconds of the HSF's being removed and their diodes did not work (they were NOT defective chips).

Fans that are regulated by heat (one of the only mainstream ones is the Thermaltake Volcano 7) do not work very well, and run on their medium/high setting almost all of the time. Also, they are not as good coolers in general compared to ones that run @ the same speed.

It is a known fact that most Athlon XP fans are loud (most of them run @ 4500- 7000 RPM ... if you've heard of the Delta fan then you know what I'm talking about. My roommate had one for two months and it drove us both crazy. He had to get it replaced with a slower one just so the sound level was bearable). The stock Intel Heatsink is quite large, but the fan it comes with is quite small and runs only at 3000 RPM, and it is quite quiet (I have two and they're very quiet).

 

[jiffylube1024]

<< I am getting a new comp pretty soon and I can either get an AMD Athlon XP 1800+ or an Pentium IV 1.8 Ghz. Which one should I get? I have heard that the Athlons run much hotter and are a much more high maintenance chip but have higher benchmarks. Wouldn't I be better off having slightly lower benchmarks and not having to worry about heat so much? The comp is coming with a CPU fan, heatsink and 2 extra case fans by the way. >>



Back to the original question: whoever told you the Athlon runs "much" hotter and is higher maintenance blew it way out of proportion, and sounds like either a big Intel fan or just doesn't know what they're talking about.

The Athlon XP does usually require a fan on the heatsink which is louder than the stock Intel fan. However, you can buy fans that aren't too much louder and still run a stable system. Both CPU's run hot and both CPU's require at least one case exhaust fan (I know for a fact that Intel states an exhaust fan is required for stable running of the P4, and I'm pretty sure that AMD recommends one). Either way you should have a minimum of 1 exhaust fan, prefferably another fan for air intake as well.

 

[Feenix]

I just got an AthlonXP 1800+ & it was the best thing I ever did!! My Intel processor is in the bin - where it's staying. Athlons are not high maintenance & besides with the $$$ u save u can afford the extra cooling. The noisest thing in my PC is the chipset fan