Processor/Chipset advice

[fingerprints]

I'm buying a new comp and I have the choice between the following 2 setups. Can some people with experience tell me which whould gice the best performance with the lowest maintenance? I don't want to have to keep worrying about heat or drivers or compatibility issues. I want to hook it all up install my games and stuff and pretty much be set for a while. Thanks for any niput, comments, advice, suggestions etc. These two setups cost exactly the same by the way.


Setup #1

MSI K7N420 Pro NFORCE 420D Chipset w/LAN 266 Mhz FSB
360 Watt power supply and ATX Med Tower Case
AMD Athlon XP 1800+ (1.53 Ghz QuantiSpeed) 266FSB Socket A
cpu fan, heatsink, 2 extra case fans
512 MB PC-2100 DDR RAM
40 GB UDMA-100 7200 RPM HD
GeForce 3 Ti 200 64MB DDR TV-Out 4x AGP
Audigy Gamer
2 USB ports and 2 extra USB ports connector
all the standard extra goodies


Setup #2

AOPEN AX45 Pentium 4 SIS 645 Chip UDMA-100 DDR Main Board
360 Watt power supply and ATX Med Tower Case
Intel Pentium 4 1.8 Ghz
cpu fan, heatsink, 2 extra case fans
512 MB PC-2100 DDR RAM
40 GB UDMA-100 7200 RPM HD
GeForce 3 Ti 200 64MB DDR TV-Out 4x AGP
Audigy Gamer
2 USB ports and 2 extra USB ports connector
all the standard extra goodies

 

[Odoacer]

The answers you get here are gonna be biased towards amd, so guess what i'm gonna suggest

I would imagine you'll be able to squeeze a little more performance from the Athlon when gaming... but either way, you can't go wrong. they both look like great systems. I'd say at this point it's just a matter of preference.

 

[BreakApart]

I'd go with setup#2

1.8a northwood how can you go wrong?
-overclocks
-less heat (doesn't require a jet engine turbine to cool it, summer is coming bring on the heat)
-most compatible with various devices (video editing cards, etc)


Before the P4 Northwood arrived, i would have picked the Athlon XP.

 

[Migroo]

I'd choose setup number one, as its so fast out of the box.

The P4 is great (assuming its the Northwood) but you have to overclock the CPU in order to get up to the Athlon XP's performance!

 

[owensdj]

fingerprints, why are you thinking of using a SiS chipset motherboard for your P4 configuration? Why not use an Intel chipset board like the Asus P4B266(Intel 845D chipset)?

 

[jrini]

Just some facts -- NOT opinions!
1) Intel CPU chips have built in thermal shutdown AMD CPUs do not.
You will really have to work at it to burn up a Pentium CPU.
2) ASUS mainboards have BIOS Chips soldered to the board. Most manufacturers use sockets.
Have a BIOS flash go bad and it will cost you around $15 for a replacement -- if the mainboard uses a socket for the BIOS.

 

[Insomniac]

I know this board is heavily AMD biased, but what platform do you recommend for people who are either building or purchasing a PC that do not want to or invest the time necessary to keep the computer running well. As most of you know, the average user doesn't update drivers or software. They install anything an everything and always call the 'Computer Nerd' in the family. It would be good if the problems could be limited.

I personally recommend an Intel CPU and Chipset. I know the Price Performance ratio isn't as good, but they won't notice and will call less.

 

[Demonicon]

AMD biased? Try performance for price biased. AMD just so happens to have a BIG advantage in this category, although i'll admit it's getting smaller.

Now that the Northwoods are out and alot of them can be OC'd people seem to be more willing to go with Intel, even though the price is still way out of line.
If your willing to take the risk of not getting a good OC'ing CPU, along with the possibility of getting a great OC'ing Northwood, I'd go with Intel.

Now, if you do go Intel and you get a crappy OC'ing CPU, the AMD out of the box will outperform the 1.8. At that point your money would have been spent MUCH more wisely buying the AMD XP.

 

[Insomniac]

<< AMD biased? Try performance for price biased. AMD just so happens to have a BIG advantage in this category, although i'll admit it's getting smaller.

Now that the Northwoods are out and alot of them can be OC'd people seem to be more willing to go with Intel, even though the price is still way out of line.
If your willing to take the risk of not getting a good OC'ing CPU, along with the possibility of getting a great OC'ing Northwood, I'd go with Intel.

Now, if you do go Intel and you get a crappy OC'ing CPU, the AMD out of the box will outperform the 1.8. At that point your money would have been spent MUCH more wisely buying the AMD XP. >>



You're right. This community is price to performace biased. Therefore AMD is the processor of choice. Unfortunately (Fortunately IMO), most of the people here are computer enthusiasts. We won't think twice about cracking open our case, flashing our BIOS, installing every build and beta build of our favorite driver and reformatting our hard drive every 6 months.

But, that wasn't fingerprints, or my question. There is more to a CPU than price to performance ratio. Which is the better platform in the long term so you're spending more time using it and less time maintaining it?

 

[BreakApart]

Anyone else notice how pleased people are when they can replace all the wind turbine fans with quiet panaflows?

Ohh yea, those people just purchased P4 northwoods, after owning Athlons.

 

[MistaTastyCakes]

<< Anyone else notice how pleased people are when they can replace all the wind turbine fans with quiet panaflows?

Ohh yea, those people just purchased P4 northwoods, after owning Athlons. >>



Wait a minute. Athlons can't run using Panaflos? Coulda fooled me.

IMO go Athlon if you don't overclock. Go P4 if you wanna o/c. Oh and with one of those nForce boards with the nice built in sound, ya don't need an Audigy.

 

[BreakApart]

<< Wait a minute. Athlons can't run using Panaflos? Coulda fooled me.

>>



Your using only low speed panaflows in your Athlon case? How many 8...

 

[MistaTastyCakes]

One on my heatsink. Two in the back, one in the front.

I'm using an Antec SX1000 series case, which has room for more, but I haven't found the need for it, since my airflow's apparantly good enough to keep my processor well within specs. Using an Alpha PAL8045. Nice and quiet...the loudest thing in my case is my DVD-ROM.

Mind you, I'm not using one of the cooler Athlon XP's, but the crispy 1.4ghz T-bird as well. It's very possible. My temp is always around 46C, which isn't exactly freezing, but as I said, it is well within it's limits and stable.