Which would be the better gaming rig?

[System of a Down]

Ok i just sold my p3 1ghz & i815 mobo. i got an MSI nForce 420D and an Athlon XP 1600+ as a replacement, but i also have a P4 1.7GHz & intel i850 mobo. which one of these would give the better gaming rig? i mostly play quake 3, but i also play tribes 2. i have a gainward cardexpert gf2 pro 450 as my videocard. Both systems would have 256 MB or memory, so which would give me the most performance, or would it just be splitting hairs?

 

[ku]

i do believe p4's win the benchmarks at q3. However, that might be at higher pentium clocks.

 

[human2k]

If you look at anands' review of the northwood pentium 4, you can see that the athlon xp 1700+ holds a very strong lead over the pentium 1.7GHZ, i would only assume that ur 1600+ is atleast 5% faster than the 1.7GHZ p4. You should be able to overclock your system to 1800+ and really dust your pentium 4.

 

[saltedeggman]

AMD = game KING!!! (i'd probably exaggerated)

 

[BFG10K]

With those specs the TBird will own the P4 in pretty much all 3D gaming situations.

 

[ArMs]

You could send them to me and I'd be more than willing to test them out for a year or so and let you know for sure which is better in any and all situations . Or you could just go with the Athlon-XP. I think it's pretty safe to say it is "teh winnar!"

 

[VBboy]

I would say the Athlon is better, but with only 256 MB of RAM and a GF2Pro you're pretty much limiting both system. I would get 512 MB of RAM and at least a GF3Ti-200 (only $162 - newegg.com), then you'd speed up your systems by about 50% in some games.

 

[System of a Down]

i plan to upgrade my video card sometime later on this year, depens on the games that are out [new ones like doom 3 and halo] and i was planning on upgrading to 512mb ram, but not right away. but i don't really play to oc the system at all, cuz i am going for maximum stability