AMD. Intel. Help me!

[JamesUS]

I have experience with lots of AMD's that work fine. You can't make a claim like that when millions of AMD processors have been sold around the world and for most people they seem to work fine.

Naturally a few processors will go wrong. I'm sure I could find someone who says exactly the same thing that you just said, but about Intel. Some people swear by AMD, some by Intel.

In AMD's earlier days (K6 and K6-2) there were some problems with Windows 95/98 - but only for very few processors, and a patch was released to solve the problem. I have not heard of anything more recent - and if the problems were as big as you describe, no doubt AMD wouldn't be doing as well as they are at the moment.

[NetherChris]

The older generation .18 Athlon XP's aren't nearly as well as the new t-bred B cores. The new AXP's, rated at 2400, 2600, and 2800, are T-Bred core rev. B and will smoke just about any P4 on the market right now. They are a .13 process, overclock like dreams, and are rock solid.

They also put out less heat. Have faster RAM buses, and are overall better platforms than the P4.

However.... P4's have many advantages to end users. The new Northwood cores are excellent... but in order to match the performance of an AMD 2400 you'd need a 2.6GHz P4 at the least. Rambus is also mostly dead right now (some signs of coming back to life but nothing definitive).

The best choice.. right now.. for your money and speed is the AMD Athlon XP 2400+, it'll smoke a P4 2.53 and paired with DDR333 it will own house in just about everything, and it's also about 1/3 cheaper than its P4 counterpart.

One other note about P4's... if you DO overclock them, be VERY VERY CAREFUL. The new Northwoods experience what's known as gate oxide corrosion, which occurs when voltage is raised even very slightly above stock. Once you hit 1.75v (about .2v above stock) you shorten your processor's life drastically. Some may last a year, some 2, but most die after less than a MONTH. I've heard stories of some that die in less than ten minutes. So if you get a Northy, DON'T up the voltage and be careful if you overclock.

[JB007]

If you want to go with AMD. I recommend VIA KT333 chipset or nForce II ( I don't know if it's released or not ).

Get some good heatsinks even if you are not overclocking.
I always buy my cooling stuff from 1coolpc.com

[Jake Bunce]

Originally posted by NetherChris
Rambus is also mostly dead right now (some signs of coming back to life but nothing definitive).

intel may be transitioning to DDR, but the fact remains that rambus is faster that current and next generation DDR (dual channel DDR i think it's called). i never even considered going with DDR when i built my P4 system. i got PC1066 rambus.

[SkuZZy]

I have an Athlon XP 1600+ and since I bought it i've wished I had gotten a Pentium 4 instead. If you're going to go with AMD, make sure you get a good power supply, a VERY good heatsink (don't trust the "AMD Certified" crap and last but not least, get a good case with good ventilation and atleast 2 case fans, if not more. Also put other tips into action, like thermal paste, ect. However, if it were up to me, i'd go with intel. I just like them better. They are, in my opinion, more stable and run cooler. But either processor is good.

[Jake Bunce]

Originally posted by SkuZZy
However, if it were up to me, i'd go with intel. I just like them better. They are, in my opinion, more stable and run cooler. But either processor is good.

i don't have supporting information available right now, but i have been told by a few of my friends that are "in the know" that the belief that AMD chips run hotter than Intel is outdated misinformation. that may have been true when AMD's latest chip was the tbird and intell had the 1gig P3, but not anymore. the northwood b chips actually produce more watts of heat than the fastest athlon xp chips. however, you must also consider that p4s have that nice heat spreader on the cpu, amd cores are exposed. i think this will change with the hammer or opteron (whatever amd's next gen chip is). i have seen pics of the opteron and it has a heat spreader.

[JB007]

There's Barton which is a T-Bred with 512KB cache.

[ccd1]

Ah, see?

Everything I ever hear about Intel is good, but with AMD, there are always "mixed reviews".

I heard all the cool kids use AMD though.

[JB007]

That's because of the AMD chipset makers. VIA is famous for 'You won't make it the first time' , ALi produces slow ones, SIS isn't much better either ... nForce II seems to be the way to go once it's released.

My sepcs:
AMD Athlon XP 2000+
MSI KT3 Ultra
512MB DDR PC2100
Maxtor 60GB ATA133 7200RPM HDD
ATi Radeon 8500 LE / Modified

[rylin]

msi k7t pro2a (via chipset ;P)
tbird 1ghz
512mb ddr
120gb WD, 2x60gb IBM, asus gf3
winxp

uptime = 2months, 3days, 4h and 12m right now

some epox mobo (via chipset ;P)
duron 700mhz
512mb sdram
30gb ibm, 75gb ibm
linux (running mail for 10 domains, ~100 users), web/mysql, ftp, filesharing etc.

uptime = 418days and counting

yes.. very unstable

[NetherChris]

In response to Jake...

at the time yes, rambus did beat the best DDR. As of now, with a decent 256MB DDR333 module at agressive timings it WILL beat out rambus scores, even more with the new Granite Bay 'set intel is due to release (check hardocp.com, bunch of reviews there... sorry baragon, you said no links ). And also, intel is not transitioning to DDR. They already have. They won't be producing another RAMBUS board... ever. (as of now)

As for the heatspreader, it actually increases heat. Any means that prevents heat from getting from point A (core) to point B(heatsink) means heat transfer is reduced. Heat spreaders were used with AMD for mainly one reason: people cracked their cores WAY too much. If you've had a T-Bird, you'll notice the four rubber feet on it. Those are "designed" to help seat a HSF properly, although many times users still failed. Cores were chipping so much, people had to develop new retention mechanisms and such, so, they decided to do a heatspreader on the Opteron (next gen server based chip) and Clawhammer (next gen workstation chip).

Most bad reviews for AMD are from people who somehow managed to screw up the installation or who got first generation VIA chipsets (KT133, KT266, and KT333 rev. CD are all for the most part crap). Within about 2 months of initial release, they had the KT133A, KT266A, and KT333 rev. CE, all of which boosted just about everything and solved their problems as far as stability and compatibility are concerned.

Intel fanboys are exactly right... they are stable, easy, and just about impossible to damage during install. AMD has more performance, more value, and a slightly harder install, although usually you'll find it far more rewarding in the end. But don't fall for that heatspreader helps thing... it actually hampers performance (a lot of people actually yank em off their P4's, just like that old SECC casing on the P2's and early Katami P3's).

As for nForce II, well, you're looking at next year for a release date. It has been pushed back and pushed back, and the major players have said that they currently have no production level boards even taped out. The main public testing of it was done by Kyle @ hardocp (check site again, sorry baragon) with a engineering sample nVidia board, which seemed to do well, but not by leaps and bounds (it was, of course, an alpha eng. sample that doesn't represent final product).

Good luck,
Chris

[rockergrrl]

I've never had any problems with my AMD overheating at all.

Then again, I built it myself.

AMD Athlon XP 1800, Artic Silver Compound, Thermaltake Volcano 7+ heatsink (I know better not to use the heatsink that came with the CPU), But I also have 6 fans in my case -- it says ultra cool, 2 80mm Antec fans (came with case), 2 80mm Antec Smart fans, and 2 120mm Antec Smart fans (400w psu)

When I get the money, I'm going to water cool it -- then it will be ultra ultra cool.

If you do it right -- like any machine that you built -- it will last forever and ever.

[JB007]

I have a cool case too ... but ... I have a DAMN loud 120mm fan! It pulls 131 CFM @ 45 dB.

[rockergrrl]

I use Dynomat to insolate my case. Its fairly quiet considering I have 6 fans in there (I have an Antec 1040B case).

[ccd1]

Okay, looking more into the AMD's (and on the AMD website) I see that AMD chips don't have the same heat spreading as the Pentium chips. Does this mean they require no thermal paste?