Pvisagi

What I would like to know is exactly what the difference is between an AMD system and a Pentium system.

As the AMD systems are normally cheaper than Pentium, however I find that most people I know or that are gamers use AMD?

I myself have always been a genuine Intel fan, but its almost time for me to upgrade and therefore would like to know exactly wot the difference is to help me make a decision with my next upgrade...

AMD or Pentium?

crazijoe

This could be a heated thread. I myself have alwaysed used Intel because of it's reliability. If you plan on upgrading, take a look at the core 2 duo.

Tumbleweed36

Hi,

I alternate which I build just for kicks. My present main rig is an AMD, while my spare machine is an Intel P4. However, with the advent of the Intel Conroe, it is difficult to recommend that you build an AMD at this time. That chip just has it all over the AMD offerings. Therefore, I suggest that you build a Conroe and grab the future right now instead of waiting for AMD to keep up. I agree the AMD is cheaper right now, but if you want to save money, then buy an AMD because being second is always cheaper than first class. That is my opinion.

Fr4665

alright well starting back in the day intel was the more well known manufacturer with their p3'S their flag ship amd was trying to stick with their performance.

amd had a small feature called 3dnow and other capabilities wich made it better for gaming.

the pentium 3 area was slowly coming to an end and amd's latest was the duron and athlon wich performed extremely well in games due to their features that intel didnt have.

the pentium 4 era came and amd released their athlon xp mode. lower clock speeds but better arcitecture allowed the athlon to slide into first place. also it was a very good over clocker aswell as the pentium 4 but the athlon was always favored by the hardcore gamers.

with the pentium 4 moving to new high speed frequencies amd released a newer model of their athlon called the athlon 64. this featured a 64bit complient architecture wich intel didnt have but they were close behind.

amd took the lead in the era of the athlon 64 from intel and was well ahead of its time soon releasing the x2 dual core and intel followed.

intel released the pentiums with up to around 4ghz while amd kept their cpus at a lower frequency not topping 3 ghz but as well with a better architecture.
intel released their 64bit pentiums wich were extremly hot as in running hot so you can make eggs on them and soon released their pentium D series. this was the dual core series from intel.

this year intel released the conroe archtitecture in july wich allowed them to gain a significant performance lead over amd beating any processor in gaming work performance thats out there. amd trying to keep up dropped their prices alot making their cpus attractive for a budget system builder or upgrader.

amd released their socket am2 model wich didnt change alot besides ddr2 ram support and their cpus have a lower cache. now amd is working on a new model called the 4x4 based on a socket f and also is released newer cpu's for the am2 socket like the x2 5200+. also in design are the new FX series and a new socket called am2+

that basically sums up the history of how it all went. basically right now amd is standing in the lower performance but awsome budget market while intel is the performance leader.

if you are upgrading now go with an intel as currently thers a better future and amd keeps hopping different sockets from am2 to socket f and now am2+.

i myself am a budget fan what ever gives me the most performance for the least money. so far ive stuck with buying new amd cpu's until 1 years ago the last amd cpu i bought was an amd sempron 64bit 2500+ for test purposes as my last one is an old athlon xp 3k+.

i got a ati x1600pro pcie for free and a pentium d 940 so i said why not upgrade. i personally dont upgrade unless i need to to get something done that i cant get done on the old technologie.

all my rigs are old technologie besides the current pentium d 940 one wich basically already also outdated.

Pvisagi

Thank you very much for that info, it basically laid it out for me very well and I think that I will stick with Pentium even though it will cost me more.

Thanks again

Fr4665

like i said this time of a year id go with a pentium cause it seems they have a better future for the next year and amd is going haywire with different sockets.

my recommendation get a socket 775 mobo witha intel e6300 some ddr2 memory and a pcie video card and you got your self a nice little under 500$ rig

crazijoe

This article is a couple months old but it may paint a picture for you.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2014646,00.asp

Pvisagi

Uhm that would be abit more expensive for me as I'd have to change my graphics card aswell, Im still using AGP (and dont think Im ready to cross over to PCI express yet). Also I live in South Africa so I pay in rands which is more expensive...

I already have the ram 512MB DDR2 400 x2 so basically Im just looking for a new mobo and CPU.

Any suggestions to what mobo I can get that supports AGP x8, a decent pentium CPU +- 3.0Ghz and DDR2 400 RAM up to atleast 2Gig, and it must support SATA.

crazijoe

Having AGP may hurt you a little as it is aging technology. This will limit you to very little with that combination.

Pvisagi

I understand but as I said I am not yet ready to switch over to PCI express, financially. I mean I only bought my Ati Shappire X1600 6-7 months ago so it is still like new to me and I dont have money to change everything over for the sake of PCI express.

I will then loose alot of money too because no one will buy my old card for nearly as much as wot I spend on it.

Fr4665

id go with this motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128027
and this cpu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116001

you can get a better cpu just any other pentium d thats higher then a 805 will work. the conroes are not supported !

EDIT: look at the post below this one

crazijoe

If you want to go Core 2 Duo:

ECS P4M800PRO-M (V2.0)

Intel E6400

Fr4665

do that ;) i couldnt find a core duo with agp but crazijoe found one

Pvisagi

Cool, thanks again guys!

MunkyPhil

Does anybody here really trust ECS to make a quality mainboard though? I don't, and my lack of trust stems from a K7 board I had 3-4 years back, which commited suicide! Apparently they've gone a little downhill since then.

Fr4665

ECS boards are no overclcokers or no asuses but they arent pc chip boards either. i level them with asrock. i personally never had one but thats the only conroe board wich has agp craziejoe found and i couldnt find any more.

someone even on TSF staff team once recommend ECS as a good budget based board and i dont really thing you can take one dead board that died on you 3 to 4 years ago as a real measurement thats just personal opinion to me.

i could say asus and gigabyte suck because i had two of their boards bust on me but i cant because over all the dead to awsome board ratio is slim and thats just my personal opinion and that never really counts.

from what i read review wiese ECS is a good stable budget board better then pc chip and in this case the only manufacture available to deliver the exact need of future core duo support and agp.

crazijoe

I usually don't like to recommend ECS boards but it is the best option that supports both C2D and AGP.

MunkyPhil

I see what you mean but Eb's quote from THIS thread is still fresh in my mind. jnob HERE has other ideas though.

Fr4665

well that drops ecs into another category since its apparently owned by pcchips ... sry about that ;) i just built a rig with a p4 and an ecs board (only one so far and its not mine) for regular internet surfing and its been holding up for the past 3 months.

MunkyPhil

It seems a bit hit and miss with ECS. Down to personal experience and the discretion of the buyer I suppose.