Need help, w/ building my computer.

[madmag9999]

Go with AMD. AMD's run faster, and consistantly do better on benchmarks.

x2.
like i said befor i oced my 2800+ to a 3200+ on a stock heat sinck and it was stable

[Calim]

Pentium all the way baby 8)

[Zarxrax]

AMDs suck compared to P4s. I dunno what benchmarks you are looking at, but on the one's I see all the time, the althlons loose bigtime, especially at video encoding and such.

[dwchang]

yea they will work. but id suggest looking into getting an AMD cpu not a Intel. and i dont know if on board graphics are good enough for u but i wouldnt be to happy with them. unless u dont have the money for a graphics card that is

If you do that, be sure to add good cooling. Go for the water cooling, if you can. AMD's run hotter than Intels.

Uhm, this is downright wrong. Well...you are correct in the AMD used to run hotter, but now Intel has the crown. Their newest processor, Prescott runs at 100 - 120 W while an Athlon runs MAX 80 W.

Power ~ Heat

And even if an Athlon runs hotter, you don't need something as extreme as water cooling. I have a dual Athlon system (i.e. twice the heat) and don't have anything other than 3 standard fans and two heatsinks.

AMDs suck compared to P4s. I dunno what benchmarks you are looking at, but on the one's I see all the time, the althlons loose bigtime, especially at video encoding and such.

You must be reading Tom's Hardware benchmarks. Everyone knows how "subjective" and "fair" they are .

Regardless, I do agree in that the 32-bit athlons lose *slightly* to current P4's in video encoding, but it's hardly "sucks" or "lose bigtime."

More importantly, the Athlon 64's and Opterons "PWN" anything Intel has at the moment both in performance and price. Obviously Intel has the name and everyone recognizes that, but few seem to realize that AMD has retaken the performance crown and has had it for quite a few months.

Given the fact Intel has fumbled with the "Prescott ball" two or three times sure has helped . I imagine once they tweak their process correctly, it'll be a little more competitive performance-wise. Everything I know of Prescott from an architectural standpoint tells me it *should* perform well...however, it's not.

[Zarxrax]

AMDs suck compared to P4s. I dunno what benchmarks you are looking at, but on the one's I see all the time, the althlons loose bigtime, especially at video encoding and such.

You must be reading Tom's Hardware benchmarks. Everyone knows how "subjective" and "fair" they are .

What's wrong with tomshardware? I mean they aren't biased against AMD or anything... In fact its the site that convinced me to buy an AMD processor in my older system, 600mhz athlon. The tests they perform seem accurate. Whats the problem?

[Scintilla]

More importantly, the Athlon 64's and Opterons "PWN" anything Intel has at the moment both in performance and price.

Okay, gotta ask: what's the difference between the Athlon 64 and the Opteron?

</newb-y question>

[dwchang]

AMDs suck compared to P4s. I dunno what benchmarks you are looking at, but on the one's I see all the time, the althlons loose bigtime, especially at video encoding and such.

You must be reading Tom's Hardware benchmarks. Everyone knows how "subjective" and "fair" they are .

What's wrong with tomshardware? I mean they aren't biased against AMD or anything... In fact its the site that convinced me to buy an AMD processor in my older system, 600mhz athlon. The tests they perform seem accurate. Whats the problem?

Are you being serious?

Within our industry everyone knows that Tom is a big Intel fanboy and to put it in "non-technical terms"...sucks their dicks.

I can point you to plenty of articles that show this. I remember when there was this huge Athlon 64 news article on nearly every hardware site (Anand, Ars Technica, theInquirer, Van's, etc.) and Tom refused to put it on since he thought it wasn't a big deal...he was wrong.

The biggest one was easily him defending Intel when they went to court against some consumers. Van's wrote a fairly in-depth article about it and Tom just resorted to name calling.

I could go into the nitty-gritty of the case, but it's rather boring (although very applicable given how you're bringing up benchmarks). Suffice to say, don't believe benchmarks. PCMark's address is internal within Intel and it's interesting to see the changes made to PCmark every year and the fact everything AMD does better taken out and everything Intel does inflated further.

For example, Athlons are better for sorting an excel doc with ~1000 entries (I belive this was the #), P4's are better when sorting 60000 entries. You tell me which one is more realistic. Also tell me why it's necessary to put the P4 favoring benchmark all over the place and the AMD one never....hmmm? I can keep going if you'd like, but I guess I already sorta said more than I said I would >_<

Either way, this benchmark thing is a big deal since even educated consumers can't make an...educated choice. Intel OWNS the benchmarks (no not PWNS or whatever..literally owns them) and thus they are very one-sided. It's sad that even benchmarks are filled with lies now.

And no, I'm not exaggerating this. This was the major turning point for me; when I stopped trusting Tom. It was hilarious that he didn't cover such a major case. Then again, everyone in the industry already knows this and knows Tom is an Intel fanboy.

By the same token, I think Anand is pro-AMD, so neither side is truly "subjective."

More importantly, the Athlon 64's and Opterons "PWN" anything Intel has at the moment both in performance and price.

Okay, gotta ask: what's the difference between the Athlon 64 and the Opteron?

</newb-y question>

An Athlon-64 is a consumer-level computer chip with 256 k - 1 M of L2 cache and 1 Hypertransport link.

Opterons are server-level chips with 1 M of L2 cache and 3 HT links.

There are obviously more difference, but for the most part, you just need to know one is the consumer chip and one is for powerful servers.

[trythil]

For example, Athlons are better for sorting an excel doc with ~1000 entries (I belive this was the #), P4's are better when sorting 60000 entries. You tell me which one is more realistic.

Actually, from the perspective of worst-case analysis of algorithms, the sort test with 60,000 entries WOULD be better.

[Kalium]

For example, Athlons are better for sorting an excel doc with ~1000 entries (I belive this was the #), P4's are better when sorting 60000 entries. You tell me which one is more realistic.

Actually, from the perspective of worst-case analysis of algorithms, the sort test with 60,000 entries WOULD be better.

Yes, but precious few home computers will be doing that. Worst-case isn't always the most useful of tools.

[trythil]

For example, Athlons are better for sorting an excel doc with ~1000 entries (I belive this was the #), P4's are better when sorting 60000 entries. You tell me which one is more realistic.

Actually, from the perspective of worst-case analysis of algorithms, the sort test with 60,000 entries WOULD be better.

Yes, but precious few home computers will be doing that. Worst-case isn't always the most useful of tools.

Well, I'd like to correct one thing -- "worst-case" wasn't supposed to be in there. Input size is always "for some large N".

Also -- yeah sure, most home systems won't be sorting large data sets. However, I don't see how that makes the 60,000-item test any less or more valid than the 1,000-item test.

I mean, the benchmark is ludicrous. Nobody outside of Microsoft and some Shared Source (TM) partners know how Excel's sorting routines operate; that alone is enough to disqualify the benchmark, IMHO.

I was just pointing out that larger input sizes can sometimes give a better picture of an algorithm's performance.