AMD Athlon 64 3200 v 3.0Ghz Intel P4c

[Ukle]

Looking to trying to upgrade my old AMD XP1800, as it’s starting to show its age and need something to tie me over till next autumn / Chrimbo when PCI Express is out.

Been trying to weigh up either getting a AMD Athlon 64 3200 or a 3.0Ghz Intel P4c. Both are about the same price, can get boards offering same features, and both on benchmarks seem to be about the same. So the only thing it comes down to is which more reliable & future proof.

I see the AMD winning it on future proofing, but I am worried after past experiences with AMD about reliability, most namely heat etc.

So does anyone have any long term experience with the AMD Athlon 64 3200?

Or should I just stick with the reliability that Intel brings.

PS. I cant upgrade my existing CPU on my board much (AMD 2400 max) as its an ancient thing, and its starting to prove unreliable and is one of the driving forces behind my upgrade now as am worried it will die and take my RAID with it and loose the data between backups.

 

[lovedaddy]

Tough call. Personally, I'd take the amd64, for the following reasons:

a. unless you get the 875, i dont think the motherboard will take the next line of pentium cpus. leaving the 3.2 as the only upgrade option

b. the amd 64 3200 is now about 200 quid, the same price as the 3 gig p4. which, in just about every benchmark, beats the p4.

c. the roadmap of the socket 754 (current amd 64), goes upto q2 of this year, with 3700 being the final chip. (doesnt sound much, but probably more than 875)
source: http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1947

And a few other reasons I cannot think of right now.

=)

 

[tRoG]

I too would opt for the AMD. Atm the two are pretty equal, but when 64bit software starts appearing, the AMD offering should show itself to be the beast it really is

 

[Ukle]

Thanks for the replies...

Decided will 'risk' it and go with the AMD. The AMD does beat the P4 in Benchmarks but on most of them the difference is almost negligable, except on a few applications the Athlon does really have a significant difference. It is mostly the future issue that wins it given that it will at least be a more usable machine in a few years when its only use is as network server, etc... given 64 bit OS's etc...

 

[jaba]

while were on the topic can anyone explain to me in nice easy terms the difference between the athlon 64 and the fx versions of the chips? or is that a really dumb question?

 

[Jonty]

Hi Jaba

Not a silly question. Essentially, the FX-51 CPU is an enthusiast CPU, and has a price tag to match. I've just come across this useful comparison chart from HotHardware.com which may be of use to you.

Kind Regards

 

[Xavier]

*cough*