AMD or Pentium?

Aada

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which one is better for games im thinking of getting the AMD 64 3000 would it be any good at playing games? or would a pentium be better.

thanks in advance
 

Aada

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ok maybe i worded it wrong.


which is better a 3.2 gig or a amd 64 3000
 

Xavier

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To be honest neither right now are a good puchase, AMD are about to revise their 64-bit processors and Intel are gearing up new chipsets for Prescott.

Hold off until this time next month, when both sides will have made their socket changes (AMD are going to 939 pin, Intel from S478 to LGA775) and you'll not only have the choice of platforms with some upgrade headroom, but you'll also be able to pick up the existing stuff much cheaper.

Xav
 

Aada

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roger that will do cheers!
 

Tom

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Am I correct in thinking that if the software isn't written to take advantage of those 64 bits, then things will run pretty much the same as a 32-bit processor?

Kind of like having a huge reserve army to play a game of marbles?
 

Xavier

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Under normal WindowsXP the 64-bittyness of the Athlon64 isn't accessible, for that you'll need WindowsXP-64, but that's not why they're so appealing... It's best to think of the Athlon64 as an AthlonXP when you're using it under WinXP-32.

If you read our articles tom, you'd know the answer to this one, but i'll give a summary below for 'teh lazy'

You already know that the P4, clock for clock is slower than the Athlon (clicky), and since the introduction of the Prescott that performance delta is likely to shift again...

While the Athlon64's are still around the 2Ghz mark, they simply complete more instructions per clock than comparable Intel CPUs, which is how a 2Ghz AMD can draw level with a 3Ghz Intel.

One of the new things AMD introduced to the Athlon64 and Athlon64FX is an on-die memory controller, basically the core logic which used to live on the northbridge and look after your DDR has been shifted onto the processor, reducing latency massively. Add to that 1Mb of L2 cache (double that of the northwood P4's) and all of a sudden you've got an architecture which can whip the humble P4 silly.

Sure, Intel have got their Extreme Edition CPU, but that's a gallatin Xeon in a desktop package, hardly mainstream.
 

Clown

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Xavier said:
It's best to think of the Athlon64 as an AthlonXP when you're using it under WinXP-32.
And Windows 2000? Why not just buy an Athlon XP? (assuming it's cheaper)
 

Xavier

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I was talking in terms of the 32/64 bits Clown.

The Athlon64 is faster than a normal AthlonXP thanks to the extra L1/L2 cache and the on-die controller. Much faster.

That said, the 3000+ A64 has been castrated to 512Kb cache, bit of a dud imho.

And of course, when Windows XP-64 comes out, owners of the Athlon64 can upgrade and take advantage of another performance bump.
 

Shovel

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Any word on whether there will be any form of discounted upgrade for existing 32 bit users? Or no such luck?
 

Aada

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Thing is i got a shop selling AMD 64's/512ram/ati 9500/120 gig hdd all for £700 bargin?
 

Xavier

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Shovel said:
Any word on whether there will be any form of discounted upgrade for existing 32 bit users? Or no such luck?
It means a fresh install, so from the copy protection side an upgrade disc isn't possible, not sure MS will offer upgrade licenses in that case.

Xav
 

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