AMD Athlon 64 vs Pentium 4?

M

mrelwood

New member
...for music, obviously.

I have collected opinions about 50-50 on the Athlon64 (socket 939) vs P4 debate. The biggest limit in mixing is obviously handling the large amount of plugins such as multi-band compressors and reverbs. Also, the rendering time for the complete audio mixdown usually stretches to be longer than the actual track. How do I decide which processor I will get as the heart of my new computer? It does have to have good performance, but I also want to give a vote for future updates. I don't want to get a MoBo that can not recieve a new good processor for the next update in 2-4 years.

The actual models in question for my budget would be AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (939) and Intel Pentium 4 3,2GHz (775).

I am going to stay away from the VIA (and SIS?) chipsets, NVIDIA nForce or Intel preferred.

Currently:
AMD Athlon XP 2200+
Epox 8K9A
1GB 333MHz DDR


Oh yeah, should I opt for the DDR2? I was trying to keep update costs quite low this time (processor and mobo only), but I do want to get up to date with things.

Edit: Mac is not an option, sorry.

-Aki.
 
Okay, obviously my search didn't work at the first time, I now found a bunch of topics concerning this very issue.

So, I am quite happy to notice that Athlon 64 3200+ @939 seems to be the heart of my new pc. I have always been an AMD user, so that feels somehow nice.


How about the Mobo? I have heard good things about Abit, Asus, MSI, and NVIDIA chipsets. I've heard (and experienced) bad about VIA chipsets.

What I want it to have is integrated LAN, Firewire, USB 2.0, perhaps SATA. Is the DDR2 worth investing?

Gigabyte K8NF-9?

-Aki.
 
Okay. MoBo contenders:

Epox 9-NDA3+
Epox 9-NDA3J
Gigabyte K8NS Ultra
Gigabyte K8NF-9
MSI K8N Neo2

All come with nForce chipset. Any thoughts on these?


-Aki.
 
I feel kind of stoopid answering my own questions all the time, but I found a portal of great info only after posting my first question.

Do You have any thoughts and ideas of this combination:
AMD Athlon 64 3000+, socket 939
Gigabyte K8NF-9 (nForce4, PCI-X, 1394b)
(CLUB 3D X300 SE 128MB PCI-E videocard)

Is there a way to check if this is a proper combination before buying? Or would it be waste of time, since they should go together anyway?


-Aki.
 
I would visit Gigabyte's site, and get properly matched RAM. Otherwise, you should be fine. The board got good reviews at Newegg.com. It looks like a good value.
 
Polaris20 said:
I would visit Gigabyte's site, and get properly matched RAM.
Click to expand...

I read the manual and tried to find hardware recommendations, but without a result. Did You mean that a certain type of memory would be better than other? I'm planning on using two 512MB 400MHz DDR sticks.


-Aki.
 
mrelwood said:
I read the manual and tried to find hardware recommendations, but without a result. Did You mean that a certain type of memory would be better than other? I'm planning on using two 512MB 400MHz DDR sticks.


-Aki.
Click to expand...

Yeah, some memory works better than others for certain boards. actually, you can also try nVidia's site, and check out their recommendations based upon the chipset. I do believe they provide suggestions.
 
I'd check out some of the Asus mobos.
I've been running my P4 on an Asus board/Intel chipset for a year now with no issues.
Their site also has a list of compatible ram.
The nice thing about Asus is their boards are easily clockable. My P4 2.8 runs at 3.5Ghz and rarely goes above 45 degrees
 
Bulls Hit said:
I'd check out some of the Asus mobos.
I've been running my P4 on an Asus board/Intel chipset for a year now with no issues.
Their site also has a list of compatible ram.
The nice thing about Asus is their boards are easily clockable. My P4 2.8 runs at 3.5Ghz and rarely goes above 45 degrees
Click to expand...

P4's definitely took a turn for the worse with the Prescotts though. They run much hotter than the Canterwoods.
 
Yeah stay away from the Prescotts. They're the 'E' type chips. The 'C' P4s are the ones to get. You could probably pick up an older P4 2.4C a bit cheaper now that will clock over 3GHz
 
Bulls Hit said:
Yeah stay away from the Prescotts. They're the 'E' type chips. The 'C' P4s are the ones to get. You could probably pick up an older P4 2.4C a bit cheaper now that will clock over 3GHz
Click to expand...

How do you overclock on the asus boards?

I have a Athlon 64 on a K8V
 
AMD baby!

Definitely AMD 64. I just built a 3000+ on a MSI mobo and love it. I've got 1Gbt RAM and all of my huge programs run fine. I originally liked the ASUS boards but a friend of mine has recieved multiple DOAs so I chose to switch to MSI, I'm happy and the support seems to pretty good so far.
 
Teacher said:
How do you overclock on the asus boards?

I have a Athlon 64 on a K8V
Click to expand...

Since yours is a later board, (newer than mine even) you should just be able to overclock the FSB and other stuff in the bios, without even worrying about jumpers.
 
Polaris20 said:
Since yours is a later board, (newer than mine even) you should just be able to overclock the FSB and other stuff in the bios, without even worrying about jumpers.
Click to expand...

there actually isn't an FSB on AMD64 boards. The "FSB" is integrated onto the chip utilizing HyperTransport technology.

i think what you need to look for is the multiplier frequency. changing this number while keeping in mind what your board supports (800Mhz on socket 754 boards, and 1000Hz on 939) and also keeping in mind what your memory runs at.
Multiplier of 4 on 200MHz DDR400=800MHz board
Multiplier of 5 on 200MHz DDR400=1000MHz board.

this is how i've seen it, does any of the computer experts out there agree or disagree??
 
Yeah the Intels are a bit different. Intel locks the chips so you can't adjust the multiplier. However the good folk at Asus let you wind up the fsb instead in increments of 1MHz.
My 2.8 P4 comes with a multiplier of 14 - 14 x 200MHz bus = 2.8GHz. I upped it to 250 so 14 x 250 = 3.5GHz.
Increasing the fsb also affects the frequency the ram runs at. Changing the fsb to 250 means DDR400 ram has to run at DDR500. If it can't handle it, Asus provide a ram divider that lets the ram run at 4/5ths or 2/3rds of the fsb speed.
Asus also let you set the ram timings that control how many clock cycles it takes to locate the required data.
They also allow you to up certain voltages which you sometimes need to do after increasing the fsb. The trouble with doing this is the extra heat that gets generated. Fortunately I'm still able to run at stock voltages
 
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