AMD Athlon 64 vs. Pentium 4 w/Hyper Threading

[dragonchr15]

I don't want to start a war here, I am sure there are many supporters on both sides, but I need experienced people who have used systems with both types of processors to say which of the two are better. I know the difference between the two hardware-wise, but I need experiences from people. THe good and the bad.

I need an overall review, not just for games. Although I have been told AMD Athlon 64 is better for gaming.

Also, is AMD Athlon 64 compatible with PCI-Express video cards?

Thank You.

[Clips]

I couldnt tell you whats the best personally i know they are pretty close over all but yes i also believe most gaming machines are athlons and ive always used them and never gone wrong for me. As for the Pci Express question, this matters on the mother boards not the processors and of course there are mother boards availaible to support both, best one is from MSI atm and its sitting in my sexy pc right now :P

[Oaty]

best one is from MSI atm and its sitting in my sexy pc right now :P

Please don't go into any further detail about you and your PC

[Tocca]

Almost all reviews i've read, comparing AMD and Pentium processors says the same thing. AMD for gaming, Pentium for multitasking.


The new AMD 64 processors (3500+ and above) are only rivalled by Pentium EE processors, which are VERY expensive, when it comes to gaming. So you'll get a lot more bang for your bucks with AMD if you're planning to play games.

I bought a new PC a couple of weeks ago, an AMD64 3500+ with a Geforce 6800GT. I'm very happy with it! RTW runs like a dream, as does any other game i play.

I've always used Pentiums before, i've heard that AMD was running a little hot earlier and that you needed a lot of cooling.
Today it's actually the opposite, AMD runs cooler than comparable Pentiums!
For a homePC, with not too extensive multitasking beeing done, i honestly can't see any reason to get a Pentium today. That's my opinion atleast.

[Clips]

Hehe Oaty, Gigabyte make a nice one too

[ah_dut]

the FX 55 processsor of my cousin outruns my brother's P4 560 3.6ghz by a loooong way in anything we throw at it, roughly equal in terms of other stuff as well.

[dragonchr15]

the FX 55 processsor of my cousin outruns my brother's P4 560 3.6ghz by a loooong way in anything we throw at it, roughly equal in terms of other stuff as well.

Yes, I have heard this as well, but I am looking for a laptop with this chip and none seem to have it yet....

I am hoping by the end of January but I am not holding my breath

[JR-]

Athlon64

[VikingHorde]

I have a brand new AMD Athlon 64 3000+ and it's the best CPU I have ever had. The of a Athlon 64 is cheaper and they run faster than Intels CPU in most cases. Athlon 64 is fully compatible with PCI-Express if you get a mainboard with PCI-Express sockets on it. The choise of mainbord IMO would be Asus or MSI, both HQ and fast. I would buy a mainboard with the new Nvidia nForce4 chipset, it has PCI-Express.

There are good tests of hardware here (CPU, mainboard, ect.):
http://www.tomshardware.com/

[The_Emperor]

Athlon 64.

Intel have recently been playing catchup to AMD in terms of processor speed... The fact that the AMD Athlon64 series has been out for ages with Intel struggling to make a competing chip pretty much speaks for itself in my view.

besides I have an Athlon 3400, and it was a very good buy... only cost me under £400 for a motherboard bundle to upgrade my system, which contained the Motherboard, Processor, cooling Fans and everything, and 512mb of starting DDR RAM Memory.

Affordable and good value for money.

[dragonchr15]

Sorry, but I need some clarification here, are you guys using laptops or desktops? I am hoping for a laptop with AMD and PCI-Express to come out soon, based on what I have read, this will be the ultimate gaming machine.

[fester]

I have a 64 3000+ and rome runs like an absolute dream

[Phatose]

Laptops I know little about, but it will probably take a while as the A64 is a desktop chip and there isn't a mobile version at this point. As for PCI-e, the first A64 PCI-e motherboards have only just hit the market. As it stands, you can get a desktop A64 in agp8X or pci-e, though the pci-e ones are a little bit more expensive.

If you do get an A64, be choosy and careful about your RAM. The onboard memory controller on the things can be a little picky. Seems to be quite fond of TCCD based memory like the OCZ Plat R2 I'm using in mine, but then I paid a bundle for that, so it better.

[JR-]

errr, there are loads of notebooks with A64's inside them.

a few points:
1) athlon 64 chips are ace
2) nVidia nForce 3/4 chipsets are ace
3) MSI is currently a quality purveyor of nForce3/4 motherboards
4) Asus are also excellent, except that they don't support linux
5) nVidia have excellent linux support
you may or may not agree with the relevance of my points.

have fun.

[Stlaind]

I would mention that I've had multiple Gigabyte mainboards and have no had a problem and they tend to be top notch on options.

my next system will be ( a desktop):
AMD athlon64 3500+ socket 939 (socket 754 is being phased out)
Gigabyte Nforce3 chipset (not sure exactly which model yet)
1 (maybe 2) gig of DDR400
Ati Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (wanted a nice card and not much diff performance wise compared to the 256 and XT and got it fairly cheap for much better performance you'd have go 200+ dollars more expensive)

really the difference is that the AMDs run cooler than the P4s, HT really only helps very much with multithreaded app ( most games aren't), chipsets for AMD commonly have dual channel for memory so with buying two sticks (usually cheaper somewhat) intead of one massive one ( i'll either buy 2 or 4 sticks for example) you get better performance for your money, and cards for PCI - Express is don't get that much better performance yet to make it worth paying the money for it on your mainboard.


tomshardware.com had a pretty useful test of ~20 mem sticks w/ quite a few different Mainboards.

For laptops really I'd say the better choice is between Pentium M and Athlon 64 -> anandtech ran a good test not too long ago with a 2.0 Gz pentium M and put it's stats versus a number of desktop chips and it did decently well though it seemed like it suffered from it's limited RAM speed capabilities. I'm not sure on PCI - Express on laptops if it's available go for it but most parts aren't upgrade able pretty much CPU, RAM, Hard Drive, wireless abilities, anywas so I wouldn't hang on it spending money on things like proc/HD/Graphics/more ram (if your gaming with it a gig or more of ram is a start) would be better. Really graphics wise you need to shoot for a machine with either a: Mobility Radeon 9700, Mobility Radeon 9800, or the best Nvidia chip available ( can't remember what it is right now).

Good Luck!