AMD/P4 and Mobo Questions

[J]

Hey all,

This may seem ignorant, but I have a bunch of questions that a lot of you would probably
be able to answer very easily for me.

I am looking to build a computer for a friend, as I know more about this stuff than he does, but
I am not nearly caught up on hardware as I'd like to be.

AMD
AMD ATHLON 64 3500+, 2000HTB, 512K L2, SOCKET 939, 90NM, RETAIL
ASUS A8N SLI, S939 (2000HTB), NFORCE 4 SLI, ATX, 3 PCI/2 PCI-E, AUDIO/DUAL RAID/GB LAN/SATA, 4 DC DDR


OR

Pentium
INTEL PENTIUM 4-3.2F GHZ, LGA775, 2MB CACHE, 800FSB, RETAIL
ASUS P5ND2-SLI, S775 (1066FSB), NFORCE 4, ATX, 3 PCI/1 PCIe X1/2 PCIe X16, LAN/SATA, 4 DDR II



My fundamental question is.. AMD or Pentium?

The 3500+ is about 2200MHz, how does it compare to the 3.2Ghz Pentium?
In general, how do you compare the AMD chips to Pentium chips in terms of CPU clock and cache?

I am computer literate, but I am no where near up to date on hardware as you can tell.. any information
would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks,
Jon

 

[Paul]

Hey all,

This may seem ignorant, but I have a bunch of questions that a
lot of you would probably be able to answer very easily for me.

I am looking to build a computer for a friend, as I know more
about this stuff than he does, but I am not nearly caught up
on hardware as I'd like to be.

AMD
AMD ATHLON 64 3500+, 2000HTB, 512K L2, SOCKET 939, 90NM, RETAIL
ASUS A8N SLI, S939 (2000HTB), NFORCE 4 SLI, ATX, 3 PCI/2
PCI-E, AUDIO/DUAL RAID/GB LAN/SATA, 4 DC DDR=20


OR

Pentium
INTEL PENTIUM 4-3.2F GHZ, LGA775, 2MB CACHE, 800FSB, RETAIL
ASUS P5ND2-SLI, S775 (1066FSB), NFORCE 4, ATX, 3 PCI/1
PCIe X1/2 PCIe X16, LAN/SATA, 4 DDR II=20

My fundamental question is.. AMD or Pentium?

The 3500+ is about 2200MHz, how does it compare to the 3.2Ghz
Pentium?

In general, how do you compare the AMD chips to Pentium chips in
terms of CPU clock and cache?

I am computer literate, but I am no where near up to date on
hardware as you can tell.. any information would be greatly
appreciated.


Thanks,
Jon

Is this the 3.2F ? This is a 640 with 2MB of cache.
http://processorfinder.intel.com/scripts/details.asp?sSpec=SL7Z8

Generally, what you do as a builder, is you give the customer
a series of survey questions, as to what they expect the machine
to do, what price target to meet, and so on. Judging by your
selection of processors above, I guess the hardware you've
selected indicates the price target.

For the rabid gamer, the answer is simple - go AMD. If the
machine is mixed usage, the question is tougher to answer.
At one time, the benchmarks were very uneven, and no patterns
really emerged (with the exception of gaming). I don't know
if the set of applications on the benchmarking sites is
subtly changing, or the results are being cooked, but on
at least some sites, AMD is looking pretty good.

It is too bad that Tomshardware is not keeping this site up
to date with the latest processors. Considering your price
range and interests though, it will probably be able to help
you decide what to do. You could even let your customer try
the menu items (set AMD to 3500+, Intel to 640), and let
the customer decide.

http://www23.tomshardware.com

You might get a different impression from reading this article,
which is for the more expensive processors:

http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?articleid=686

HTH,
Paul

 

[Travis King]

Is this the 3.2F ? This is a 640 with 2MB of cache.
http://processorfinder.intel.com/scripts/details.asp?sSpec=SL7Z8

Generally, what you do as a builder, is you give the customer
a series of survey questions, as to what they expect the machine
to do, what price target to meet, and so on. Judging by your
selection of processors above, I guess the hardware you've
selected indicates the price target.

For the rabid gamer, the answer is simple - go AMD. If the
machine is mixed usage, the question is tougher to answer.
At one time, the benchmarks were very uneven, and no patterns
really emerged (with the exception of gaming). I don't know
if the set of applications on the benchmarking sites is
subtly changing, or the results are being cooked, but on
at least some sites, AMD is looking pretty good.

It is too bad that Tomshardware is not keeping this site up
to date with the latest processors. Considering your price
range and interests though, it will probably be able to help
you decide what to do. You could even let your customer try
the menu items (set AMD to 3500+, Intel to 640), and let
the customer decide.

http://www23.tomshardware.com

You might get a different impression from reading this article,
which is for the more expensive processors:

http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?articleid=686

HTH,
Paul

Paul did a good job of explaining this to you. For gaming, AMD should be
your choice. If it's for video editing and the like, you might want to lean
towards Intel. If you are using it for a mix, as Paul said, it gets harder
to decide. At that point it would probably as Paul said come down to the
price. If you're going for Price, you'll probably be finding yourself
getting an AMD system as they are commonly cheaper for equal performance in
some if not, most areas. (Though not all.) That's why I brought up the
video editing... It would really be helpful though if you told us what
exactly was planned concerning the use of the computer you intend to build.