Opinions wanted on new box

R

Ron Joiner

I am very close to a new box purchase and would like opinions on the
equipment I have selected below:

Intel P4-550 3.4GHz LGA775
Antec SX1040BII (SOHO File Server) w/ 400W PSU
AOpen 52X CD-RW/16X DVD-ROM Combo
Western Digital 160GB S-ATA
ATI Radeon™ X700 Pro 256MB GDDR3 w/ DVI, TV-Out
2 X 512MB PC-4200 DDR II 533MHz 240-pin, unbuffered
ABIT AA8 DuraMax Intel 925X DDR2 w/ 7.1 sound, Gb LAN, PCI-E

I have thought about AMD but there are no PCIe MBs in the pipeline yet
and PCIe with AMD is not yet proven. I am also on a bit of a budget.

Ron
 
D

Dave C.

Ron Joiner said:
I am very close to a new box purchase and would like opinions on the
equipment I have selected below:

Intel P4-550 3.4GHz LGA775
Antec SX1040BII (SOHO File Server) w/ 400W PSU
AOpen 52X CD-RW/16X DVD-ROM Combo
Western Digital 160GB S-ATA
ATI Radeon™ X700 Pro 256MB GDDR3 w/ DVI, TV-Out
2 X 512MB PC-4200 DDR II 533MHz 240-pin, unbuffered
ABIT AA8 DuraMax Intel 925X DDR2 w/ 7.1 sound, Gb LAN, PCI-E

I have thought about AMD but there are no PCIe MBs in the pipeline yet and
PCIe with AMD is not yet proven. I am also on a bit of a budget.

A bit of a budget, and you are building THAT rig??? Well, I guess that
would explain how you would choose some of the most expensive components
possible, and then skimp on the relatively inexpensive optical drive. Why
build PCI Express at all? There is nothing to gain by going PCI Express at
the moment. If it's future upgrades you are thinking about, you will
probably replace every component in this system you are planning to build
within 2 years anyway. (that's the average)

I'd suggest you go with a dual layer DVD burner, as that will cost you like,
nothing extra (relatively speaking). Also, you should consider building
socket 478, as the LGA775 processors are not faster, and LGA775 is not a
future upgrade path, either. (not that you will upgrade anyway, you'll
probably just replace everything, like I said before)

It's your money, but I'd suggest you look at the following for equal
performance at a lower cost:
ASUS "P4P800 SE" i865PE Chipset Motherboard for Intel Socket 478 CPU
Intel Pentium 3.4E (if you can find it) or 3.2E or even 3.2C, socket 478
2 X 512MB PC3200 DDR400 RAM
NEC ND-3500A 16X double layer DVD burner
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro video card
 
A

Al Smith

Intel P4-550 3.4GHz LGA775
A bit of a budget, and you are building THAT rig??? Well, I guess that
would explain how you would choose some of the most expensive components
possible, and then skimp on the relatively inexpensive optical drive. Why
build PCI Express at all? There is nothing to gain by going PCI Express at
the moment. If it's future upgrades you are thinking about, you will
probably replace every component in this system you are planning to build
within 2 years anyway. (that's the average)

Exactly what I was thinking. If you're on a budget, you buy AMD.
Anyone who comparatively prices the combined CPUs and motherboards
knows there's no comparison in value -- AMD is way out in front.
Intel CPUs are for people with lots of money who don't know any
better.
 
D

Dave C.

Exactly what I was thinking. If you're on a budget, you buy AMD. Anyone
who comparatively prices the combined CPUs and motherboards knows there's
no comparison in value -- AMD is way out in front. Intel CPUs are for
people with lots of money who don't know any better.

Well, nice to see you agree with me. Now let me disagree with you. I've
done extensive research on this issue, as far as who is the best value
(AMD/Intel). Unless you are building super high-end (which favors AMD),
there is little difference at all. If there is a difference, it is likely
to favor Intel. How does that work? Well, if you spend about two hundred
bucks (or so) on a processor (either AMD or Intel, with the same speed
rating), you are likely to find a cheaper mainboard with the SAME quality
and SAME specifications for less money for the *Intel chip*, and all other
components are identical. It boils down to variety and maturity of
mainboards. Intel has a better variety of mature (but still current
technology) mainboards, so there are better bargains to be found if you
build with an Intel chip.

Overall the difference (speed and price) is slight for mid-range systems, so
you can't go wrong either way (Intel or AMD) At the very low end, AMD is
better and at the very high end, AMD is better. For the average system that
most people would actually build though, it's pretty much a tie. -Dave
 
R

Rockin Ronnie

Dave said:
A bit of a budget, and you are building THAT rig??? Well, I guess that
would explain how you would choose some of the most expensive components
possible, and then skimp on the relatively inexpensive optical drive. Why
build PCI Express at all? There is nothing to gain by going PCI Express at
the moment. If it's future upgrades you are thinking about, you will
probably replace every component in this system you are planning to build
within 2 years anyway. (that's the average)

I'd suggest you go with a dual layer DVD burner, as that will cost you like,
nothing extra (relatively speaking). Also, you should consider building
socket 478, as the LGA775 processors are not faster, and LGA775 is not a
future upgrade path, either. (not that you will upgrade anyway, you'll
probably just replace everything, like I said before)

It's your money, but I'd suggest you look at the following for equal
performance at a lower cost:
ASUS "P4P800 SE" i865PE Chipset Motherboard for Intel Socket 478 CPU
Intel Pentium 3.4E (if you can find it) or 3.2E or even 3.2C, socket 478
2 X 512MB PC3200 DDR400 RAM
NEC ND-3500A 16X double layer DVD burner
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro video card
I guess we all have different definitions of the word budget, My budget
is $1400CDN, All the parts that I mentioned (combined) come within my
budget. I have monitor, keyboard etc.

I will take a second look at 478. Is there a P4 3.4 socket 478 (other
than Extreme Edition $$$$$$)? I considered the Athlon 64 3500 but it is
a little more pricey than the 3.4. One question: a DVD burner; why would
I need one?

Ron
 
D

Dave C.

I guess we all have different definitions of the word budget, My budget
is $1400CDN, All the parts that I mentioned (combined) come within my
budget. I have monitor, keyboard etc.

I will take a second look at 478. Is there a P4 3.4 socket 478 (other
than Extreme Edition $$$$$$)? I considered the Athlon 64 3500 but it is
a little more pricey than the 3.4. One question: a DVD burner; why would
I need one?

Ron

(my reply follows)

Yes, there is a P4 3.4 socket 478 that is not an extreme edition, but it
seems to be in short supply, at the moment. Not to worry though, there are
gobs of P4 3.2 socket 478 processors on the market. There will be NO
difference in performance if you go with a 3.2 instead of the 3.4.

Why would you need a DVD burner? Well it's not that you'd necessarily NEED
it, but it's kind of foolish not to buy one, if you want a burner at all.
The price difference between a good DVD burner and a (good CD burner with
DVD READ capability) is negligible, but the DVD burner is more useful. The
media (blanks) for DVD burners are about as cheap as CDR media, so your cost
of storage (per MB) will be LOWER if you burn DVDs (assuming you fill them).
Also, if you ever want to back up your hard drive using a program like Ghost
or similar, you can burn the image files to (1 or 2) DVD blanks as opposed
to dozens of CDR blanks. If you really want a good CDR/W drive, the DVD
burner is your best choice. It will happily burn CDR and CDR/W disks for
you. But try burning DVD media with a CDR/W drive. :) -Dave
 
J

JK

Ron said:
I am very close to a new box purchase and would like opinions on the
equipment I have selected below:

Intel P4-550 3.4GHz LGA775

UGH! Get an Athlon 64 instead. It is silly to pay a high price for a 32 bit
processor. All 32 bit processors should be low priced budget chips.
Many who buy a 32 bit processor in 2004 or early 2005 will regret that
decision as plenty of great 64 bit software is released in the second
half of '05.
Antec SX1040BII (SOHO File Server) w/ 400W PSU
AOpen 52X CD-RW/16X DVD-ROM Combo
Western Digital 160GB S-ATA
ATI Radeon™ X700 Pro 256MB GDDR3 w/ DVI, TV-Out
2 X 512MB PC-4200 DDR II 533MHz 240-pin, unbuffered
ABIT AA8 DuraMax Intel 925X DDR2 w/ 7.1 sound, Gb LAN, PCI-E

I have thought about AMD but there are no PCIe MBs in the pipeline yet

Why do you need PCIe? AGP video cards perform well enough.
and PCIe with AMD is not yet proven. I am also on a bit of a budget.

Then why would you want PCI Express or Intel?
A P4 550 (3.4 ghz) is around $275, while an Athlon 64 3400+ is only around $215, and the
superb Athlon 64 3500+ 90 nm is only $252.

http://techreport.com/ja.zz?comments=7417

http://techny.com/articles.cfm?getarticle=606&go=0.53769656

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2149&p=7
 
J

JK

Dave C. said:
Well, nice to see you agree with me. Now let me disagree with you. I've
done extensive research on this issue, as far as who is the best value
(AMD/Intel). Unless you are building super high-end (which favors AMD),
there is little difference at all.

LOL!

An Athlon 64 3500+ 90nm is $252, while a P4 550 (3.4 ghz is $276).

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2149&p=7

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2065&p=6

http://techreport.com/ja.zz?comments=7417


If there is a difference, it is likely
to favor Intel.

ROFLMAO! Let me know when Intel lowers the price of the Pentium 4 560
to below what the Athlon 64 3500+ sells for. Right now, the 560 is almost
double the price!
How does that work? Well, if you spend about two hundred
bucks (or so) on a processor (either AMD or Intel, with the same speed
rating), you are likely to find a cheaper mainboard with the SAME quality
and SAME specifications for less money for the *Intel chip*, and all other
components are identical. It boils down to variety and maturity of
mainboards. Intel has a better variety of mature (but still current
technology) mainboards, so there are better bargains to be found if you
build with an Intel chip.

Overall the difference (speed and price) is slight for mid-range systems, so
you can't go wrong either way (Intel or AMD) At the very low end, AMD is
better and at the very high end, AMD is better. For the average system that
most people would actually build though, it's pretty much a tie. -Dave

ROFLMAO! For Doom 3, it takes an $840 Pentium 4 3.2 ghz EE to come
close to the performance of a $140 Athlon 64 3000+ .

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2149&p=7

A $140 Athlon 64 3000+ beats a $204 Pentium 4 Prescott in Business
Winstone 2004. When will Intel drop the price on the 3.2 ghz Prescott
so that it retails for under $140?

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2065&p=6
 
D

Dave C.

According to www.pricewatch.com, same price range at the moment would be:

P4 3.2 Prescott vs. Athlon64 3200+ or

P4 3.4 Prescott vs. Athlon64 3400+

Beyond that range, you can pay up to several hundred dollars for either an
Intel or AMD chip, but hardly anybody gives a damn about those chips, as
hardly anybody spends as much on a processor as they do on the entire rest
of their system combined.

So the P4 3.2/3.4 and Athlon64 3200/3400 would be the best indicators of who
has the best bang for buck, at the moment.

Gaming: OpenGL: The Intel chips are much faster
Gaming: DX8: The AMD chips are faster, no doubt about it
Gaming: DX9: It's virtually a tie, as the AMD chips are two to three
TENTHS of a percentage point faster than Intel.
So on the gaming benchmarks, that's one win for Intel, one win for AMD and
one tie.
GAMING OVERALL: TIED

Business Applications: Office Applications: Intel blows AMD away
Business Applications: Internet Content Creation: Intel blows AMD away
Business Applications: Overall: Intel blows AMD away

Video Encoding: This one is so lopsided, AMD should have thrown in the
towel before entering the ring. Intel wins by a landslide.

Audio Encoding: Again, Intel wins by a landslide

Synthetic Benchmarks: (PC Mark 2004): Here, Intel blows AMD away on both
*CPU* and memory benchmarks

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040322/index.html

Even at the same price for CPU, an Intel system can be cheaper to
build, as the P4 boards are more mature at this point, and thus there are
better bargains to be found. Considering that an Intel system will likely
be cheaper to build and WILL perform better on all benchmarks except DX8,
it's kind of a no-brainer as to which chip to build with, at the moment.

The following is an article on the Athlon 64 2800+. But more interesting
is,
the benchmarks included in the article are a GREAT comparison of the 3.2GHz
P4
processors with the Athlon64 3200+. In this article, these two processors
are
pretty evenly matched, with Intel being faster on some benchmarks, and AMD
being faster on others.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2038&p=1

Now lets look at what Sharky Extreme has to report in their article about
the
3.4GHz Prescott processor. This one has benchmarks that are a great
comparison
of the 3.4GHz Intel chips with the Athlon64 3400+. Here, you have to be
careful,
as Sharky doesn't organize their charts in order of fastest to slowest. And
on
some charts, LOWER scores are better. But if you read all the benchmarks,
you
will again notice that the two chips are pretty evenly matched, with AMD
faster
on some and Intel faster on others.

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/cpu/article.php/3261_3329681__1

Intel is better than AMD, at the moment. The only way AMD could change that
would be to drop their prices by 30% or better. -Dave, updated 10/19/04
 
J

JK

Dave C. said:
According to www.pricewatch.com, same price range at the moment would be:

P4 3.2 Prescott vs. Athlon64 3200+ or

P4 3.4 Prescott vs. Athlon64 3400+

Not quite. The Athlon 64 3500+ is less than the Prescott 3.4 ghz.

Beyond that range, you can pay up to several hundred dollars for either an
Intel or AMD chip, but hardly anybody gives a damn about those chips, as
hardly anybody spends as much on a processor as they do on the entire rest
of their system combined.

So the P4 3.2/3.4 and Athlon64 3200/3400 would be the best indicators of who
has the best bang for buck, at the moment.

Gaming: OpenGL: The Intel chips are much faster

Not quite.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2065&p=10


Gaming: DX8: The AMD chips are faster, no doubt about it
Gaming: DX9: It's virtually a tie, as the AMD chips are two to three
TENTHS of a percentage point faster than Intel.
So on the gaming benchmarks, that's one win for Intel, one win for AMD and
one tie.
GAMING OVERALL: TIED

Business Applications: Office Applications: Intel blows AMD away

Not quite. Even an Athlon XP3000+($95) beats a Pentium 4 3.2 ghz in Business Winstone
2004.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2065&p=6



Business Applications: Internet Content Creation: Intel blows AMD away

Not quite. See the Content Creation Winstone 2004 results.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2065&p=6


Business Applications: Overall: Intel blows AMD away

Even an Athlon XP3000+($111) beats a Pentium 4 3.2 ghz in Business Winstone 2004.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2065&p=6


Video Encoding: This one is so lopsided, AMD should have thrown in the
towel before entering the ring. Intel wins by a landslide.

Audio Encoding: Again, Intel wins by a landslide

Synthetic Benchmarks: (PC Mark 2004): Here, Intel blows AMD away on both
*CPU* and memory benchmarks

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20040322/index.html

Even at the same price for CPU, an Intel system can be cheaper to
build, as the P4 boards are more mature at this point, and thus there are
better bargains to be found. Considering that an Intel system will likely
be cheaper to build and WILL perform better on all benchmarks except DX8,
it's kind of a no-brainer as to which chip to build with, at the moment.

The following is an article on the Athlon 64 2800+. But more interesting
is,
the benchmarks included in the article are a GREAT comparison of the 3.2GHz
P4
processors with the Athlon64 3200+. In this article, these two processors
are
pretty evenly matched, with Intel being faster on some benchmarks, and AMD
being faster on others.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2038&p=1

Now lets look at what Sharky Extreme has to report in their article about
the
3.4GHz Prescott processor. This one has benchmarks that are a great
comparison
of the 3.4GHz Intel chips with the Athlon64 3400+. Here, you have to be
careful,
as Sharky doesn't organize their charts in order of fastest to slowest. And
on
some charts, LOWER scores are better. But if you read all the benchmarks,
you
will again notice that the two chips are pretty evenly matched, with AMD
faster
on some and Intel faster on others.

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/hardware/cpu/article.php/3261_3329681__1

Intel is better than AMD, at the moment. The only way AMD could change that
would be to drop their prices by 30% or better. -Dave, updated 10/19/04

Very funny. A $140 Athlon 64 3000+ (socket 754 )beats an $840 Pentium 4 3.2 ghz in Doom 3.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2149&p=7

A $111 Athlon XP3000+ beats a $205 Pentium 4 3.2 ghz in Business Winstone 2004.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2065&p=6


http://techny.com/articles.cfm?getarticle=606&go=0.53769656
 
S

Sayso Takewashi

I'd suggest you go with a dual layer DVD burner, as that will cost you like,
nothing extra (relatively speaking). Also, you should consider building
socket 478, as the LGA775 processors are not faster, and LGA775 is not a
future upgrade path, either. (not that you will upgrade anyway, you'll
probably just replace everything, like I said before)

It's your money, but I'd suggest you look at the following for equal
performance at a lower cost:
ASUS "P4P800 SE" i865PE Chipset Motherboard for Intel Socket 478 CPU
Intel Pentium 3.4E (if you can find it) or 3.2E or even 3.2C, socket 478
2 X 512MB PC3200 DDR400 RAM
NEC ND-3500A 16X double layer DVD burner
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro video card

With these in mind,i selected for fun a Socket 478 System for around
900$...
Could not afford it yet :-(

So his System might be around 1300-1600$ now...


My older Celeron 1700 System has to do the job any longer...
 
S

Sayso Takewashi

I will take a second look at 478. Is there a P4 3.4 socket 478 (other
than Extreme Edition $$$$$$)?

Sure,it will be still available.


One question: a DVD burner; why would
I need one?

For backup onto dvd-rw,its a good thing.

With these cheap harddrives today,i like having something for easy
backup.Now,i backup onto cdr (12cds) once a month and make
diff-backups daily and burn them each weak onto 2-3cds.

I dont like to install everything again,taking me probably 2 weeks....
 
M

Mac Cool

Dave C.:
The media (blanks) for DVD burners are about as cheap as CDR media

You must buy some cheap ass dvd media. The DVD -+R that I buy are about 5X
as much as the CD-Rs I buy. I don't buy the cheapest discs I can find
though.
 
D

Dave C.

Mac Cool said:
Dave C.:


You must buy some cheap ass dvd media. The DVD -+R that I buy are about 5X
as much as the CD-Rs I buy. I don't buy the cheapest discs I can find
though.

Actually, I've had really good luck with cheap DVD media and really bad luck
with cheap CDR media, even when I was using high-end CDR/W drives that had
no DVD capability. Consequently, I tend to actively avoid the cheaper CDR
media. Is it really a bargain if every third disc is a coaster? :) -Dave
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top