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AMD or Intel?

R

RancidWAnnaRIot

EspantaPajaros
Joined
Feb 19, 2004
Messages
11,033
My question is, which of these CPUs would work best for design and simulation programs. I'm talking about programs like PSPICE, Orcad, MathCAD, MATLAB, Mathematica, AutoCAD... etc.

These programs are basically giant calculators. I'm gonna upgrade in the not too far not too near future, and this is what i will be doing with my machine mostly.

I realized I'm gonna need an upgrade soon when i ran a fairly simple AC transient simulation on PSPICE for a pretty simple circuit, and took quiet a while to spit out the results.

I have an XP 2000+ Palomino by the way with 512 MB RAM. FSB = 266MHz

What do you guys thing?
Does it really matter?
 
Either one will do ok but the Pentium 4 will probably perform better in alot of those. I would get a 3.0c Northwood and overclock it. There's alot more overclocking potential in a 2.8c or 3.0c than there is in an A64.

The Intel motherboards are more stable and have better memory compatibility.

For gaming performance i would go with the A64 but application performance will be better on the Pentium 4 w/ Hyper Threading.

Both processors perform admirably in most areas but from what i've looked over in alot of benches the Pentium 4 is overall the stronger processor for several different reasons.

Future compability though would be the A64 if your thinking about a 64-bit OS but there isn't one of those yet except for a beta thats pretty lousy. Should get released around 3rd quarter when Intel plans to roll out Prescotts with 64-bit extensions most likely.
 
Here we go again with another intel vs AMD thread... someone should really make an FAQ for this topic....
 
Originally posted by afirawker
Here we go again with another intel vs AMD thread... someone should really make an FAQ for this topic....
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They wouldn't pay any attention to it even if they did. Just like noone pays any attention to the RAM faq sticky and they all post 10 threads per page asking about RAM this and RAM that.

I think they should just ban AMD vs Intel and nVidia vs ATi threads. There wouldn't be hardly any flame wars then. If you want to ask a question about one or the other that doesn't cause a problem. But when you start asking which one is better its like asking are males or females smarter.
 
I actually deal with autocad and inventor and I find that when running sims and replication macros the Opteron/fx is the king of the hill it wipes the floor with p4's.. Fluid dynamics the p4 sucks as well.

thats mainly due to the fact FPU is better on Amd chips.
 
i think you are looking at a nice 8-Way 848 Opterons here. nothing too expensive mind you. I do try and keep a budget in mind.
 
Originally posted by Rev. Night
i think you are looking at a nice 8-Way 848 Opterons here. nothing too expensive mind you. I do try and keep a budget in mind.
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HA HA

:eek: :D :p ;)
 
Originally posted by burningrave101
The Intel motherboards are more stable and have better memory compatibility.

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huh? Define more stable tho man. Anymore its really rare to see either board being "unstable" and review samples dont count :p
and as far as memory goes...Intel boards had problems with some pc3500 (I htink it was pc3500). So Id have to disagree with ya there.
Now as for picking your chip, I understand the A64 is actually REALLY good in the Autocad field. And to be honest Id go A64 just to get my feet wet with the new stuff...but in the end the choice is yours...just do the right thing and do a little research, there where some reviews a while back if Im not mistaken where they actually pit the A64 against the P4 in "business" programs, this included cad and a few others. If you find them read em..then bas eyour decision on them...or better yet determine your budget and get what fits into it for ya.
ok back to pandora tomarrow and So-Co :p
 
both will perform almost as good. maybe the Prescott if i was doing such thing... HT dont make that much difference right now, but most big company are working on that, improving softwares for this cpu, as well as the 64's AMD... so its really up to you, cpu threads are just like Allah vs Budha... who do you beleive in?
 
I honestly don't see the problem with threads like X vs Y.. i mean seriously if it bothers you so much just don't read the post, is it that hard? if you read the rules on this board, there is nothing that say's you cannot post X vs Y type threads. By the way i did, and still do refer to the memory FAQ..

I'm not trying to be an A-hole here.. but yeah

Now if the thread becomes an X fanboys vs Y fanboys thing, now that's just rediculous. Maybe the thread should be remoed when it gets to that point. But this thread hasn't seemed to hit that point, so i think it's all good to post here.

Just my opinion.
 
I looked into each of those programs and overall the A64 should give you the best performance if those are the main programs you are running. Primarily because of AMD's stronger floating-point. If you were using productivity software like 3ds max, photoshop and premiere though then the Pentium 4 hands down.

The A64 will be slightly better in floating-point applications and most games and the Pentium 4 will be better in productivity applications and multimedia apps. Gaming performance though is pretty even for both processors the majority of the time so it comes down to what applications you run.

huh? Define more stable tho man. Anymore its really rare to see either board being "unstable" and review samples dont count
and as far as memory goes...Intel boards had problems with some pc3500 (I htink it was pc3500). So Id have to disagree with ya there.
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Intel chipsets are well known to be more stable than Via and nVidia chipsets. Why do you think hardly anyone buys motherboards for Intel processors with Via chipsets on them? Intel motherboards are almost always more stable and the actual Intel boards themselves are the most stable boards on the market even though they leave little options for the enthusiast.

The thing with PC3500 or any RAM for that matter wasn't the fact they had a problem with running PC3200, PC3500, PC4000 or whatever. It has to do with the chips and the brand. Its that way with any board but less with Intel chipsets. The Abit boards were the ones that had a problem with CH-5 chips. They preferred BH-5, BH-6, or Hynix chips especially if you tried to overclock. My Gigabyte 8KNXP has no problem with CH-5 chips though as i am running Mushkin PC3200 lvl 1 flawlessly. Most of the Intel boards run fine with any chips you throw at them with a few being more picky than others. A64 motherboards on the other hand have had all kinds of problems with all different speeds of RAM and the fact they dont want to run well with 1GB or more of RAM on certain boards. They are just now coming out with some better boards where you can actually lock the PCI/AGP bus and it work. Before you would be overclocking the whole system which would make everything unstable.
 
Originally posted by burningrave101
Either one will do ok but the Pentium 4 will probably perform better in alot of those.
Click to expand...

I think you may be confusing simulation software with graphics and editing software. I use Promodel, MATLAB, and Mathematica for my simulation and design projects. All of those programs run very fast on my A64 3200. If you are running more than 1000+ replications of large simulation models then I would recommend dual opterons, otherwise an A64 will be fine.
 
I would say to go with an AMD barton CPU with a Nforce 2 chip set. With the calculations that are requreied for those programs, it would be better to use an AMD due to the smaller pipe lines so it can fatch more different types of data. The Barton core has a good amount of cashe so that it can keep the instruction sets in there with a good amount of data to process. AMD will probly be a little cheaper to buy compaired to an intel. The NForce 2 motherboard paired with a AMD CPU would enable the use of dual channel witch could also increase the effency of the overall system. Now for witch one, if you would like to OC alot i would go with the Barton 2500, but if you do not want to have to push the OCing than spend more money and go for the 3000 or the 3200.
 
Originally posted by specter554
I think you may be confusing simulation software with graphics and editing software. I use Promodel, MATLAB, and Mathematica for my simulation and design projects. All of those programs run very fast on my A64 3200. If you are running more than 1000+ replications of large simulation models then I would recommend dual opterons, otherwise an A64 will be fine.
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Yea i know, thats why i said:

"I looked into each of those programs and overall the A64 should give you the best performance if those are the main programs you are running. Primarily because of AMD's stronger floating-point. If you were using productivity software like 3ds max, photoshop and premiere though then the Pentium 4 hands down."

Those applications are are strong floating-point dependent.
 
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