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Help me buy a new CPU

E

ease_one

n00b
Joined
Mar 24, 2004
Messages
6
Ok so I been toying with idea of getting an A64 2800+ or 3000+ with that new nforce 250 board and overclocking, but that board is not out yet http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews/review.php?dXJsX3Jldmlld19JRD03NTE If this comes out soon I would be willing to wait, anybody know the ETA

To make things worse I would rather buy the new 939 cpus when they come out but who knows when that will be so I have been exploring other options.

Been taking a hard look at the AMD mobile 2400+ 2500+ and 2600+ and overclocking it. Reading the reviews at Newegg it seems as though the 2600+ OCs better even though people claim they are the same CPU. I was going to put a ZALMAN CNPS3100-Plus Copper on it and hope that is good enough. I would hope to hit atleast 2500 mhz

Another option is the 2.4a Intel Prescott. These seem to be getting up to around 3.3 ghz or so with stock cooling.

I find it hard to make a decisions because it not clear to me how fast overclclocked CPUs are because I don't ususally see benchmarks that compare overclocked intels vs overclocked mobile AMDs. Making it worse are differances in FSB speeds and what not. I am not even sure what is faster, an AMD 3200+ at stock speeds or a mobile AMD OCd to 3200+ clock speeds just using the multiplier?

BTW I am not interested in any fancy water cooling solution or anything like that. I don't care if the CPU runs hot, as long as it is stable.

Also I do a lot of gaming and 3d modeling, but not so much rendering or video encoding. Price is not a huge deal, but I want to be smart with my money. I would have to buy a new Motherboard and RAM regardless of the brand of CPU I go with.

thanks for any advice in advance!
 
People are overclocking the D1 stepping 3.0c Northwoods anywhere from 3.7-4Ghz on just aircooling here recently. I've got one and performance is great. Especially if you work with productivity software. Intel motherboards usually have more features then AMD boards also.

I know my Gigabyte 875p board supports 8 IDE, 4 SATA, Dual Bios, 6 DIMM slots, Dual Channel, PAT, 6 phase voltage regulation, Intel Gigabit Ethernet, amongst other things.

An A64 even at just stock speeds will be quite a bit faster then an Athlon XP though. Other then being dirt cheap the Athlon XP's aren't much of a competitor any more against high end P4's and A64's.

3D modeling will be the fastest on a P4 w/ Hyper Threading. Gaming will be better on the A64.
 
I don't think you should even consider a P4 2.4A; it's the black sheep of the Prescott family to me, and even though it does have the 1 MB cache, it's only 533 Mhz FSB stock with no hyperthreading.
A regular Northwood 2.4C can overclock to 3.3 too, maybe more.

I think if you want great gaming performance, an Athlon 64 3000+ or 3200+ would really be worth it. I'd lean more for the 3200+ because of the 1 MB cache (compared to 512 for the 2800+ and 3000+ A64).

I've seen gaming as the strongest area of the A64's, and in terms of multimedia apps, fast P4s take a slight edge in tests like Sysmark and other benches, but in most cases it's not like a night a day difference between Pentium 4s and Athlon 64s in those areas.
 
Originally posted by BillLeeLee
I've seen gaming as the strongest area of the A64's, and in terms of multimedia apps, fast P4s take a slight edge in tests like Sysmark and other benches, but in most cases it's not like a night a day difference between Pentium 4s and Athlon 64s in those areas.
Click to expand...

Performance will be good on both, even gaming. A64 rarely takes a lead of more then 5-10 fps and i doubt there is hardly anyone on this board that can tell a real world difference in 5-10 fps. Alot of times its just a 2-3 FPS difference or tied between relative speed processors. It depends on the game. P4 is usually faster in games like Quake III, Jedi Knight 2, Comanche 4, Return to Castle Wolfenstein and others.

Productivity software like 3DS Max 6, Photoshop, and others that are multithreaded will load and render more quickly on a CPU w/ Hyper Threading. Encodeing and Multitasking will also be faster.

Multitasking is one of the biggest points for me. I enjoy running my system with large amounts of windows and applications open and still get great performance.

If your just going for gaming though i would get an A64 3200+.

If your heavy into overclocking i would definitely try one of the 3.0c Northwoods. I've seen as high as 4Ghz on aircooling for the D1 stepping 3.0c chips. Thats a whopping 1Ghz overclock on an already high end chip.
 
I'd personally invest in quality memory, a Mobile Barton 2600+, the CNPS7000A-AlCu, and a DFI NF2 Ultra Infinity.

You can expect 2.5GHz with 250MHz FSB if your memory will do it (and if you have enoguh patience of course) :)

The 2.4A prescotts overclock like mad aswell.
 
Originally posted by KevC
I'd personally invest in quality memory, a Mobile Barton 2600+, the CNPS7000A-AlCu, and a DFI NF2 Ultra Infinity.
Click to expand...

I never really understood why someone would buy a $40 fan for overclocking unless they did it for sport or something. I just want to do it to save money. It would suck to gamble on getting a decent CPU for overclocking then end up with a dud and an expensive fan to cool that dud!
 
well the Zalman's are also super quiet, and that is the main motto of the brand. My old stock fan screamed like a banshee and ripped up to 4000rpm and with ASUS Q-Fan control it was still blaring at 3600 rpms. With the Zalman I can actually sleep with my computer on now, and it keeps the temps relatively low at around 30 idle to 40 ish load and up to about 50 on some pretty ungodly tasks that tax the crap out of my cpu.

But regarding the cpu question, what software package are u modeling in? Personally from my experience, no matter whether u have a AMD 64 3400 or a highend P4, your preview renders usually are gonna range anywhere from 49 to 1:00+ on a highly textured model w/ high poly counts. But both cpu's are great for your needs, however, if you're gonna encode at all I suggest a P4, otherwise the 64 chips sound great.
 
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