Someone explain this to me...[Stability, AMD vs Intel]

D

DermicSavage

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jun 8, 2004
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On another board, there's an argument brewing over Intel guys claiming Intel Xeons are MORE stable than an AMD Opterton. This does not make sense to me, since if neither proccessor doesnt miss a beat, then it is perfectly stable.

Are there other factors that I havent accounted for?

Thanks for the input.
 
Please don't tell me you didn't read Intel's lab research on Opteron's last month? Intel discovered that Opteron's have a half-life of 2 years and a decay constant of 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999Hz ! Also it's gamma, so that steel case isn't going to save you!
 
The chipset.

Way back when, before the NForce chipset, you had limited choices with AMD's. One being VIA chipset. Those things would fry alot. If you left your computer on all day/night, the motherboard would eventually quit after a few months. They also would hard freeze frequently (once a day), where not even the mouse would move, you would have to reboot. On a server platform, that would be bad.

However, with newer chipsets, these problems might be eliminated with AMD's. However, Intel's can run for months if not years straight without a reboot, and have been able to for along time. The reputation is that Intel's are just more stable.
 
Scoobydo said:
The chipset.

Way back when, before the NForce chipset, you had limited choices with AMD's. One being VIA chipset. Those things would fry alot. If you left your computer on all day/night, the motherboard would eventually quit after a few months. They also would hard freeze frequently (once a day), where not even the mouse would move, you would have to reboot. On a server platform, that would be bad.

However, with newer chipsets, these problems might be eliminated with AMD's. However, Intel's can run for months if not years straight without a reboot, and have been able to for along time. The reputation is that Intel's are just more stable.
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LOL, this is just not true. I have had plenty of VIA chipset system, and they don't just die after a few months of 24/7 use. also I have had servers running on VIA/AMD combos that have an uptime of 3+ months.

As for todays chipsets and cpus I do not think Intel is any more or less stable then AMD. The only thing I do agree on, is that people do -THINK- Intel is more stable, where I just do see that as a fact...
 
So in other words, it's just gas for the fan boys to throw on the fire???

I'd still like to hear some more stuff, but serious.

Also, my server comp has a VIA chipset, and has been running 9 months with few restarts(and even fewer shutdowns)
 
Yep it holds no water. And actually, given the heat dissipation of them both, I'd be more comfortable with an opteron system running unattended for months end as opposed to a xeon system.

I too ran a server on a VIA based board with no issues. I've never had any issues at all with via chipsets, and I've used KT133, KT133A, KT333, KT400, K8T800, K8T890, and PT880. They were all rock solid.

In fact I still feel that K8T800 was more stable than the Nforce3 250 board I replaced it with, and K8T890 was more stable than the Nforce4 sli board I replaced it with.
 
Zardoz said:
LOL, this is just not true. I have had plenty of VIA chipset system, and they don't just die after a few months of 24/7 use. also I have had servers running on VIA/AMD combos that have an uptime of 3+ months.

As for todays chipsets and cpus I do not think Intel is any more or less stable then AMD. The only thing I do agree on, is that people do -THINK- Intel is more stable, where I just do see that as a fact...
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Exactly.
 
i too have and still do run via chipsets and had no problems

i think intel and amd are equally stable,

but as for the issue of running for months without a reboot, thats more of a software issue than cpu/chipset related, windows used to be terrible at managing resources and needed reboots to clear up the issue
 
All I can say is from experience. My work decided to purchase cheaper machines to save money, and purchased around 12 AMD Duron 450-600 machines with the VIA chipset.

Out of those 12 machines, I think we replaced MB's with 8 of them. Ones that fried we'd get a replacement and sometimes they'd fry again shortly after. My machine that I worked on lasted about 2 months, the replacement fried about a week later, finally getting a good one (see below)...

We changed MB's to another company (Abit) and they were much more stable... I have no idea what was in them originally, probably some cheap generic brand. I just replaced the MB's. I was not in control of the tech department purchasing the computers and components, and it was 3-4 years ago now. I can't exactly remember the details other than I just mentioned. All I know it was a headache for about a year. We always had 1 computer out of commission waiting on new parts.

On the other hand, we never once had an Intel board fry out. We even had a Pentium 1-60mhz as a domain controller and it ran 24/7 for over 8 years+ until we finially just upgraded it due to the needs of active directory/win2000.

I am not a "!!!!!! (that was supposed to be phan boi)" I'm just speaking from my experience. Take it as you will. I don't care either way who wins the "CPU wars"... All I know is its healthy because we get faster processors quicker and cheaper prices. In the end, the consumer wins. I'm just providing my input. Sorry that you don't agree or like that input.
 
the VIA thing about the usb mouse hanging after a random time is not false. i used to have this happen to my VIA KT266
 
Scoobydo said:
All I can say is from experience. My work decided to purchase cheaper machines to save money, and purchased around 12 AMD Duron 450-600 machines with the VIA chipset.

Out of those 12 machines, I think we replaced MB's with 8 of them. Ones that fried we'd get a replacement and sometimes they'd fry again shortly after. My machine that I worked on lasted about 2 months, the replacement fried about a week later, finally getting a good one (see below)...

We changed MB's to another company (Abit) and they were much more stable... I have no idea what was in them originally, probably some cheap generic brand. I just replaced the MB's. I was not in control of the tech department purchasing the computers and components, and it was 3-4 years ago now. I can't exactly remember the details other than I just mentioned. All I know it was a headache for about a year. We always had 1 computer out of commission waiting on new parts.
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This was about the time of the bad caps and so most of the value boards in this era had those kinda problems. Nothing to do really with AMD or VIA just mobo manufacturers being cheap or not knowing they were buying faulty caps.
 
Ok. I have been building computers for a long time. Since 1995, I have owned about 30 different computers, Give or take. From Pentiums, PIIs, PIII's Slot and Socket and Slocket, P4 williamette, Northwood, AMD Processors from the K6-2, Athlon Thunderbird, AXP...

alright this is the deal and how it was and how it is.

Via chipsets were the cause for this concern. Now I have built MANY computers with Via Chipsets.... and 9 out of 10 of them were 100% Stable. But thier was the occasion that they sucked hardcore. Not because of their hardware persay, but they had some crappy Mobo Drivers. the "Via-4in1's" that sometimes when you upgraded them they hosed your box completly. Totally horrible. Now granted this is when OS's were not that great either.... The Via era was primarily used with Windows 98 etc...The only reason this is associated with AMD is because back in the K6-2, K6-3 and classic athlon days, VIA was the biggest and one of the only makers of Chipsets for AMD. So you had no choice with bulding with them. And while they werent that bad, they werent as outstanding as intel's chipests were.

Now I have a 2 T-Bird systems right now, one with a Asus AV7 mobo (Via chipset) and a nother with a Sis Chipset (That has Hybrid SDR and DDR slots). This sis chipset has been on for months back at home and is still my file server. But the Via wouldnt go that long without a BSOD. Sure it could be any number of things but comon....

Since then, AMD has a new Chipset maker, NVidia and they hold an outstanding track record. Its not a Matter of what CPU is more stable, that is nonsence... in effect... a CPU is a CPU is a CPU for stability... but the Platform as a whole depends on what you throw into it all togther. So AMD is just as stable as Intel. Period. In todays day and age anyway.

You could compare an AMD Athlon 64, ASUS mobo, Nforce 4, Crucial Ram, Windows XP SP2
And an compare an Intel P4, ECS Budget mobo, Via Chipset, No Name Ram, Windows ME

What do you think would be more stable?

It all depends on your platform. Just because you have a Intel CPU dosent mean you system platform is going to be rock solid.
 
^^ yes, all of that is perfectly worded (too long to bother quoting). That, I think, hits the heart of the issue. Stability really boils down to a hell of a lot more than cpu. (ram and chipset being the major players).
 
Scoobydo said:
All I can say is from experience. My work decided to purchase cheaper machines to save money,
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The fact is that you got cheap systems. cheap systems tend to use cheap parts (not only cheap chipsets or cpus) but components (resisters, caps, etc.) and also crap designs to cut cost. cheap intel system can fail just as cheap AMD systems.

you get what you pay for...
 
and for the reason of stability i've always bought Intel Motherboard, with Intel CPU and Corsair Ram.
Working in system validation you learn how much all the departments work together. The CPU guys will fix a Chipset bug, and vice versa. with all this collaboration between departments you know that AMD can't do that considering each manufacturer makes a different part. AMD makes the CPU, VIA makes the chipset, and ASUS makes the motherboard. so you have 3 different phases of validation, cpu, chipset, and motherboard. each working independantly to achieve the same goal towards stability. you can bet there is some barriers there causing problems.

I buy a computer to be fast, but overall I buy it to be stable. a computer that crashes even once a month is too much for me...
and with the above reasoning and Past records, I have come to the conclusion that Intel is more stable or has the chance of being more stable. not because of the CPU but because of the entire platform design.
 
Scoobydo said:
My work decided to purchase cheaper machines
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So, you are saying your work place purchased cheap computers, they broke, and that makes intel more reliable?

Computer parts arnt like cars. You can buy a cheap $500.00 used toyota and have it drive to the moon and back without a rebuild. You can buy a ford or chevy, and have to rebuild it 10 times on the way.

Computers, you buy something cheap, and it is cheap. There is no question about that. Dont expect cheap ass computers to last forever like cheap ass toyotas.

With the exception of my dell optiplex, all of my computers in the past have VIA chipsets. Im happy with them. I run them 24/7 doing crap (mostly video encoding), and I have not had one single crash during video encoding. Ive had crashes with video game mods or windows activation cracks not working (Im not going to call up microsoft india tech support again for a key, after I change ONE driver).

Via makes good stuff. Dont bash it, because your work place bought shitty hardware :).
 
I think the differences in stability went away long ago. I use both brands and like everyone said already it is the chipsets/ram/psu that matter the most for stability. I have had so much trouble with VIA in the past that even though I do know they are better now, I don't risk it. Both Intel and AMD platforms offer 100% stability.

You have to remember that people have emotions and will make decisions based on them. Having the motherboard, processor and chipset all made by the same company (Intel) gives people the feeling of better compatability and stability. This is based on the warm and fuzzy feeling they get not statistics or facts.
 
it's like this intel tumbs down ....AMD thumbs up....AMd is the choice with it's newer and better proccesors comming up intel is struggling... :)
 
Alright, thanks for all the input on the subject. Also thanks for staying on subject, since it was over stability, not which is better. :)
 
This is not about actuality, but about reputation. It takes years to build up a reputation... and it also takes years to take a reputation down.
AMD is still suffering from the days of K6 and early Athlons with spotty VIA chipsets and whatnot. I am myself still running a KT133A which has absolutely no problems, so I suppose that's when it started to finally go well (although I had an Abit board with KT133A that didn't want to work properly at all. It did freeze randomly, and often even failed to power on properly. After a lot of trouble I got an MSI instead, and it worked). The heat and noise the thing produces is another thing though. I bet if my case fans fail, it will crash instantly, because of lack of throttling and such.

Intel on the other hand has always had a good reputation, and even though they too have some problems every now and then, the way they deal with it matters aswell. With VIA, you were pretty much on your own. If it didn't work, you would be lucky if the shop let you swap it for a different motherboard... Else you'd just have to buy a new one. VIA never even bothered to fix their bad chipsets. They'd just continue to build the faulty ones, and offer workarounds in the drivers, if you were lucky. If they'd fix the problems at all, it'd be in the next generation of chipsets.
Intel will fix chipsets or CPUs immediately, and offer to replace them free of charge.
And that makes all the difference. Even if Intel screws up, they handle it just fine.
 
Both AMD and Intel are equally stable. Years ago AMD platforms had some issues, but those were generally chipset related, and you can't blame a CPU manufacturer for that since the building of the chipset and motherboards are out of their hands.

It's also important to remember stability goes way beyond the CPU and motherboard, every other component will affect it as well. Crappy memory, video cards, other controller cards, a bad hard drive, and a weak power supply, even the OS and bad drivers will affect stability of a system.
 
Zardoz said:
The fact is that you got cheap systems. cheap systems tend to use cheap parts (not only cheap chipsets or cpus) but components (resisters, caps, etc.) and also crap designs to cut cost. cheap intel system can fail just as cheap AMD systems.

you get what you pay for...
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Precisely. Boards based on Intel chipsets are generally considered "premium" solutions, and are priced accordingly.

If you were to build two machines with equivalently equipped boards, I think you would find they are roughly comparable.

Besides, everyone knows all boards have defects.
 
DermicSavage said:
Alright, thanks for all the input on the subject. Also thanks for staying on subject, since it was over stability, not which is better. :)
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No, it's not alright right, you've been feed a bunch of misleading info (note. I didn't say BS or any other Flame laced words)

VIA started as a Clone contractor and then went on its own. When it did go and break all of its ties to the rest of the Industry, they used Unlicensed Reverse-engineered Tech. Some times this stuff barely worked, word great or not at all. Often times there would be 4 to 6 revisions (chipset Fixes models were being shipped).

A very good example of the is the KT-133A, Revision 1 should have been recalled. While many bought Revisions 3 and 4 that were fixed so they thought that this was a good board. While folks who owned the first two revisions know they sucked. By VIA not recalling the first boards, that means folks were stuck with them.

Asus A7M-266, Epox 7KXA (revs 1 & 2), KT-133 and KT-133A, are boards I owned. I had USB problems, slow subpar memory and I/O, hunting down Manual settings for the AGP Aperture driving vaule, Hard Drive corruption on unoverclocked systems, processors dropping dead for no reason on unoverclocked un-overvolted, having to mix 420 and 417 4 in 1's so it wouldn't hose the system, SBLive and SQ2500 sound card problems, overheating (LOL), and the last nForce1 from Asus pushed me to Intel and it's only been now that I'll go back to using an AMD based system. These folks can blame any OS they like, WinME sucked, but Win98SE would have uptimes of 5 months and be installed for 3 years on my P3 550. I still use that P3 550 for backups and it has NEVER failed me and it is now running Windows 2000 Pro.

The folks here who never had any problem might have been a big help to the folks at VIA Arena, Fan Site turned Support site.

Intel has it its problems to but they tend to solve theirs by recalling like the infamous MTH riser card and chipsets, fixing and just making up for their screwups better than AMD, nVidia and VIA. Hell, SIS even even better at fixes their crap.

VIA's newer stuff is better because they now license industry standard technology, something they almost never did in the past.

Donnie27
 
Donnie27 said:
No, it's not alright right, you've been feed a bunch of misleading info (note. I didn't say BS or any other Flame laced words)
Donnie27
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I'm not intending to give misleading info at all. I'm just saying what I've personally experienced...I don't think you can blame me for that. I know TONS of people have had issues with via chipsets, but I personally have not. I've used almost every single non-integrated graphics one for AMD from KT133 up, and I have always liked them. And all I can do is give MY personal experiences.

I'm not denying that via has done lots of poor planning and poor designing (*cough* K8T890 dual-core *cough*) and they usually do not handle it in a respectable way. And Intel has always been very good about handling the rare event that they make a mistake. But as far as stability, I can tell no difference. I currently have one dual P3 box running on the venerable 440bx (a Tyan Tiger 100) and one tbird 1.0 system running on an MSI KT133 board, and I can tell no stability difference between the two.
 
you can't blame a CPU manufacturer for that since the building of the chipset and motherboards are out of their hands.
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isn't that what i said is the difference between Intel and AMD? for Intel it IS in their hands. they can control EVERYTHING and make it work right.
thats why Intel has been more stable then AMD in the past, and why it will continue to be more stable in the future. All of their configurations are tested together as an entire platform. where the chipset manufacturer will only test their chipset, the motherboard manufacturer will only test their motherboard, and the cpu manufacturer will only test their cpu. When you add the three together you WILL have problems. Here at Intel we're already testing the system as a whole. and in this case we are more likely to find bugs that otherwise wouldn't be found.
sure nvidia and via may have gotten better in their methods of designing the chipsets, but it will never reach Intels level of integration until AMD starts making their own chipsets and motherboards.
so in terms of stability, Intel has a better ability to stabilize the platforms.
 
Donnie27 said:
Intel has it its problems to but they tend to solve theirs by recalling like the infamous MTH riser card and chipsets, fixing and just making up for their screwups better than AMD, nVidia and VIA. Hell, SIS even even better at fixes their crap.

VIA's newer stuff is better because they now license industry standard technology, something they almost never did in the past.

Donnie27
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I still don't think VIA's chipsets are as refined as an Nvidia or Intel chipset. Look at OCing... ocing usually proves how much tolerance a board has, right? Guess how well current VIA products overclock...

I somewhat disagree in regards to Intel's return policies. The only reason they admitted the 1.13GHz PIII was faulty was because Kyle and others could unequivocally prove it was defective. The first Pentiums were simiar. Until they determined it would be a P.R. disaster, they had hesitations about the recall.
 
Eva_Unit_0 said:
I'm not intending to give misleading info at all. I'm just saying what I've personally experienced...I don't think you can blame me for that. I know TONS of people have had issues with via chipsets, but I personally have not. I've used almost every single non-integrated graphics one for AMD from KT133 up, and I have always liked them. And all I can do is give MY personal experiences.

I'm not denying that via has done lots of poor planning and poor designing (*cough* K8T890 dual-core *cough*) and they usually do not handle it in a respectable way. And Intel has always been very good about handling the rare event that they make a mistake. But as far as stability, I can tell no difference. I currently have one dual P3 box running on the venerable 440bx (a Tyan Tiger 100) and one tbird 1.0 system running on an MSI KT133 board, and I can tell no stability difference between the two.
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That's why I said misleading and not that someone or anyone was lying! I helped a buddy pick out a system by looking at what he already had, we got an Abit KT133A Revision #4 (I think or 3 ). I convinced him eventhough he saw what a POS my Revision1 was. He knew nothing about Revisions. Mine sucked but I knew of others that didn't. His worked pretty good. What I'm saying is that, what if he'd only saw the one we got for him? He'd have thought that there's NOTHING wrong with the ABit KT-133A worth complaining about, 686B and all. That's what goes on a lot forums.

Windows98SE sucked on VIA's motherboards, not on the BX or LX Intel based mobos.

Microsoft was made with Industry standards in mind, not warezers. Anyone using those standards had very little to NO problems. That's hardly MS's fault.

WindowsME sucked on everything but a modified by Compaq version on my wife's Compaq P2 350 worked just fine thank you. I ran with only minor problems for 3 years. First three months it didn't like to sleep longer than 3 days, would wake up. After a patch, it would wake up in 15 seconds after be in sleep mode for a month.

USB problems, burned up an HP scanner both a USB Mouse and Joystick. I felt bad until one of my VIA loving friends was trying to tell me what I was do wrong and right there while trying to explain it, his went up in smoke LORFL! USB sucked so bad, even these guys-------->http://www.usbman.com/ couldn't help. What VIA has done about these in the last two years, I don't know, I've NOT tried to find out. If it's fixed, that's great news.

Just to be sure, I'm talking more about past problems than current stuff. nVidia has issues with Intel's Dual Core. My problem with what was said has more to do with Past Problems and these problems do cloud folk's judgement on current stuff. If folks stick to trying to tell folks there were no past problems, when clearly there were, many will not trust what they say now. Or even worse, flame fests start because some person who got screwed on two or three bad boards may still hate VIA with a passion.

About cheap boards. I had BX boards made by Dimond Micronics, QDI and a others that that ran rings around ABit, Asus and FIX AMD 750 and VIA 694 or whatever else in those days stability wise. Iwill and ABit both had crappy BXs though.

I stilll have an Asus CUBX-E and CSUSL2. Just gave an Asus P3B-F to a good buddy. The other BX still laying around is made by Gigabyte GA 6X they just keep on running. I have a hard time letting go these old retro rigs. The CUBX even has an IBM DeathStar 46.1GB Hardrive.

Donnie27
 
Without saying what is better here are my experiences:

Intel Xeon 2.8 GHz (Dual) with Intel Server Mainboard E7205 and 1 GB cheap Kingston reg Ecc memory running since January 2001 without a lockup, BSOD or other reboot than manual due to drivers etc. (right now running Server 2003 Standard SP1)

12 Intel P4 3.06 GHz Systems with ASUS i845G Boards and 512 MB Infineon memory, all used for AutoCAD and other engineering work (mainly mathematical operations) and architectural design, running since December 2000 without any hardware failures just some software problems once or twice a year (right now all running Windows XP SP 2)

My current system I work with is a P4 3 GHz with an MSI Neo FIS2R and 1024 MB Crucial memory running Windows XP SP 2. The system maybe randomly reboots 1-2 times every 3 months but you need to know that I passively cool my CPU and have pretty aggressive memory timings.

My AMD experience:
I had several Athlon XPs and Durons with very expensive Asus mainboards although with VIA chipsets. None of these systems worked a week without a hardware lockup. (Windows 2000 and Windows XP)

My brother now has an Athlon 64 3200+ with an nForce 3 MSI Board and 1 GB Infinion memory. His PC crashes around 1-2 a month which can be considered pretty stable when you consider that he encodes divx and renders 3d graphics at the same time (running Win XP Pro SP 1).
 
You can't blame AMD for faulty chipsets from VIA, NVIDIA or whoever.
You CAN blame them for not offering decent chipsets themselves.
With Intel it doesn't matter if VIA chipsets are bad. Those are only for low-budget PCs. There is always the option of trouble-free Intel chipsets if you want to pay the money.
With AMD it's all a gamble, there's no chipset manufacturer with a reliable reputation, for every new generation the tables turn, and you have to find out which is the most reliable one all over again.
I think you can blame AMD for not offering a consistently reliable platform themselves, not taking out the random factors for the entire platform.
A CPU is only as good as the platform it can be used on.
 
Chrissicom said:
My brother now has an Athlon 64 3200+ with an nForce 3 MSI Board and 1 GB Infinion memory. His PC crashes around 1-2 a month which can be considered pretty stable when you consider that he encodes divx and renders 3d graphics at the same time (running Win XP Pro SP 1).
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Well, what kind of standards are those? :)
To me, a PC isn't stable unless it NEVER crashes... apart from hardware failures ofcourse. If eg your HDD suddenly goes faulty, no computer in the world will be able to function normally (except for redundant systems, but let's stick to standard desktops for the sake of argument).

Even my 1800+ with KT133A manages to run for months without crashing, no matter how hard I punish it (it always runs at 100% load anyway, because of UD agent).
That's when I call it stable. I find 1-2 crashes a month unacceptable. A PC that is 100% functional, should never crash.
 
Josh_B said:
I still don't think VIA's chipsets are as refined as an Nvidia or Intel chipset. Look at OCing... ocing usually proves how much tolerance a board has, right? Guess how well current VIA products overclock...

I somewhat disagree in regards to Intel's return policies. The only reason they admitted the 1.13GHz PIII was faulty was because Kyle and others could unequivocally prove it was defective. The first Pentiums were simiar. Until they determined it would be a P.R. disaster, they had hesitations about the recall.
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But that's not the Point. Many here implied that VIA and nVidia have always made good problem free chipsets. That's not the case all. Just because a chipset has less headroom to overclock, doesn't make it a bad deal. Hell, VIA sent nVidia's nForce3 150 back to the drawing board.

I still see Intel's return policy as far better. I have a burnt TBird for proof! And Intel didn't just recall because of Kyle and others. MTH was recalled because Intel's customers complained of problems. If 1133 had launched and there were problems, Intel would have recalled it as well IMHO. I don't think Kyle even thinks Intel would have not recalled had he and others not found the problem. Both of these had fewer problems than the 686B, sheesh! Intel was shown the problem and did recall. VIA was shown the problem and didn't.

Mine was so bad even George Breeze's patch didn't help.

Donnie27
 
Chrissicom said:
My brother now has an Athlon 64 3200+ with an nForce 3 MSI Board and 1 GB Infinion memory. His PC crashes around 1-2 a month which can be considered pretty stable when you consider that he encodes divx and renders 3d graphics at the same time (running Win XP Pro SP 1).
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Here's what my last multi-tasking consisted of. Running Photo Suit that ships with, Roxio CD-DVD Creater 7, Creative's MixMaster, Divx and then burning this to CD. That's start up the Photos, Parse 2 100 Photo files, add a Photo to each link and the background, mix the Music for the Background since it only likes to use one file for the background music, one per link and save the slide show on a VCD. So it's processing two mixes of Audio while Parsing Photos for the slide show, while it formats everything for the disc. I've also did this with Video and Pics for mixed mode.

My two year old system has never had crashed caused by DivX. When I say crash, I mean from HDD corruptions, locked or etc.. like my old VIA systems had done.

Donnie27
 
Donnie27 said:
But that's not the Point. Many here implied that VIA and nVidia have always made good problem free chipsets. That's not the case all. Just because a chipset has less headroom to overclock, doesn't make it a bad deal. Hell, VIA sent nVidia's nForce3 150 back to the drawing board.

I still see Intel's return policy as far better. I have a burnt TBird for proof! And Intel didn't just recall because of Kyle and others. MTH was recalled because Intel's customers complained of problems. If 1133 had launched and there were problems, Intel would have recalled it as well IMHO. I don't think Kyle even thinks Intel would have not recalled had he and others not found the problem. Both of these had fewer problems than the 686B, sheesh! Intel was shown the problem and did recall. VIA was shown the problem and didn't.

Mine was so bad even George Breeze's patch didn't help.

Donnie27
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Intel wasn't going to recall the original Pentium until it turned into a P.R. disaster...

Anyways, I still maintain there is now no difference in terms of stability.

Overclocking headroom DOES normally indicate a more stable and mature chipset.
 
It's interesting to read the ongoing discussion.... I haven't meant to say my brother Athlon system is rock stable but since you say it isn't with 1-2 crashes a month and that even with an nForce chipset maybe the AMD platform must be called unstable. The PC has DiamondMax 9 hard disks, a Hercules Radeon 9500 Pro and the ram is specified by the board producer as stable for this board. So there's nothing very incompatible in this hardware configuration.
Also when you say I can't compare budget systems with high-end systems. Well let's compare an ASUS P5GD1 Pro, i915P (90 Euros) and an ASUS A8N-E, nForce4 (90 Euros). I have seen both boards in action both with 1 GB Corsair Ram (DDR-1 on AMD, DDR-2 on Intel) and one Intel 3.4 GHz and Athlon 64 3400+. The systems cost about the same, the intel being a little bit cheaper both running Win XP Pro SP2 with the same Hard disks, graphic cards etc. Both PCs run mainly HecRAS, AutoCAD 2005, Land Texturing Design Tools and WASPI. Despite that the Intel system is very much faster on these apps it has never crashed (yet) - only 6 months old - but the AMD system locked up many times during heavy calculations (in 3 months). The advantage of the intel system here is definitely HT, since HecRAS is single threaded I can put it on one logical cpu making other programs work pretty normal while on the AMD system HecRAS takes so much CPU power that I can't do many other things at the same time anymore.
<<< these two PCs don't work in our own office but at a partner office
 
could someone define "crash" for me.... :confused:
because to me crash is a lock up. and that is usually software related in my experience
 
Josh_B said:
Overclocking headroom DOES normally indicate a more stable and mature chipset.
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i disagree with that Intel reference boards don't allow much of an overclock but most would say those are the most stable wouldn't they?
 
Josh_B said:
Intel wasn't going to recall the original Pentium until it turned into a P.R. disaster...

Anyways, I still maintain there is now no difference in terms of stability.

Overclocking headroom DOES normally indicate a more stable and mature chipset.
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Must be some alternate reality or something. Your low "OPINION" of Intel is unfounded and just that, your opinion. Since Intel did recalls before and after the 1133MHz Proc, I disagree with you=P

Meanwhile, AMD should have recalled some of the Pre SuperBy Pass 750 chipsets, especially those with AGP bugs. VIA should have had several recalls, 686B being the worse. Nevermind #1 through as many as 5 revisions for fixes and not recalling the others, oh, that's right, only Intel should be put down and trashed out for that, damnnnn what was I thinking.

What you maintain about stability is not what most users have come to know about VIA and the first nVidia boards as they used Customers as Beta Testers. I know, LOL, I was one of them.

Overclocking has little do with one or the other.

Donnie27
 
Chrissicom said:
It's interesting to read the ongoing discussion.... I haven't meant to say my brother Athlon system is rock stable but since you say it isn't with 1-2 crashes a month and that even with an nForce chipset maybe the AMD platform must be called unstable. The PC has DiamondMax 9 hard disks, a Hercules Radeon 9500 Pro and the ram is specified by the board producer as stable for this board. So there's nothing very incompatible in this hardware configuration.
Also when you say I can't compare budget systems with high-end systems. Well let's compare an ASUS P5GD1 Pro, i915P (90 Euros) and an ASUS A8N-E, nForce4 (90 Euros). I have seen both boards in action both with 1 GB Corsair Ram (DDR-1 on AMD, DDR-2 on Intel) and one Intel 3.4 GHz and Athlon 64 3400+. The systems cost about the same, the intel being a little bit cheaper both running Win XP Pro SP2 with the same Hard disks, graphic cards etc. Both PCs run mainly HecRAS, AutoCAD 2005, Land Texturing Design Tools and WASPI. Despite that the Intel system is very much faster on these apps it has never crashed (yet) - only 6 months old - but the AMD system locked up many times during heavy calculations (in 3 months). The advantage of the intel system here is definitely HT, since HecRAS is single threaded I can put it on one logical cpu making other programs work pretty normal while on the AMD system HecRAS takes so much CPU power that I can't do many other things at the same time anymore.
<<< these two PCs don't work in our own office but at a partner office
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That was the point though, you can find a good board without buying the most expensive one selling. When folks do that, many think posters here aren't being fair. When I build my AMD Rig in a month or so, I'm not buying the most expensive anything=P

If I'm shopping and prices are factor, and they are, I look stuff in the same price range to compare. If I were a Web Site and compared those two boards in a Shootout, AMD fans from far and wide would scream bloody murder. I'm not about to compare an nForce4 (non-Ultra or SLI) chipset to an high Intel one when there are plenty of Budget and Mid-Ranged boards out there, with more shipping everyday. Hell, where are the cheap non-SLI nForce4 IE (Intel Edition) boards already?

AMD rigs were (yes, past tense) "shoddy" and I only disagree with those folks who say the "never were" buggy or problematic. The other guy got jumpped for just saying that folks not feeling sure about non-Intel Chipsets for Intel Procs were leftover feelings from the past. I disagree with the folks who're saying there never were any problems, when there sure as hell was. Nothing is perfect, that includes Intel and AMD BTW.

nForce4 is a very mature chipset but I wouldn't slap nVidia in the face and put them down by trying to say that the nForce 1 was just as stable. I'd stick with Intel for Intel still=P Not because I think nVidia or VIA sucked, just because I like Intel for and with Intel better.

Donnie27
 
tdg said:
It's also important to remember stability goes way beyond the CPU and motherboard, every other component will affect it as well. Crappy memory, video cards, other controller cards, a bad hard drive, and a weak power supply, even the OS and bad drivers will affect stability of a system.
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i actually see more instability due to user error than actual hardware issues :p
 
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