Which is faster? AMD 64 system or Prescott system OC'd (my budget is $2500-$3000)

A

aliens50

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Hey, I've been doing lots of research on the potential of the system I want to build. I have looked extensively at intel and only a little at AMD. I am aware that AMD builds better stocks than intel, but I believe I can accomplish a lot with a prescott overclocked. Basically, I am wondering about specifics like fsb/clock that I might be able to achieve with my water cooled system on an AMD system and wondering if it would be able to defeat my dream system. I will have money from loans come september and this is what I'm looking at:

Pentium System:
  • P4C800-E delux
  • P4 3.0 @ 275fsb for an OC of 4.125ghz (FSB would result in 1100)
  • Geil Ultra 4400 3-4-4-8
  • Enermax 600W PS
  • Asus x800pro

AMD System
  • Abit or Asus for 754 chipset??
  • Athlon64 (the 754 or 939?) 3000+, 3200+, or 3400+ ??
  • Geil Ultra 4400 3-4-4-8 (?)
  • Enermax 600w PS
  • Asus x800 pro

Oh yeah, and I can't decide whether to get a 300gb SATA or the 74gb Raptor. . . (I'm thinking about noise to performance ratio)

What FSB can I achieve with an athlon. I know that I can change the multiplier with certain Athlons, but I don't know what I can max out on (regarding fsb with 1:1 memory). I would choose the prescot because the Northwood cap(30 or 12) would decrease my chance of oc'ing the fsb to my 1:1 275. I know that with good cooling, I can get the prescot to where I want it. Here's what I'm planning on for the cooling:

The case I can't decide on, I'm thinking about the Lian Li PC-V1200 (a little bigger than the V1000) which I will mod a window to the case (I like to take risks). I would install either 2 BIX 120 or 1 BIX2 (another [H] task). I would have the Whitewater cpu triple nozzle WB and the maze4 NB waterblock and the swiftech pelt (mcw50-t) and possibly a hd cooler. I'm having trouble deciding on the pump because I could be running 4 blocks. . . I'm thinking of the swiftech or DD. I don't know.

I need as much advice as possible or places to look. I'm having a harder time finding overclock benches of the AMD systems than the Intel and I'm very confident about what I want to do with the intel system, but I would love to max out the potential of an AMD system if it would be worth it. I can't wait for september. Oh yeah, I'm also going to outfit my case with ColdC's, a 22" Mitsubishi/NEC monitor, and hopefully a matrix orbital 222.

Sorry for the long post, but I really need input, especially on AMD specs/bench possibilities.
 
Looks all good except that 275fsb 3.0c. Crapshot really. Most I think stops around 3.7-3.8ghz H2O'd. All the power required to power the CPU on board.... some boards are just not gonna be able to handle while some will. (regardless of your powerful PSU) That 600W one... I say grab noisetaker if they have similar wattage as noisetaker line just have much much cleaner line than previous enermax PSUs.
As for HDD, 74GB raptor + some SATA or IDE HDD to store data.
I've been using the 74gb ratpor for system and some games and 2nd Hitachi 180gxp 120GB and it works just beautifully. (anything over 160gb... you probably are doing some video editing or pvr)
If its brand new rig, I would probably jump to AMD as most demanding application all the time has been..... Games :). I could care less about the 64 bit part as if it were me, around when windows 64 bit comes out, I won't be on same rig anyway.
Also, its been reported AMD CPU AND mobo runs cooler than Intel ATM which is helpful.
Been hearing good thing about newcastle 3200 cg... maybe worth looking into.
 
we first off you are gonna to need some watercooling or loud air cooling to get that p4 at that speed

that ram will work fine for the p4 but in the amd it wont the 3-4-4-8 timings suck for amd and will result in a huge performance hit you can get a nice gig of 3200 or 3500 cas 2/2.5 and get much better performance if your pricing out 2500-3000 you might want to look at a fx53 or at least some of the newer 939 pin 3500-3800 64's

you should compare apples and apples if your gonna overclock one have to do the other\

i would get a the 74 gb raptor and a 120-200 gb sata driver raptor for the Os and the other for downloads and such
 
If I had 3k to spend on a PC Id go for the Socket-939 Athlon64 FX 53 (2400MHz 1024kb L2 128kb L1) and the Asus AV8 Deluxe K8T800 mobo ($839 for the processor $199 for the motherboard). Then I'd get Corsair Twin-X1024 3200XLPRO memory ($350), and a Danger Den ($233) AMD cutom watercooling kit. For the price I mentioned you get the TDX waterblock (I have one their very good (url=http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&articID=201]my review[/url])) Black Ice Xtreme radiator, 2-chrome 120mm fans for push pull, Hydor L-35 pump, 7-feet of 1/2" tubing, and clear Bay reservoir!

Get the PCPower&Cooling TurboCool 510 Deluxe ($179), and a TTGI USA TT-203 case brushed aluminum, 5-fans here's my review comes with 5-80mm fans. And finally the Sapphire X800Pro only $350 right now, and I paid $445. With what you have left over, you get a refrub 21" Sony Trinitron CRT, and your killing everyone.
 
Get either (Good Intel i875 Board with P4C [overclock friendly stepping]) or Single/Dual Channel A64.

The high end A64's are over priced at the moment... socket 939, FX chips, 3800+.

It seems that Nvidia has the better chipset this round. A 6800np/GT or Ultra with nforce3 250 and a semi fast A64 will haul. Get ram with good timings for the chipset you do get. Quality Low latency pc3200/3500.

The x800 pro only has 12 pipes vs the 6800GT with 16. (same pricepoint)

Nvidia has a better feature set, more pipes... amazing heatsinks and water cooling possibilities.
 
I'd go with the P4 setup. a 4.1GHz processor will net you better performance then the athlon 64 in literally everything except games. I believe they overclock much better too, because from I've seen it's a bitch to get those A64's over 2.6GHz, no matter what you have.
 
bountyhunter said:
I'd go with the P4 setup. a 4.1GHz processor will net you better performance then the athlon 64 in literally everything except games. I believe they overclock much better too, because from I've seen it's a bitch to get those A64's over 2.6GHz, no matter what you have.
Click to expand...

so because the number doesnt get higher its worse?

:rolleyes:


get the A64. the number might not be as big but itll still kick the crap out of a processor that needs to be OCed (and therefor heavily cooled) to even keep up. plus Socket 478 is at the end of its life so if you ever want to possibly upgrade, definitly A64 Socket 939
 
aliens50 said:
Hey, I've been doing lots of research on the potential of the system I want to build. I have looked extensively at intel and only a little at AMD. I am aware that AMD builds better stocks than intel, but I believe I can accomplish a lot with a prescott overclocked. Basically, I am wondering about specifics like fsb/clock that I might be able to achieve with my water cooled system on an AMD system and wondering if it would be able to defeat my dream system. I will have money from loans come september and this is what I'm looking at:

Pentium System:
  • P4C800-E delux
  • P4 3.0 @ 275fsb for an OC of 4.125ghz (FSB would result in 1100)
  • Geil Ultra 4400 3-4-4-8
  • Enermax 600W PS
  • Asus x800pro

AMD System
  • Abit or Asus for 754 chipset??
  • Athlon64 (the 754 or 939?) 3000+, 3200+, or 3400+ ??
  • Geil Ultra 4400 3-4-4-8 (?)
  • Enermax 600w PS
  • Asus x800 pro

Oh yeah, and I can't decide whether to get a 300gb SATA or the 74gb Raptor. . . (I'm thinking about noise to performance ratio)

What FSB can I achieve with an athlon. I know that I can change the multiplier with certain Athlons, but I don't know what I can max out on (regarding fsb with 1:1 memory). I would choose the prescot because the Northwood cap(30 or 12) would decrease my chance of oc'ing the fsb to my 1:1 275. I know that with good cooling, I can get the prescot to where I want it. Here's what I'm planning on for the cooling:

The case I can't decide on, I'm thinking about the Lian Li PC-V1200 (a little bigger than the V1000) which I will mod a window to the case (I like to take risks). I would install either 2 BIX 120 or 1 BIX2 (another [H] task). I would have the Whitewater cpu triple nozzle WB and the maze4 NB waterblock and the swiftech pelt (mcw50-t) and possibly a hd cooler. I'm having trouble deciding on the pump because I could be running 4 blocks. . . I'm thinking of the swiftech or DD. I don't know.

I need as much advice as possible or places to look. I'm having a harder time finding overclock benches of the AMD systems than the Intel and I'm very confident about what I want to do with the intel system, but I would love to max out the potential of an AMD system if it would be worth it. I can't wait for september. Oh yeah, I'm also going to outfit my case with ColdC's, a 22" Mitsubishi/NEC monitor, and hopefully a matrix orbital 222.

Sorry for the long post, but I really need input, especially on AMD specs/bench possibilities.
Click to expand...

a 3.0e @ 4.125GHz is IMO probably out of your reach. Don't expect an overclock that high as you will probably be dissapointed, even with a water setup. With the same setup you can probably get atleast 2.5/2.6GHz out of a good a64, but this is just from what I have read around. I've never actually tried myself. it comes down to what you're going to be using your computer for mainly. mine is for primarily audio editing and encoding, with games as a second (but high second :p), so i went with a 2.8c, effectivily have it around 3.5GHz all day with full stabability. gl
 
I definatly want to face the challange of water setup and the overclocking is a must just because I want challanges. I would be using the computer primarily for gaming. I'm finding more and more articles about overclocking the athlon64, but I'm confident I can find a 30 cap 3.0c or a 3.0e that could attain such a high overclock. My next question is whether the 4.1 ghz p4 or an Athlon64 @2.6 (or higher) would perform better. It's hard to find an apples to apples comparison of overclocked systems. Usually, I see OC'd systems to stock and vice versa. Since I'm spending so much $BLING$ on this setup, I want to make sure that I'm not going to be dissapointed, but I am reading more and more about the athlons. There's also the issue of Motherboard. I really would like the nforce3 250 but we'll see. Thanks
 
pcsuplysource.com has the 3.0 sl6wk for 9 bucks more you can get a hand picked steping and pack date. all there intel cpu's are labeled g models but look at the cache thee one with 512 are what ya want. thou if you want gaming perofmance the athlon 64 @2.4 an d above will have a slight edge in gaming but everything else the p4 blows it away
 
[hard]420 said:
pcsuplysource.com has the 3.0 sl6wk for 9 bucks more you can get a hand picked steping and pack date. all there intel cpu's are labeled g models but look at the cache thee one with 512 are what ya want. thou if you want gaming perofmance the athlon 64 @2.4 an d above will have a slight edge in gaming but everything else the p4 blows it away
Click to expand...


not true AT ALL. some apps the P4 wins such as encoding movies and music. how often are you going to be encoding music and movies and do you REALLY have to get it done a few seconds quicker?
 
First of all, id go with an AMD system if its for gaming. The A64s really seem to work quite nicely. However, you said you'll have money in september, in that case, i wouldnt even look at hardware until then. So much might change in that time frame . 939 CPUs and their newer variants will be out, Nvidia is releasing the NV48 sometime around then, Doom3 and HL2 will have hit or be near retail, so we will see how the newer cards and cpus perform on those babies. And there will probably be a couple other changes I havent thought of, maybe a 2 PCI-X mobo for those nvidia sli cards. I think its just a little early to be looking at it right now considering the changes coming shortly.
 
I can only tell you based on experience. I've had/have the following parts over the last 10-months;
2.4C L310A735 clocked to 3.6GHz
2.4C Clocked to 3.5GHz
2.8C L323A832 clocked to 3.6GHz
3.0C clocked to 3.9GHz
3.0E SL79L clock's to 4010MHz

Abit IS7
Abit IC7
Abit AI7 (Second best even though it's a 865 chipset)
Epox EP4PCA3
Asus P4C800E-Deluxe (Best)

A64 3400 CAAOC
Chaintech ZNF3-250 (and this is a poor performing board. can't get past 235FSB with my 3400 no multipler access)

Sapphire X800Pro is the best card for the money bar none (IMO). It's hard modable, overclockable like crazy, and cheaper then some 5950 Ultra's, let alone 6800's!

Of these I enjoyed the Prescott the most, but the failure of motherboard maker's to modify Socket-478 motherboard power circuitry have cheated us all. The fact Prescott uses D-VID means your best overclocks will be achieved without touching the voltage. Most enthusiats's go into their BIOS and set everytrhing manually, even the Vcore. They never leave it on "Auto" or "Default" simply because they want to see the voltage matches Intel's spec's for their particular chip. Nothing could be worse for Prescott, which by design, requires it's voltage to fluctuate from 1.375V to 1.525V for normal operation. This most definately includes overclocking. Albeit a Prescott 2.8 or 3.4 ( Socket-478) that D-VID feature is looking to have access to an ever changing Vcore. Once Vcore is Manually set in the BIOS this cannot happen.

The reason I chose the FX53 is simply because I've found some of my best 3D performance, comes from my A64 3400 at deafult speeds. This is great given the fact I must raise the FSB on my Prescott to 240FSB (3.6GHz 600MHz OC) to get the same 3D performance in most cases. And of course any DDR1 memory currently on the market will hold better timings at 400MHz then at 480MHz. So that's hy I suggested Socket 939. It's simply the best performance you'll get, given it's nwer technology. Sure it's more costly. So is a new Porsche, compared to a used one.

motherboards were designed for the current demands of Pentium
 
kronchev said:
not true AT ALL. some apps the P4 wins such as encoding movies and music. how often are you going to be encoding music and movies and do you REALLY have to get it done a few seconds quicker?
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i was saying if your gming is not your main concern the p4 is the way to go. if you only care about gaming 64 athlon. no matter how fast i run my 64 athlons they chugg hard when multi taksing, hile the p4 with HT feels very snappy in windows under heavy multi tasking loads
 
[hard]420 said:
i was saying if your gming is not your main concern the p4 is the way to go. if you only care about gaming 64 athlon. no matter how fast i run my 64 athlons they chugg hard when multi taksing, hile the p4 with HT feels very snappy in windows under heavy multi tasking loads
Click to expand...


and i have a single XP-M that feels just as snappy as my friends 3.0 HT processor. this is with f@h, trillian, winamp playing, LCD being controlled, outlook open, firefox open, and a lot of other things going on.
 
Originally Posted by demingo
I think its just a little early to be looking at it right now considering the changes coming shortly.
Click to expand...
Yeah, good point. . . But, I'm sure I'm not the only techno-lust adicted user here (Hi, my name is Eric and I've been addicted for 8 years now. . .). Actually, I haven't been looking at parts or reading that many reviews the last few days because of that post. I've been spending a lot of time playing CS on my PII 400mhz, 256mb ram, Voodoo3 3000(nice when I bought it) hunk of crap* (at 7-25 fps [I'm still good nonetheless]). I'm finally going to be getting the extra $bling$ to do with as I want by golly :eek: .If I'm going to do something, I'm going to go all out (thats why I've waited so long).

I will be playing lots of games on this computer, but that's not going to be my life's work. I will also be writing code, burning dvds etc. , I think the best road would be with amd, except that if the 3.0e @ (a reasonable) 3.75ghz w/ 250fsb and ddr500, would that be comparable to the FX53 in game performance. Also, is anyone aware if chipsets are going to support both amd and pci-x (is it proprietary / mutually exclusive?)?

Originally Posted by tristam
TWO $1500 systems? eh? eh? its doable.
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Ah, well, what would I do with a second system. I was already thinking about using my huge-a** paperweight as a server. It would be easy to ease off all the features to allow a second system but I kinda want a kick-in-the-balls system that I can really be proud of.
 
By september the stuff thats too hard to find at a decent price now will be proliferant, 6800GT O/Cs for $400 like they shouldbe, etc. I wouldn't worry too much till then, except to say if you wanna game I'd go with A64, especially if you're overclocking. If you want best at stock then a 3.4EE LGA setup might be a bit better, except DDR2 is slow...

You want K8T800 Pro for either 754 or 939, think Asus is the main on you can find at newegg and such..

I'd stick with a 250gb hitachi SATA over either of what you mentioned, best seek time of any 7200rpm which helps the most ona typical gaming system, and nearly silent and cool to the touch for those departments, overall it pwns the raptors unless you just need the uberfast seek times.
 
I'd go the A64 route.

While they don't overclock as high as the P4s do in terms of Mhz, you get _alot_ more from overclocking a A64 200Mhz then you would from overclocking a P4 300Mhz. Bear in mind that they run alot cooler and you wouldn't need to run water (or far more likely to achieve the overclock you want with the P4, a TEC/phase change system) if you didn't want to. Honestly though with the budget you have you could easily buy a 3200 A64 based system and either a Vapochill PE or LS and do some serious overclocking.

The P4's tend to be better at video encoding but nothing earth shattering, HT is nice but unless you tend to have 100 or so IE, AIM, and BitTorrent windows open all at once you don't need it and certainly won't notice any lag with any A64 or for that matter even a AthlonXP 2500+.

The only reason to use Intel CPUs instead of AMD CPUs that makes _any_ sense at all is to use Intel's chipsets, however nVidia recently released the NF3-250 chipset and motherboards that use it are become plentiful and cheap already so I think even that is much of an argument anymore either.
 
since you are looking to drop 2.5-3k why not build a dual opti (with say 250's) or a dual xeon on the PC-dl or the DPI800 with 3.2ghz xeons?

the dual with XP will do just about everything you want as fast if not alot faster, then a single OPTI or Prescott system.
 
Hehehe if you're goint to talk about duals then the Opteron is _the_ performance king, not at all cheap though and you're overclocking options (which I think he did mention he wanted) are pretty limited if you go with a dual CPU system with either AMD or Intel.
 
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