[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Anything wrong with Athlon? (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 6/6/2004 12:04:43 PM EDT
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Best Buy has an HP with all the stuff I want (dvd burner, memory card reader, 512 megs ram, etc.) for under $700, but it has an Athlon. Anything wrong with it? When would you need a Pentium over an Athlon? When would you notice the difference? Oh, and how the hell do you read their numbers to compare to a Pentium? |
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Athlons are overclockers' choice. tech-report.com/reviews/2004q1/athlonxp-m-2500/index.x?pg=1 My laptop has the Athlon XP-M 2500. They use the same mobile processor on desktops too. |
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Absolutely, go for the Athlon. I've used them since '97 and have yet to have any problems. AMD has been kicking the sh*t out of Intel as of late, with their A64 line. Roughly speaking, if it's an AMD XP xxxx you can say that the number is equivalent to an Intel of the same clock speed. Example: AMD XP 2700 is roughly the same as an Intel Pentium running at 2.7ghz. This is not an absolute comparison - the Intels run some software better than AMDs and vice versa. But if you are doing gaming, the Net, etc, you won't be able to tell a difference, IMHO. If the system you are looking at is an A64, things change, but I doubt you are, for a sub-$700 system. |
I also found there louder then pentiums not by much but its noticble. |
| Just installed a Athlon 2600 Barton core yesterday to replace my Athlon 2100, big difference in speed gaming wise. I got the retail 2600 (includes heatsink and fan) for $90 from Newegg.com, it arrived 2 days after I ordered! The stock heatsink and fan work very well! |
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get it. Last 4 computers I have built used the AMD. My laptop I bought has the AMD, NEVER had the first problem with them. And if AMD wasn't around, we would still be paying $400/chip for a 486. TXL to answer your 2nd question, the posted speed of the AMD is a comparison to the pentium. An AMD at 2500mhz is really running at about 2100mhz, it just does as many computations as the pentium does at 2500. NOthing to worry about at all. I personally have the hp pavilion you are talking about (mine is the amd2200, I upgraded to the wireless g and 512mb). After you get it, go to the hp site, they have some great support forums. (The support comes from other users, not hp) TXL |
| My high school age children built this computer that I'm using now. They selected an AMD Athlon 2100 CPU with the factory fan. The retail version of this CPU has a factory fan which is very loud but it includes a 3 year warranty and is $10 more than the fanless OEM version. If you buy the OEM version there is no CPU fan, and it comes with a 1 year warranty. A good quiet fan will cost you $30-$50 depending on fan mfg'r company. Of couse all of the Intels come with no fan, so you're going to have to include an additional $30-$50 for a fan into the price of the CPU. So far so good we have had zero problems with the CPU, which is over a year old. The AMD Athlon 2100 is no longer being sold by AMD. The lowest model of Athlon is probably the 2500. |
An athlon 2600+ is equivalent to a 2.6ghz pentium 4 cpu. AMD doesn't rate their processors by clock speed anymore. There's good reason. While the 2600+ runs at about 1.8ghz (iirc), it performs more work per cycle than than a pentium running at the same speed. Which means it gets more work done in the same amount of time. For example: Imagine you had a worker that could carry two one gallon buckets of water from point a to point b 2600 times a day. Net result: 5200 gallons of water moved. Another worker comes along trying to take the other guy's job. He can only go from point a to point b 1800 times a day, but he carries two 1.5 gallon buckets of water at a time. Net result: 5400 gallons of water moved a day. Plus the new worker will do more work for 25% less. |
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I bought a Compaq R3120US, it has a AMD 3000+ 64 bit for notebooks. I like it. What model is the HP you are looking at?
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Yep. I have two 2500+ Athlons that I have overclocked to 2800+ Been using AMD since the K6 200 though I made a brief return to Intel with the Celeron 300 which overclocked to 450. Honestly I see no benefit to Intel over AMD at any price point. |
It all depends on the motherboard, is it the same socket? also newer mobos will run the same chip faster because of higher bus speeds are available now 400+ mhz!! while if you put that xp2500 in your old mobo you may only be able to reach 166 or 200 mhz. Mobos are cheap too, $100 for a great mobo is a very effective upgrade. |
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A HP's numbers are going to suck, regardless of the processor... This applies to ANY NATIONAL PC COMPANY!! Remember DaBunny's comment about the video processor? Well on a major brand, especially a sub-$1k major brand, you're for-sure gonna get a crappy video system... And this WILL matter for DVD purposes... Don't buy a PC from Worst Buy or any other APPLIANCE store... It's a computer, not an appliance... It's like shopping for a car at the corner gas station... They may sell them, but you'll never find a good one... Buy it from a computer store. And by 'Computer Store' I mean one that actually puts the computers together on the premises, or at least in the same city... In a GOOD system, built by someone who actually knows what they're doing, a P4 & an Athlon are gonna be very comparable... |
I keep hearing this, but I never find it to be the case. By the time I pay for all the whiz-bang computer dork parts like the mach 12 graphics card and the 12.1 channel sound card, it's a $2k machine, without monitor or keyboard. I want to get on the internet, use photoshop to work with digital pics I take, and archive my pics and mp3s. That's it. I don't need a $2k machine to do that. No games, no digital video, no building webpages, just internet, pics & music. All I expect from the machine is that it not shit the bed a year after I bought it, and that it does the things I ask of it with little hassle. All I need is a Glock, and you're suggesting I buy a Wilson. Find me a machine for $700 that has a DVD burner, onboard memory card reader, and 512 megs of ram built by a local or some other custom shop and I'll jump right on it. |
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do you have any friends that can build you a machine? You could get more than enough computer to do what you need, WITH a burner, for $700 easy, if someone could build it for ya. If you find a local place, just don't get the latest processor, and don't get the latest badass video card. Everything else will be pretty cheap. If you're gonna do ANY photoshop work, make sure you get a stand alone graphics card that can do the job...a lot of those HP systems use shared video memory...that won't cut it for loading and editing pix. You may have to do a little research...it's like building an AR...but you just need a basic rifle, not a Knight's SPR. Here's a few suggestions: Athlon Barton 2500 $90 nForce2 motherboard $50 (has built in sound/lan) 512K ram $60 Radeon 9600 Pro $135 (128mb ram) Sony or Pioneer burner $100 New Case and P/S $100 (get a nice case with a decent 500w power supply) 200GB Hard Drive $100 I'm at $650 now...and this machine will smoke for what you need it for, with storage space up the ass for all your photos. You could easily shave $30 off the case, and still get something cool. I'm sure others here could come up with 1000 different designs for what you need, so it's easily doable if you have a buddy who can build systems. |