Which one would be better?

[Drakon]

A friend of mine is thinking on buying a new computer and asked me to check things out so I was wondering which of the following Intel or AMD based computers you would choose:

Intel:
An Asus P4P800-VM I865G
Pentium 4 Northwood 2,8c HT 800mhz fsb

or

AMD:
EPoX EP-8RDA +rev 2.1 Nforce2 Ultra 400
Athlon XP 3000+ Barton 400mhz fsb

Both would have:

Kingston 512 DDR pc3200 400 mhz
Hitachi Deskstar 120gb 8mb 7200rps
Club 3d Radeon 9600 pro 128mb
and some other stuff not worth listing...

The AMD is actually more expensive, with the fans included.

But like I mentioned earlier. Which one would you choose? Or perhaps if you wouldn't choose neither, then what (within the same price range).

/D

[Droppyale]

The p4 for sure....

you will not be able to take advantage of the ram speed on the amd system

[Drakon]

you will not be able to take advantage of the ram speed on the amd system

Why not?

[Starfury_2260]

good question cause the amd cpu would be at 400mhz which is the "limit" for pc3200

[munkeyboy123]

well u might be able to it depends on the board, and also the processor because i have a 2500+ and i wanted pc3200 ram but i culdnt use it cuz my fbs as only 333mhz and the ram is 400mhz, i couldve but it would only work at 333mhz. now i would go with the amd cuz it would prove to be much faster in most areas but thats what i would go for.u should probably be able to use pc3200 ram. because if ur mobo can support a cpu at 400mhz fbs then it should also be able to support theram at the same speeds

[EndobioticChaos]

Well I think if your price for the AMD is coming up more expensive, you're shopping at the wrong place. I just checked some prices at Newegg, and here's what I found:

P4 2.8C Retail processor, $217
Asus P4P-800 Deluxe motherboard, $124.99


Athlon XP Barton 300+ Retail, $205
Epox EP-8RDA3+, $91 (this board is better than the one you mentioned)

That's a price difference of about $55. And you don't need any more additional fans with the AMD setup than you need with the Intel setup. You should have at least 2 case fans for either setup.

[Darthgary]

I would go with the 2.8C in a heartbeat. Its faster, and you can OC it better.

[jmichna]

Before you decide which way to go, what types of things are your friend going to run on his PC? Video editing and (some types of) multimedia will run better on the P4, while many games and just about all business apps will run better on the Athlon system.

BTW, for you guys talking about the merits of "800mHz" vs 400mHz memory bus speeds, both P4 and AMD run on a 200mHz bus, the P4 is "quad-pumped" hence "800mHz, while the AMD is "DDR" (double data rate), hence "400mHz." "Quad-pumped" and "DDR" are marketing propoganda terminology.

The Barton 3000+ is available in both "333mHz" (166) and "400mHz" (200) bus flavors.

Memory speed alone is a poor single reason to pick which system to build/purchase. Many other factors affect overall performance.

[Darthgary]

Many factors do contribute to performance, if your talking about clock cycle per second, that alone is not a measurement of performance. The P4 2.8C has a 800 Mhz FSB and Barton 3000+ has a 400 Mhz FSB, while the Athlon XP 3000+ may be very efficient, the 2.8C has to much clock speed and to much bus speed for the 3000+ to compete with and imo will utilize the DDR 400 memory much better because the P4 is quad pumped. I dont want to turn this into a AMD vs. Intel war, I am just giving my non biast opinion.

http://www17.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030623/index.html

While the Athlon XP is not the fastest, the best bang for your buck CPU is the 2500+ which is what I would buy if I was in your shoes, then OC to 3200+ with a good HSF.

[slinky]

2.8C. Even if the AMD was $100 cheaper i wouldn't take it. The difference in performance is just too great.