News said:
Hi All,
I'm looking to get a new system together by the new year, and I'm debating
the AMD/Intel route.
Without getting into the Intel/AMD religious wars, it seems that the
overclocked Barton is close enough to performance of the overclocked P4C
that I think that I'm comfortable in saving the $100+ difference in CPU and
MB.
What I'm trying to find out is if I missed anything in the consideration of
costs that the P4C gets closer.
Actually, you can get a 2.6c now for cheaper than the 2.4c. I've used both
the 2500+ and the 2.4c, with the later being in my current system.
Concerning the motherboards, and as far as general features, they are both
comparable, but the sound on the NForce2, A7N8X Deluxe is by far better than
the sound on the P4P800 Deluxe. The Audio Processing Unit (APU) on the
NForce2 boards allows the audio system to behave independently of the rest
of the system. I've had a 2500/A7n8X Del combo nearly stopped with a stress
test of simultaneous processes, and there wasn't a single hiccup from the
audio. With the P4P800, you can hear seaking noises due to interfearance
from the HD's, his, and occasional clicks when going to or from full screen
mode in WMP. The S/N ratio seems a lot worse. So, if you are concerned
about the quality of the onboard sound, go with the Athlon system.
With that out of the way, general usage seems to favor neither board. While
I don't have the systems right next to each other, for a more objective
comparison, I do remember that the 2500 had a bit less delay when opening
programs and such. However, give the 2.4c more than a few seconds, and the
2500 is passed.
The 800mhz bus and significantly larger memory bandwidth of the modern Intel
platforms gives them a serious advantage. With most modern comparisons,
that I have seen, not one benchmark has favored the 2500 over the 2.4c or
2.6c. And while you can O/C most 2500's to 3000+, the 2.4c and 2.6c are
nearly as overclockable. I've had my 2.4c to 3 GHz, with the FSB running at
1000 MHz (250x4). I borrowed some PC4000, DDR500 HyperX modules from a
friend to test it at this speed with a 1:1 Ratio, and it was stable and
fast. Increasing the speed a small amount, from that point, produced
instability. You might not get either chip as high, as some have reported
lower ceilings.
The only thing that's a puzzle to me at the moment is RAM.
When considering RAM and AMD 400MHz FSB and Intel 800MHz FSB, do you use
the same RAM?
Yes. The RAM - PC3200/DDR400 - actually runs at 200MHz, as all DDR RAM is
double pumped. In addition, with the NForce boards, the FSB is double
pumped from 200Mhz and, with the Intel boards, the FSB is quad pumped from
200Mhz. You want, ideally, and especially with AMD boards, for the RAM to
run sychronously with the FSB. So, in either case DDR400 is the best bet if
you are not overclocking. Also, keep in mind that the XP 2500 runs at
333MHz (double pumped 166Mhz), so you only need to run the memory at 166MHz,
or use PC2700/DDR333 RAM, if you are running at stock speeds. However,
since you do plan to OC, get the fastest RAM you can comfortably afford, so
that you have headroom.
Can anyone show the math on how to calculate bandwidth used?
PC3200 looks like it's used for both, but what about spending money on low
latency RAM? Is it worth it?
I think so because you will typically need to relax the timings anyway when
OCing your RAM (if you don't get higher rated to begin with, although,
faster RAM rarely has the lowest timings). Also, the lower timings do
improve performance, especially again, with NForce2 boards. With 865 and
875 MB's, overclocking your system by only 3%, I have read, will make up for
suboptimal timings. It is always nice to get them as high as possible
though, but just change one thing at a time. Here is a nice quick-guide:
http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20030701/memory_tuning-10.html
The rest of the article is good too, but in future articles, THG reports
what I said above, that you shouldn't obsessively worry about your timings
with the modern Intel motherboards (865 and 875) because the faster memory
bandwidth and a slight overclock more than makes up for them.
What should I be looking for?
What's the "best"? What's the best bang/buck?
I'm looking at Asus (P4P800, A7N8X Deluxe) and DFI (865PE Infinity, NFII
Ultra Infinity) motherboards for either type of CPU, though the MSI 865PE
NEO2 has gotten my attention for it's "dynamic overclocking".
Any opinions on these?
All are good boards, though, in hindsight, I would have purchased the Abit
IS7 865 PE board, as it is only $99 and offers as many, if not more
features, total, than the P4P800. The A7N8X Deluxe is still a great board,
though Asus takes advantage of its popularity with an inflated price.
Overall, I think that even if the performance of both were nearly the same,
the upgradability of the 865/875 chipsets more than makes up for the cost
difference. Intel is releasing the Extreme Edition processors, which will
go all the way up to 3.6 GHz, *and* they will work with current chipsets.
The Athlon XP line is at the end of its road. How satisfied are you going
to be with a future upgrade if it barely outperforms your current, OCed
processor? I'd go with the Intel stuff and hold onto it until 64 bit
processing has matured.
Cheers,
Dave
