"Socket A" vs "Socket 478" (Amd vs Intel)

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Minstro

Just wanna know, i'm thinking of buying a new pc, but i wanna make it
last in time, so:

Which of these two sockets have a longer life expectance? i mean, i want
a motherboard wich will allow me in two years to give a "second youth" to my
system by upgrading the processor to it's best option (i mean, many
motherboards say, for example: "supported processors: intel IV 3.2 Ghz AND
ABOVE"; that "and above" sounds really confusing, as i don't know for how
long will socket 478 or socket A be running).

And another question: where i live, the pentium IV 2.8 Ghz almost
duplicates in cost the celeron 2.6 Ghz, and of course, as i'm not keen on
throwing money away, i wanna know if the celeron 2.6 Ghz could be used on a
Socket 478 motherboard (so i could save money and upgrade later when pentium
IV prices lowered).

Thanks in advance.
 
By the time you try to upgrade the CPU in a couple of years, the BIOS on the
board may not support the new CPU, even if the socket was still the same.
Also, since they keep lowering the voltage requirements for the CPUs, the
voltage regulator on your motherboard probably won't handle the new CPU.
What you could get is a faster CPU that is currently at a premium price
because it is the top of the line, but by then it probably won't be enough
faster to justify the expense. Just put the money toward a newer board and
CPU and you'll probably be happier.
 
Minstro said:
Just wanna know, i'm thinking of buying a new pc, but i wanna
make it last in time, so:

Which of these two sockets have a longer life expectance? i mean,
i want a motherboard wich will allow me in two years to give a
"second youth" to my system by upgrading the processor to it's best
option (i mean, many motherboards say, for example: "supported
processors: intel IV 3.2 Ghz AND ABOVE"; that "and above" sounds
really confusing, as i don't know for how long will socket 478 or
socket A be running).

And another question: where i live, the pentium IV 2.8 Ghz almost
duplicates in cost the celeron 2.6 Ghz, and of course, as i'm not
keen on throwing money away, i wanna know if the celeron 2.6 Ghz
could be used on a Socket 478 motherboard (so i could save money and
upgrade later when pentium IV prices lowered).
Click to expand...


As Alien Zord points out, both Socket A and Socket 478 are nearing the end
of their lifespans. Purchasing a good motherboard and model 2600+ Barton
core Athlon XP is a very cost effective solution. If you prefer Intel,
choose a P4 over the Celeron, even if the P4 is slower. The Celeron is a
neutered P4 which Intel really should drop from production.
 
The processors made by Intel almost all work on the P4 Socket 478.
There were not many of the other Socket 423 P4's made. You probably
would have a hard time finding any.

Celerons designed for the P4 should do fine on any P4 Socket 478
motherboard. I would not buy any of the celerons myself. An AMD
1.6Gig Duron is faster than a 2.6Gig celeron when playing games.
Before I would buy a Celeron I definitely would suggest using an AMD
Athlon.

If you are willing to spend over $150 for a processor, an 800Mhz P4
processor is probably a good buy. I wouldnt buy anything too
expensive much over $200 for a processor is probably too much. I
would not suggest spending $300 or $400 for a processor. The Prescott
will soon go to the next socket, and soon the Athlon 64s will be
dropping down to about the $120 level.

2 years from now I would expect a 4 Gig processor of some kind. Who
knows what will be available then.
 
Must confess i'm a bit confused; sure i think i'll take the Athlon XP
2600+ option, but, how many cores are available besides Barton for that
model? why should i take Barton core? which are it's advantages? (up to now,
i hadn't worried about cores; mean don't know nothing about them).

Thanks for all the answers, they've been of great help.
 
Minstro said:
Must confess i'm a bit confused; sure i think i'll take the
Athlon XP 2600+ option, but, how many cores are available besides
Barton for that model? why should i take Barton core? which are it's
advantages? (up to now, i hadn't worried about cores; mean don't know
nothing about them).
Click to expand...


The Barton Model 10 core Athlon XP has 512KB of L2 cache, which is twice the
L2 cache of the Thoroughbred core Model 8. To the end user, this means
better performance in some, but not all tasks.

AMD document #26237 gives all of the Barton specs:
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_3734_3748,00.html

I suggested the 2600+ retail model in the interest of economy. A motherboard
using the Nforce2 Ultra400 chipset will maximize performance. Abit, Asus,
and Gigabyte all make fine boards.
 
What about QDI Kudoz 7X series for a motherboard?

AMD nForce2 ULTRA AN7 (uGuru) costs ................. 120 euros.
AMD VIAKT400A KUDOZ 7X/400A-6AL costs ...... 66 euros.
AMD VIAKT400A KUDOZ 7X/600A-6AL costs ...... 69 euros.

Is it worth paying the double?
 
Minstro said:
What about QDI Kudoz 7X series for a motherboard?

AMD nForce2 ULTRA AN7 (uGuru) costs ................. 120 euros.
AMD VIAKT400A KUDOZ 7X/400A-6AL costs ...... 66 euros.
AMD VIAKT600A KUDOZ 7X/600A-6AL costs ...... 69 euros.

Is it worth paying the double?
Click to expand...


For my needs and wants, yes. That's a question you will have to answer for
yourself. The VIA KT400/KT600 boards will certainly support the AMD Barton.
The KUDOZ 7X/600A-6AL is the better of the two QDI boards.
 
What kind of needs? i plan buying it for games and video mainly, running
multiple tasks simultaneously (i.e. running a game while listening winamp
music and using P2P sofware), and some video compression processing;
situations where the system gets stressed the most; if it can handle this, i
suppose it will anything else.

I've been searching the web, and what i found is that "AMD nForce2
ULTRA AN7 (uGuru)" supports dual channel DRR memory (just couldn't find out
if KUDOZ can). Besides that, didn't find anything significant, though of
course, i'm not an expert. What are its advantages?

On the other hand, dual channel DDR memory is still quite expensive, so
i would buy nomal memory and upgrade in the future, in case i chose nForce2
ULTRA.
 
I've just read this from tomshardware, september last year:

"Buyers enticed by dual channel DRAM should note one crucial thing: in
theory, a dual-channel memory link does not bring any benefits since the
data rate is limited by the FSB bus's bandwidth. It's fixed at a maximum 200
MHz (Athlon XP 3200+) to give a bandwidth of 3.2 GB/s. Even using fast dual
DDR400 memory with an access time of 6.4 GB/s has no effect on the Front
Side Bus bottleneck of 3.2 GB/s. With that in mind, it's really not so
inappropriate to question dual-channel memory technology on the Socket A
platform."

should i suppose ain't worth paying for dual channel DDR? seems so...
 
Minstro said:
I've just read this from tomshardware, september last year:

"Buyers enticed by dual channel DRAM should note one crucial
thing: in theory, a dual-channel memory link does not bring any
benefits since the data rate is limited by the FSB bus's bandwidth.
It's fixed at a maximum 200 MHz (Athlon XP 3200+) to give a bandwidth
of 3.2 GB/s. Even using fast dual DDR400 memory with an access time
of 6.4 GB/s has no effect on the Front Side Bus bottleneck of 3.2
GB/s. With that in mind, it's really not so inappropriate to question
dual-channel memory technology on the Socket A platform."

should i suppose ain't worth paying for dual channel DDR? seems
so...
Click to expand...

Given a Nforce2 Ultra 400 based motherboard, using 2x256MB modules compared
to 1x512MB module gives a memory bandwidth improvement of <2%. This is not a
good reason to choose the Nforce2 chipset. Overclocking is the main reason I
prefer the NF2. Stability is another. This is not to say VIA or SiS chipsets
for Socket A are a poor choice. Asrock produces economical motherboards
based on VIA and SiS chipsets which offer good overall performance. These
are certainly worth a look.
 
Minstro said:
What about QDI Kudoz 7X series for a motherboard?

AMD nForce2 ULTRA AN7 (uGuru) costs ................. 120 euros.
AMD VIAKT400A KUDOZ 7X/400A-6AL costs ...... 66 euros.
AMD VIAKT400A KUDOZ 7X/600A-6AL costs ...... 69 euros.

Is it worth paying the double?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't use a Via board if you gave it to me. That isn't blind prejudice,
it's from years of experience and having used a few. (Although, must admit,
I haven't used a recent chipset one. Why would I? I've had nothing but
trouble with them in the past and, if I've got them stable then I find they
are slow).

I use and strongly recommend the Soltek SL-75FRN2-L nForce2 Ultra 400 mobo.
No fancy SATA, firewire or RAID, just a cheap, fast, very reliable and
overclocker-friendly motherboard. I've built five systems using this board
and haven't a had a problem yet. Plus, it runs my XP1800+ at 200Mhz x 10.5
for 2.1Ghz, dual channel for that extra 3-5% memory bandwidth. And that's
not using fancy dual channel kits, just two modules of inexpensive PC3200
RAM of the same brand bought at the same time.

My 2c.
 
Minstro said:
Must confess i'm a bit confused; sure i think i'll take the
Athlon XP 2600+ option, but, how many cores are available besides
Barton for that model? why should i take Barton core? which are it's
advantages? (up to now, i hadn't worried about cores; mean don't know
nothing about them).

Thanks for all the answers, they've been of great help.
Click to expand...

There have been four XP2600+ core Athlon XPs made. (To the best of my
knowledge) The first ran on a 133Mhz FSB and was only produced in limited
numbers, the second ran on a 166Mhz FSB. These were both Tbred B core CPUs
with 256KB L2 cache and were multipier-unlocked. Now there is the Barton
2600+ with 512KB L2 cache and the Thornton 2600+ with 256KB L2 cache. Both
are multiplier-locked although there may have been a few early Bartons that
weren't.

I wouldn't buy any of them, unless I had a board that was limited to 133Mhz
FSB and could get my hands on a 133 model (next to impossible). I would get
an XP2500+ and put it in an nForce board with PC3200 RAM and run it at
200Mhz FSB for XP3200+ speed. The extra L2 cache is equivalent to another
200Mhz speed as far as performance goes. (In my opinion/experience,
depending on use). The 2500 model has a far greater chance of running on a
200Mhz FSB, virtually guaranteed, whereas, with the 2600 with it's higher
multiplier, there is a chance it won't do it. If you're not OC'ing then go
with whatever is the fastest Barton you can afford.
 
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