AMD Athlon XP or Intel Pentium 4 for games? VideoCard Q too.

but semprons are cheapier too, A sempron sp 2800 cost 50 less than an athlon xp 2800. why?

 

I have the K8 Triton Motherboard by Gigabyte Technologies, which is designed for the Athlon64 processor. No problem with it, at least yet.

Get that one, it was cheap also.

It's a taiwanese brand.

 

Semprons aren't as good as the regular XP cpus because they have a much lower instruction set than the XP line. In other words, its equivalent to an INtel Celeron CPU but made by AMD, so it won't do you any good if you buy one and expect it to run most of todays games at high framerate. I suggest you buy at least a 2500XP, but if you can afford a 2800XP go for it, just don't get Sempron.

 

Yeah, Semprons = Celerons which =uber shite for pretty much everything asides from basic wordprocessing, internet, etc. even with a decent grahics card, memory etc.

 

AMD don't make the XP any more. They make the Sempron as the fill-in chip, before 64 bit computing really takes off.

Take a look at this, from www.overclockers.co.uk:

AMD Athlon "Barton" XP2800+ 333FSB (Socket A) CPU - OEM
OUT OF STOCK
Price: £62.50 (£73.44 Including VAT at 17.5%)

AMD Athlon 64 2800 Newcastle 130nm (Socket 754) - OEM
IN STOCK
Price: £65.95 (£77.49 Including VAT at 17.5%)

This shows that the last of the XP processors they did (the 2800+ being the cheapest they list) was nearly the same price as the entry level Athlon 64.

If you can't afford an Athlon 64 now, WAIT.

There are several reasons for this.

1. You want a gaming PC. If you can't afford top spec, you won't have a top spec machine. You already have a top spec console.

2. The 64 bit technology is in early stages, and software isn't really released properly for it yet.

3. The architecture of the boards is still in development. AMD have been experimenting with different sockets. PCI Express and 64 bit PCI slots are coming out. Wait for this technology to settle.... you don't want a BetaMax motherboard!!!

Basically, it is always best to wait when there are several huge changes coming at once. If you buy anything now, it is likely to be AGP. Soon, AGP will be limited in what it can do. Your PC won't be so upgradeable. You already know what chip you can put on a Socket A board, it has reached the max. Unless you can go for a 64 bit processor, and know that at least the CPU, RAM and drives are going to be reuseable when things progress, hold off. Wait to see what technology wins, and wait until the price drops a little more.

Be content with your PC doing what it does (Internet etc, basic gaming), and go play XBox or whatever for games! :smt023

 

Yup, until 64 bit computing takes off, and you realise you need PCI Express and 64 bit PCI slots (or possibly another replacement architecture) to upgrade your machine, and you start swearing.

Our shop stopped selling Gigabyte boards for a good reason. Talking of which, anyone want to buy a sculpture made out of dead Gigabyte boards?

 

Sorry, didn't know the Semprons were actually different to the XPs! Though it is true that they are the replacement, so there's not gonna be any more XPs!

And don't knock Gigabyte! My 6VX7-4X is one of the best damn PIII boards there is (or should I say "was"), and it's still going strong after nearly 4 years without any hassle. Pfff, who needs FireWire, or USB2... or ATA 100/133... or AGP 8x... or speed...

 

I think I have that same board Zilog

I like Gigabytes as well, Abits are way overrated.

IMO, If you're buying a AMD, buy a Nvidia chipset!

 

Zilog, they made great Pentium - P3 boards ;-) Then they went a bit sucky. And don't get me started on their northbridge fans, they WILL fail!

Oh Abit, they're worse than Gigabyte! I like ASUS myself. LanParty boards have proved pretty good, too.

 

I wish there were some motherboards not made in Taiwan.

 

Taiwan can't be beat when it comes to PC hardware! That country's electronics have greatly improved over the years, and they're definately on par, if not better than Korea these days - kinda like Japanese electronics in the 70's - you'd kinda trust them... but only the good companies.

And retro - I must have bought a Gigabyte at a good time then, i.e. before Northbridges needed fans! :-D

 

There are some motherboards made in England ;-) Some are for the medical industry.

Oh and there's Optronix, who make them in China haha.

 

Uh-oh, I just referred to Taiwan as a "country"! Hope there's no one from China here... *runs away*

 

Oh, and you might be forgetting that small American company, Intel. (although I don't know if they manufacture in the US).

Oh, there's AMI too. AKA American Megatrends.

 

Yeah I know about Intel - they do manufacture in the US, but also in Leixlip, Co. Kildare, Ireland (yay!). I can't remember which ones they make here exactly - I think P4's and Xeons are - not sure about Centrino/Pentium-Ms. And there's AMD who manufacture in the US and Germany. But besides CPU, GPU, hard disk and BIOS manufacturers, pretty much everything else in a PC is made in Taiwan, or to a lesser extent Korea and China.

 

Taiwan is the place to be as of now. The only other company i know of that makes PC hardware is PC CHips and they are based in China I think. Their hardware is cheap and so far reliable.

 

I spit that out as a forinstance; if America or Japan made motherboards, we'd surely have some more expensive but higher quality alternative to the big 5 Taiwanese factories. We operate at higher ISO standards.

 

Well I don't know aobut you but I like my epox and chaintech mobo, both made in Taiwan.

 

Actually, Intel sell motherboards. This place seems to sell loads of them, but I haven't really seen them anywhere else. And there's still the question of whether Intel actually do make them, or they get some place (probably in Taiwain) to make them for Intel...

 

There are many good things about Taiwanese boards, and I'm happy with them for the most part, but if 99% of everything wasn't made in TW, perhaps life would be even better.