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Building across the board |
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Christopher
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-02
Posts 8296Purgatorial Incarceration 
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Another curiosity question - I'm planning on building a new computer here in the not-too-distant future. What I'm curious about - is the difference/pros&cons of Pentium vs. the others - ie: AMD, etc? I've heard that AMD is terrible, and Pentium is the only way to go. On the other hand, I've heard the only difference (which I have a tendancy to doubt) between the two, is that you can't upgrade an AMD chip, whereas you can piggyback the Pentium processor... *shrug* No clue, so I figured this might be a good place to ask. The AMD chips are MUCh cheaper, and that's another thing that has me wondering too... C ps - Can you believe they have a 1.4G processor chip out now!?!?!?!?! |
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Ron
Administrator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-05-19
Posts 8669Michigan, US |
Did you say 1.4 GHz, Chris? Don't tell me you're traveling the middle of the road these days?  The new Pentium 4 comes in three speeds: 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5 GHz, with a 400 MHz system bus and the new (very fast, VERY expensive) RDRAM. I bought one (the 1.3) for my birthday. It screams! As for your AMD question, I did a lot of investigation when I was shopping for Athena. Software compatibility is near perfect, and pound for pound (or MHz for MHz) the AMD is significantly faster than the Intel. It is not as upgradable, as you indicated, nor does it support SMP (dual processors). The biggest problem, however, and the reason I went with Intel, is memory. According to my sources (who build hundreds of PC servers a year), the AMD motherboard sporadically chokes if you go over 512 Meg. For a personal system, that's rarely an issue, but for a server (either web or LAN) it can be big issue. |
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Christopher
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-02
Posts 8296Purgatorial Incarceration |
*shaking head* And likely by this time they're up to 1.6G! Well! Considering the likelihood of my attaining that much RAM (much less USING it) runs close to the odds that gas will be affordable this summer - I think AMD sounds like a good way to go - Speed and price being among the major factors. One of the biggest reasons I asked, was because I'm always wary of people who say the "other guy" sucks, because they like guy #1. You know, like all those die-hard IE users and their views on Netscape!  C [This message has been edited by Christopher (edited 02-26-2001).] |
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