Buying/Building new PC and Im a bit out of touch with Modern Home/Gaming setups. I know we have a few hardcore PC experts here, so......

 

Which processor....I am on a budget, so is it worth paying more ?

 

AMD Athlon 64

AMD Sempron 64

 

or

 

Intel Pentium 4

 

How do they compare , performance vs price ?

 

Also

 

996 or 754 AMD Socket ?

775 or 478 Intel Socket ?

i've gon for the amd 64bit 4000 processor not finished building it yet but will let you know how i got on

Athlon64 is the best desktop cpu, and you want a socket 939 one.

 

Pentium 4's days are over, even the MUCH lower clocking Pentium M chips can outperform the extreme edition p4's. Incidentally, the pentium M chips can also outperform the A64's in some cases, but it can be a bit of hassle to get one working in a desktop pc.

Dual Xeon with hyper-threading ....

imho ,,, it depends on how much of a budget you have , tbh honest i wouldnt touch a sempron with a 20 ft barge pole , the old athlon xp 2600-3000 barton chips are faster and out perform the new sempron range

 

If you dont beleive me look on ebay i just payed 57 pounds for a chip they made in 2001 because its faster than a sempron , but motherboards are more advanced than the ones these cpus run on so better to buy new !

 

Its worth the extra pennies to go athlon 64 . or get a p4 478 is still good, mine has p4 478 800mhzfsb hyperthreading tech with agp and on 3d benchmark only scored 200 less than a athlon 64 3000,, but it had a pci e graphics port which is far superior to agp , it only had a 70 pound brand new graphics card init ,

 

mine cost £327 2 years ago but is an agp card , old tech , go to .. http://www.overclockers.co.uk

 

 

get good price also theres pc fairs save loads , i bought a

 

1. gigabyte k8n slli motherboard

2, kingston memeory ddr400 2x512k lifetime warranty

3, amd athlon 64 3000 socket 939

4 ez cool 550w power supply ,, " damb its qiute "

5 160 gig sata hardrive "thats the 3gb/s 16mb cache

6. with cpu cooler

 

all the above for 315 ,,al brand new in box with warrantys and reciepts if you need a link will give you link to next pc fair .

 

 

also above motherboard allows you to use the sli to hook up two of these graphics cards ,,,serious power and gaming ,

if you need any more help bud with info add me to msn bud will talk you through it ive bin building pcs for years and no whats good and bad at the moment , ps will point you in direction you wish to go in , i wont sell you anything free good advice!!!

AMD 64 is the best bet. And with Quake Wars Enemy Territory supporting dual cores, multi threading the AMD 64 X2 is what i am getting in the next several months when i upgrade my P4 based games PC.

 

Intel Xeons are poor compared to AMD Opterons :tongue:

Kingston ram sucks....dont buy it!!! I made that mistake.

It's not the RAM that sucks - it's the combination of parts (memory, motherboard, etc) which determines whether some memory works better than others.

Dual Xeon with hyper-threading ....

 

Agreed .. with 2 gig of corsair memory :bow:

When I was overclocking, that Kingston ram cant hold close timings so it held me back. I know matey probably doesnt wanna do that anyway, I just think it sucks.

Cosair is much better I feel.

Go for a Pentium4 with an Asus motherboard cant remember the model number of mine but it was all the rage 8 months ago .. when custom pc done a Beat the office computer .. which was well high spec .. most of us with the above beat it hands down and from previous experience the P4 runs cooler than the 64 .. so less noise from fans etc and if you are into music editing etc and photowork they out perform the 64 from what ive read..

When I was overclocking, that Kingston ram cant hold close timings so it held me back. I know matey probably doesnt wanna do that anyway, I just think it sucks.

Cosair is much better I feel.

 

 

your info is correct , but like legrath said hes not looking at spending silly money otherwise id advise him to buy corsair i have 2 gig of it my self cost of 205 pounds , where as 1 gig of kingston runs fine for what he wants and can be upgraded at anytime if he wants to overclock , !!

If you are into over clocking then the AMD64 Opteron 2GHz is a very good cpu. Has 1mb of cache and can be over clocked to 2.6GHz no problem, has the same archetecture as the AMD FX cpu and cost less than half the price.

Amd 64 duel core baby socket 939:) i have this setup it rocks

amd 64 duel core 3800

2x wd raptor 10k in raid 0

1 gig geil ram 1k timing

msi k8n diamond

bfg geforce 7800 gt

thermaltake shark case

thermaltake big water water cooler

thermaltake purepower 560 watt psu

thermaltake drinks holder with 12v lighter:)

2x lg supermulti dvdrw

coolermaster gauges

thermaltake active ram cooler

and some other stuff i cant remember lol

hi jim hows the work going on the zed ,, fitted the momo yet?

hi jim hows the work going on the zed ,, fitted the momo yet?

Hi steve yes mate its been fitted ;) the button on it sticks a little needs a bit of modding how are you bud?

Oh forgot to add ive got those mats sitting here but the camera on my phone has packed up soon as I can ill get a pic of them up for ya bud;)