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**ayoub_ibrahim** · 27 October 2001, 13:32

the athlon would whip the p4 easily in terms of performance.
would actually suggest you go for an AMD XP 1600(= 1.4GHz) or XP 1700(=1.47GHz) which has the Palomino Core & get
an Epox 8KHA m/board which has the via kt266A chipset!

**Wombat** · 27 October 2001, 13:55

Whatever you get, I really think you should go for the full gig of RAM. Everything you're doing will eat memory for breakfast.

Which leads to bandwidth: The 845 can't really help you with SDR. RDRAM is high-bandwidth, high-latency. But a KT266<B>A</B> or Maybe even SiS board would help lots, and give you the Athlon's nice FPU performance.

**The Rock** · 27 October 2001, 17:26

From every benchmark I've read, the P4 crushes the Athlon in every content-creation prog there is (i.e. any Adobe product). Adobe is quick to to tweak their progs to take advantage of SSE/MMX/etc. If thats your primary use, I suggest the over-priced P4, but make sure you get an i850 board. The 845 is JUNK.

Bart

**cbman** · 28 October 2001, 08:44

I agree with The Rock.

If you do go for the P4 Stay away from the 845... Cutting down from RDRAM to SDRAM is taking away the one big advantage the P4 has over the AMD..

But if you really want to do content creation you should go for one of the New Apple G4's, According to my friend Steve they kick ass.... are way faster than even the super computers of today and have an OS that is starting to head towards Unix Territory... and everyone knows that Unix is where its at.

Oh. That last paragraph is supposed to be funny.

**Grail** · 28 October 2001, 12:53

Why not go VIA P4X266? P4 performance with DDR bandwidth.

There is Soltek SL-85DRV if you are interested. Msg me if you need help finding it.

AMD is a good option, but I have found soo many AVERAGE computer users who have a hard time getting AMD systems working properly for them. If you are a tinkerer and don't mind fixing up the occasional glitch/incompatibility/AGP problem, then go for the best Bang-per-Buck AMD system you can find.

**Wombat** · 28 October 2001, 13:50

I, for one, wouldn't trust Via to make a P4 chipset. I don't think intel even licensed it, which means Via didn't get any help building it.

**dizzynoodle** · 28 October 2001, 15:37

teez11

Hey all,

I'm getting even more torn... price is not the only factor... i can't afford the P4 1.8, so let's keep that out of the question....

I thought i would go AMD since the TBird 1.4 compared to the P4 1.8 somwhat... and even kicked butt in many reviews... Stability is important for me, i'ma tinkerer at setup time, but i hate keeping the cover off this new machine as it is a solid editing station, so no playing around on this one.

I thought i would go this combo....

TBird 1.4 /266
GigabyteGA-7DXR or Asus A7M266
512MB DDR Ram
40GB Maxtor 7200RPM
80GB Maxtor D740X 7200RPM Video

whatcha think ?

Alternatevily... i could wait a few days for the P4 prices to come down as expected and go for an Asus P4 1.4 rig with 512 RDRAM [which i'm finding hard to justify the price for - the ram that is!]

**isochar** · 28 October 2001, 18:07

The A7M266 is a good choice, although support for the chipset will dwindle now that it is discontinued. (Not like AMD supports it much in the first place)

**Ali** · 28 October 2001, 18:57

I have that gigabyte motherboard, and its Ok. It does have problems with its voltages, you cant always rely on it to give the CPU what you tell it to.

The on board Raid is good, and there is a hacked BIOS to change it into a full version of the Promise controller.

The Dual Bios means if you make a mistake with a bios flash, you just boot of the spare, which I like.

If you arnt into the best of the best, the onboard sound is also quite good. I took my SB Live out, and the onboad is almost as good, but without all the headaches.

The Athlons do run hot though, so make sure you have a good case with enough air flow.

Unless you can get one of the new P4s I would stay away for now. Intel has changed their pin count again, and you might end up with no up-grade path if you arnt carefull.

I would say the P4 would be a better bet for what you are doing, but a 1.4 gig Athlon does me quite well, and I dont have any stability issues (now that Ive gone to watercooling).

Hope this helps.

Ali

**KvHagedorn** · 28 October 2001, 22:06

If you're using those applications with Windows 2000 or XP professional version, why aren't you considering a dual board? Get a Tyan Tiger MP dual Athlon board and a pair of Athlon MPs with a gigabyte of RAM. This would cost you no more than the 850 with an expensive P4 and would whip the tar out of anything else you could possible afford.

From Pricewatch:

Tyan Tiger MP motherboard $206
Two AthlonMP 1800+ @ 268 $536

From Crucial

Four Crucial 256MB ECC Registered 2100 DDR @ 35 $140

Total price for this combo is $882.00 and you have what is probably the fastest available PC platform. Not bad, eh? Of course you want a nice case and at least a 400w power supply, and drives and other components of similar quality. That's the system I would buy today, no doubt about it.

**borat** · 29 October 2001, 14:39

get an athlon xp with a kt266a mother board as the xp has some multimedia enhance ments which will benefit you

**Wombat** · 29 October 2001, 14:55

AMD tends to support its chipsets last time I looked. They had absolutely fantastic drivers for the 750 boards. Via never came close to that kind of quality. AMD was even putting out 750 driver updates for a long time after anyone was selling motherboards based on it.

Have things changed that much with the 760 boards?

**Ali** · 29 October 2001, 15:16

I dont think AMD doesnt support its chipsets. I installed the AGP drivers off my mobo CD, and have not had a single problem. If it works, how do you support it.

The VIA drivers are out all the time because the hardware is crap. AMD actually know how to follow specs, so they dont have to release new 4 in 1s every time a new game is released.

Its the same as Intel, although intel is even better because they make most specs. Even SiS and ALI have half decent hardware, and therefore no need to 'support' their chipsets with new drivers every 2 days.

Just my thoughts.

Ali

**dizzynoodle** · 29 October 2001, 15:37

so what happens now ? Are u gys saying that the Asus A7v266A is no good coz it uses Via chipset ? No good meaning interms of stability ?

Announcement

PIII VS P4 VS TBird 1.4

PIII VS P4 VS TBird 1.4

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