AMD Thunderbird

[Norman Chan]

With the new price for AMD Thunderbird , is it worth the while to switch from Intel CPU to AMD CPU ?
Was looking at the 800mhz thunderbird which is going at a price of S$319.
How is thunderbird o/c performance ? Any feedback ?

[paulcs]

I would guess it depends on the Intel CPU you're using.

You might want to also weigh in the cost of a motherboard, and a good KT-133 board is not cheap. You might have to upgrade your power supply and RAM as well.

I find that switching platforms is never cheap. Whether or not it's worth it is a another story. I guess it depends on how much performance you're getting now versus how much performance you feel you need and how much you're willing to spend.

If you're running a PII 450, I think it's a worthwhile upgrade. If you're running a PIII 600, you should see a nice performance increase in most places, but it won't be night and day. Your videocard will most likely become a bottleneck as far as gaming goes (although you'll see some nice performance increases if you're currently using a slow Intel CPU). Most common applications will open faster, although the bottleneck for most office apps is how fast you can type.

What are you running now? Do you have an AMD approved power supply or something comparable? Are you using good quality RAM?

I like the Athlon. However, if you're currently using a PII 450, and your motherboard is Coppermine compatible, the most cost effective route (and the path of least resistance) might be to upgrade to a PIII 700 or 750. Again, it depends on what you're using now, what your needs and expectations are, and how much you're willing to spend in terms of money and time. (It could be worth doing just for the sake of doing it.)

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Helevitia]

If money is not an issue, buy the t-bird 900 with either motherboard(they are both awesome). The faster memory isn't going to do you any good because you are buying a KT133 chipset mobo which can't handle higher FSB speeds anyway so buying the memory isn't going to gain you anything. Actually, now that I think about it, I think I remember reading that the ABIT had independent memory bus adjustments from the AGP, FSB, and PCI buses. If memory serves correct, you can then O/C the memory as well. Keep in mind that this new memoyr you ar reffering to probably doesn't run as stable at CAS2 and that the PC133 memory(128MB) made by specific manufacturers will have CAS2 tested memory.

Dave

[Norman Chan]

Actually I'm having an Celeron 300A o/c 450.
I was thinking to get an AMD thunderbird either 800 or 850 or 900 mhz (still cannot decide) to match with either a Abit or AUSU socket A mobo (still cannot decide) and to match with an PC150 pr PC166 SDRAM (still cannot decide).
Any recommendation ?