[Bojangles87]

Hi Everyone. im new to this PC stuff. i just have a general question. ok as you may know AMD advertises their systems as such... AMD ATHALON 3300+ or wtvr... then it turns out to be like a 1.7GHZ CPU. Whats the deal with that. What does the 3300+ stand for? A friend of mine once told me that 3300+ or wtvr number.. meant that.. thats the speed a GAME will run at since amd makes gaming Pc's more than regular home comps.. now i know that sounds ridiculous but i want to get some clarification. cuz i want to get a new PC . and i want to know what im buying. so if someone could help. i would really appreciate it .
thanx

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AMD decided to adopt this naming pattern when it couldn't keep up with intel's explosion into the 2 GHz+ arena. how ever AMDs naming pattern is much more, well.................in pattern. but don't let the GHz fool you. AMD is out to prove raw GHz doesn't mean [bleep]. in almost every test top AMD single core 4000+ only scores slightly lower than top Intel P4 3.8GHz CPUs. BUT..that's only in multitasking, in Office, Games AMD will kick the [bleep] out of every Intel on the market i promise. if not, chop my head off. but the AMD 4000+ is 350 USD less than the Intel 3.8GHz! and so AMD offers the best bang for ye buck. never tell me intel is better because, ask anyone on this forum who games and you'll see. AMD also run in lower temps, have less power consumption. AMD forever. and the ace of AMD is hypertransport, a straight link between the CPU and RAM, cutting out the other delays while Intel uses the pathetic method of running all commands through the southbridge causing tremmendous delay

SO.......................GET AMD. just give me your wants in the new PC, what your buget is and stuff and i can't generate a list

[Hammm]

AMD decided to adopt this naming pattern when it couldn't keep up with intel's explosion into the 2 GHz+ arena. how ever AMDs naming pattern is much more, well.................in pattern. but don't let the GHz fool you. AMD is out to prove raw GHz doesn't mean [bleep]. in almost every test top AMD single core 4000+ only scores slightly lower than top Intel P4 3.8GHz CPUs. BUT..that's only in multitasking, in Office, Games AMD will kick the [bleep] out of every Intel on the market i promise. if not, chop my head off. but the AMD 4000+ is 350 USD less than the Intel 3.8GHz! and so AMD offers the best bang for ye buck. never tell me intel is better because, ask anyone on this forum who games and you'll see. AMD also run in lower temps, have less power consumption. AMD forever. and the ace of AMD is hypertransport, a straight link between the CPU and RAM, cutting out the other delays while Intel uses the pathetic method of running all commands through the southbridge causing tremmendous delay

SO.......................GET AMD. just give me your wants in the new PC, what your buget is and stuff and i can't generate a list

[Neil Jones]

The AMD numbers are performance comparison scores to Pentium processors running at the same speed.

Therefore, an Athlon XP 2800, for example, performs every bit as well as a Pentium 4 running at 2.8Ghz, even though the AMD only runs at 2.1Ghz. The Semprons were compared to Celerons and the 64-bit Semprons are compared to the Celeron D's.

The clock speed of AMD processors became irrelevant years ago; now they all run at around 1.6-2.2Ghz. Just because Intel runs at nearly 4Ghz now doesn't mean its any better.

The figure has nothing to do with guaranteed performance of any kind; the performance you get will only be as good as the crappest component inside the machine.

[Hammm]

so that's what the numbers mean, so an AMD 4000+ is equally to a Intel 4.0 GHz CPU even though intel doesn't have one lol lol

[warriorscot]

Basically yes, its known as intel equivalency speed, its based on the single cores though so even though they dont have one at that speed if they did that would be the speed, The Ds from intel are a different kettle of fish they have a very hit and miss performance some of them like the cheaper ones are actually worse than there single core models for most things so the AMDs whip them but up at the top end there is less of a performance difference but that depends on the task the AMD will always be better for gaming but the intels do better encoding but dual cores minimise this on AMD so the diff isnt huge. ah well im going on.

[Hammm]

well what i think is stupid is that Intel is still getting all the fame and stuff when AMD clearly lead in terms of power per watt, GHz for preformance and price. the only thing Intel ever wins at is media but i guess also laptops. still, hardly anyone or my friends and class mates have ever heard or AMD, and the few that do hate them cos they're not intel, it's stupid when they could be saving so much when the buy a 4000+ for much cheaper. so sad.......................................

[Bojangles87]

Wow thank you all very much for those replies. i appreciate it so much. i was looking into a new computer in about a month or so. and yes i am trying to build a decent gaming machine for me and my bro. at the moment my comp really sucks. im 18 so i dont have HORDES of money . but i just started working and i was looking for a cheaper alternative to Intel.. cuz to be honest. im not really a fan of intel nor will i ever be. something about it.. just bothers me . i have alot of friends that have gaming Pc's and ALL of them use AMD's . i just never really knew why. but once again thank you all very much for that great info. i better go back to that PC shop and tell that Arab off.. trying to sell me a p4... [bleep]. in total i was about to dish out $1050 Canadian DOllars on something very Modest. also. my girlfriends brother just baught a P4.. and his system overheats ALL the time.. and usually his CPU Consumption is at 100%. i didnt find that very efficient.

AMD All the way baby.

[Hammm]

yer, if you need, give me a yell and i'll find some stuff for you, give me your budget as well

[Bojangles87]

im looking for a good AMD athlon now. i've been researching for like a day straight. i live in canada so i would need CDN prices if possible Hamm. thx for helping me put together a PC btw. anyways. i already have a 128MB PCI Video card. so i can use that till i buy a new one. all i need is a really fast athlon with 1 GB of ram. HD could be like 160GN to 80GB min.. i dont care bout that. and yea.. my Price range is going around $750 to $800 , but if i can get one for cheaper . and it runs games perfectly then im happy.. i would like it to at least push Quake 4 to the MAX.

[Hammm]

if you game a lot, don't spend so much on CPU. CPUs never come into gamers life until at low resolutions any thing above 1024x768 is all on the gfx card so you could get the 3000+ and pair it with two X1900XTX in crossfire and have almost the same results as the CPU being a 4800+ dual core(some differences especially should it be a geometry intensive game like FEAR where CPU plays more. warriorscot games with a 3200+ and i doubt he will feel more lag than a guy with the same gfx card but a higher CPU.

so pick out a good 3200+, that should meet your needs, maybe even a 3000+ but that is getting borderline. sorry but i don't know any canadian price search sites. in NZ, theres a neat site called pricespy and it lets you see the lowest price on what ever item in the PC list you need, the lowest being displayed first, the shop and contact info with the shops website, brilliant web site. after the CPU and everything just use the rest to get a good gfx card, 6800GS or X800GTO are the best value ones at the moment, they hit the best price preformance ratio for now, but be aware of new 7400, 7600s coming out by nVidia

[Hammm]

[bleep], wierd duplicate thing like jrm every time i hit refresh i posts again

found a 3200+ at tigerdirect for 230 CND . it's stupid how froogle is based mainly in USA, [bleep] AMerica and thier belief of being superior to us

Edited by Hammm, 01 March 2006 - 10:11 PM.

[Bojangles87]

thats some good info. im definetly gonna look into that. i've really been digging up info on AMDs and Intels. and my hatred for Intel is going sky high.
ok so your saying that i should get an AMD 3200+ (and in GHZ, it doenst mean crap right?) and the video cards you specified. i hope those are nVidia, cuz i have too many problems with ATI, openGL is pretty stressful with the card i have at the moment. i dont understand why. but my PIII 733mzh. pulled off FEAR on the WORST possible graphics.. and i actually beat the game on this junky PC.. but i cnat even play Counter Strike 1.6.. its quite pathetic. my frames drop to like 20... 15... ugh. its like a slideshow.

[Hammm]

lol, yer 6800GS is nVidia alright, hope it fits your budget, yer ATI does have major problems with OpenGL, don't let warriorscot catch you though, he LOVES ATI, i guess it's opinion. i simply defect to the side that is winning the gunny ah, well, ATI was winning before the 7800 came so i guess maybe ATI will launch a new card (not the X1000s, they're too late) but one thing i must say, most will agree, ATI gfx cards sound like my granny lol but nVidias are smooth and soundless

[Bojangles87]

hahah . yea. i just personally prefer nvidia for gaming. alot of my friends that game also prefer nvidia. i dont know if its a trend. but i feel as tho they provide a better gaming experience. that is only because i compared some home brewed PC's with the same specs other than video cards.. and lets just say the nvidia held its own. my radeon is probably alot better than i give it credit for. its just that my PC at the moment sucks really bad that i cant really use my GFX card to its full potential.... [bleep] i dont even think im using half its potential.

[warriorscot]

I just prefer performance, i dont love ATI i just love pretty games and cheap graphics cards, its the same reason i like AMD, i would have a 7800GTX if i could get one for the same or preferably less price as an x1800, but they are a hundred quid more so no im not paying that for inferior performance and a name.

But also ATI have the most powerful card out at the moment the x1900 its much more powerful than the 7800s, and they are pretty good at openGL now adays never used to be it was the reason i used to go nvidia but they were ok on the r4xx cores and the r5xxs with the latest drivers are as good as if not better than the 7800s, the reviews for most of them were done with the early drivers they improved open GL performance by 30% with the 6 series drivers and its been going up slightly with every release as the cards were way ahead of the drivers but thats always the case.

So it comes down to cost and performance its a bit obvious to me who is better at the moment but i read alot of reviews and some of the technical papers which not everyone does the technical innovations from ATI are amazing there work in colour and light reproduction is leaps and bounds ahead of Nvidias its very impressive.

The only reason i occasionally jump on people is when they say things that just arent true as they havent read the reviews or papers just the advertising material, i do the same with other hardware as well, and i dont like ATI mobos either.

Edited by warriorscot, 02 March 2006 - 01:19 PM.