The short answer is that AMD's current line of Athlon XP/MP chips are better -- there are a few reasons why you could make that statement, all of them independently verified (lower cost; higher benchmark-per-clock-cycle are the two biggies.)

If price is not a factor in your decision making, it might be possible to pair a Pentium 4 2.4Ghz ($550) with a gig of high speed RAM ($450) that would, in some ways, squeeze past the fastest Athlon XP 2100+ ($230).

But for my money (if we need to spend $1,000), I'd rather build a dual Athlon XP 2100+ ($230x2), with a gig of RAM ($450) and spend the left over $90 on, say, a Soundblaster Audigy that has built in OHCI firewire for video capture (and still have $25 to spend on drinks with friends :)

Then again, the wisest buy from the prespective of clock-cycle to dollars ratio would be a dual Athlon XP 1900+ setup (2x$130) with a gig of RAM. $710 for a screaming dual core! Then of course, there's the rest of the stuff you need to buy...

- jim

(p.s. AMD's Thoroughbred chips are right around the corner -- July -- and will have some minor core improvements as well as run cooler, at higher clock-cycles, and cost less.)

I had nothing but problems with AMD use. It wasn't AMD, but the chipsets built around the AMD CPU (like VIA) with poor USB implimentation, compatibility with video and sound cards.....the list was endless and so were the patches. Heat was also an issue.

After all that ranting and raving, have the newer boards and chipsets improved all this?

There have been some major strides made in the VIA chipset compatibility issues. I personally haven't experienced them, but it's an oft cried mantra "No VIA chipsets." (people generally stress using AMD's drivers over VIA's.)

That being said, there are few alternatives when looking to build a single processor AMD system, but with dual it's another story -- the Tyan line of dual boards implement AMD chipsets through and through.

- jim

Get this and you'll be loving it:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2021314013

I recently built a AMD XP 1900+ using a IWill XP333-R (raid) MoBO and it has been rock solid. Supports 200/266/333 DDR memory. Also has support on board for the newer 133 Ultra IDE drives. Runs much cooler then the earlier generation AMD chips. CPU temp averages only 98-100 degrees F, no load to 104 degrees F while rendering measured after about 2 hours of continous load. Probably some of the problems mentioned with the chipset was due to heat build up, rather then design. This particular board has a seperate fan on the South Bridge. I also opted to use a giant sized Thermaltake Volcano 7 fan/heatsink on the CPU. This is one of the newer variable speed models that spins at different rates depending on tempature.

I have a new question: What about FSB speed? Athlon = 266 MHz vs P4 400 MHz?? Is this right?

I want to put in a new motherboard and CPU. The new question: Pentium 4 or AMD XP line? I'm thinking about the Athlon XP-1800.

Isn't there some difference with the P4 FSB? (is it a true 400 MHz?).

Is this an issue for what I want to do? (My main thing right now is NLE, but I also play a game or two).

BTW, $ is an issue...(Trying to upgrade my Athlon 900)

Any thoughts will help, Thanks.

FSB (front side bus) is only one measure og how fast a system can process data. I haven't been keeping up on the latest and greatest because if I did I'd be tempted to build another new system and I just built two and my credit card is showing the strain. There's a lot of web sities that crunch the numbers and tons of technical info, like Tom's Hardware.

The P4 is a quad pumped 100mhz fsb for an effective 400mhz performance. There are new chips with 533mhz. RDRAM at 1066mhz is spendy, but top dog performer with the new 533s. DDR/333 is running half the cost with small speed drop. The new Intel 845e DDR chipset is getting good marks. The abit IT7 mobo has 533 support,DDR memory, onboard hipoint 133 raid, 1394/ohci,5.1 sound, USB 2.0x6.
AMD TBred is running hotter, doesn't overclock as well, no thermal shutdown, funky fan clips. Cheaper by about $75.00 over Intel in the 2.0ghz and down area.

Craig H.

Having demoed both a dual AMD, supplied by AMD, and a single P4 2g with only 400mhz FSbus, I went with the P4 system. By the time I was done the single P4 performed very well compared to the dual AMD system and was about $400 cheaper.

I did not see any improvement or better performance to justify the higher price of the dual AMD. Now, this was using the software and stuff that I actaully use as compared to benchmarks. For me that is where the rubber meets the road. I reccommend this kind of demo or test to anyone before deciding.

Yes, Lucas bought a few of the AMD systems to render the last Star Wars, but their software specifically took advantage of the dual AMD, and so was a good deal for them. I am not running their software (bummer).

The heat issues of the AMD are real. They should be considered but they can be overcome.

Today their are so many choices and combinations, unlike a few years ago, from processors to motherboards to memory. Each will have an impact on your specific application. I am not sure that there is one 'better' system. There is one that is better for your needs. Nothing beats a shoot out with you application as the target. Then you can make the cost vs performance choices. Heck if you want a screamer optimized for Vegas there is the one from Boxx developed with Sonic Foundry. You would know that is performs with Vegas in mind.

K

Heat issues with AMD chips depends first on the chip version and also if or not you have a decent heatsink/fan and the necessary airflow/case fans to bring cooler air into the case and pump it out again. Miss just one, and your CPU temp can be anywhere from ten to twenty or more degrees higher!

Example: my AMD 1900+ XP system runs at 105-107 F DURING a long overnight render sesion with the CPU at 100% load. That isn't hot by any standards and is in line with Intel chips. My older AMD 1200 ran about twenty two degrees hotter. Still not "hot" but far warmer then I like to see.

Related to the heat problem is the noise problem. I could not stand the wind noise from my AMD system before I changed the entire cooling system. That's another $50-100 depends on what you get, and that alone will make up the price difference between intel and amd. Of course, if you don't mind the noise, that's another story.

The intel stock fans are usually quiet enough for my ears.

I have an AMD T'bird 1200 running on a Gigabyte motherboard with a VIA chipset. It's overclocked 10% and still runs utterly reliably. I use just a stock CPU fan/heatsink combo and the power supply fan in a generic case, and everything seems to be just fine. CPU temps (as monitored by MBM5) are about 2 Celsius above the 750 Duron it replaced.

In recent months, according to sites like Anandtech and Toms Hardware, Intel has reclaimed the speed crown from AMD with the latest P4s for those s/w applications that have been rewritten to take advantage of the latest P4 instruction set additions.

Nonetheless, I like supporting AMD, partly because they're the underdog, but also because they offer some serious competition to Intel, and competition is a very good thing. It's safe to assume that, without AMD, Intel would be easily charging many hundreds of dollars more for each P4 they make.

Nice points.

K

Dual AMD works great. Although Vegas doesn't take full advantage of two CPUs during rendering (unless you launch two copies of Vegas), two CPUs makes the user interface much snappier when the preview is running. :-)

Well, I think I'm going to go with the XP (1800+) Athlon. Thanks for the suggestion about Toms Hardware.

I have now learned that the Athlons out-perform the P4's. (Let me know if I'm wrong). This is not a big issue for me, I was thinking that the 400 FSB would be faster than the other.

I have an Athlon 900 now, and have been happy with it. About the heat issue: It seems that the XP Athlons use less voltage than the older Athlons (like mine) so there is less heat. Alot is explained at Tom's Hardware.

As a side note, I'll tell you what I'm doing:

A friend gave me her old computer for my kids to play games on (my kids always mess up my computer). So, now that I have a computer that needs upgrading, I want to put a new motherboard and proc in this computer, and put the older parts in the kids computer. This computer is working fine with Vegas, but why not put the new parts in my computer? A new mobo and cpu will cost me about $200 U.S. (I know it will be more spendy than this, but I'll deal with the wife when this comes up).

Thanks for the info about the dual proc, but that gets a bit spendy.

Thanks to all for the info, this forum is great!


And, if you have anything to add...feel free.

Check out the AMD site also. http://www.amd.com and follow the configuration links.

Get a thermalright AX-7 cpu cooler for your cpu. The least expensive of the best ones out there, (around $25, w/o fan).

The other day I stumbled on a thread in some backwater forum, now forgot, and there was a rather heated discussion over the proper way to install a heatsink fan. One camp was claiming the only right way it for the fan to vent the hot air up and thus away from the heaksink thereby keeping the CPU cooler by pulling heat away from it, while the other camp was equally vocal the "right" way is to turn the fan down so the air current blows directly into the heatsink fins. I've tried both ways myself and never really saw much difference if any. After reading tha discussion, I must have spent a half hour searching for some specifcs on the web as to fan placement. I could find everything but which is the "right" way if there even is a right way to position the fan. So who's for up or down and why...

If you're ready to buy, I can recommend Newegg.com and Googlegear.com for prices and order completion. There is NO support from them. I've never had to return anything, so I have no experience with that side. I just received a mainboard that was supposed to have shipped with 1 ATA133 cable. Evidently because I ordered 4 hard drives (for a RAID array), there were two cables in the box. I'm impressed!

David

My friends and I also like newegg.com. Great prices, fast delivery.
We haven't had to return anything, so that's untested.

Most fans blow down into the CPU heatsink. I haven't tried reversing them. Warmer air shortens fan life.

Install chassis fans and maybe simple baffles to create a cool breeze blowing through your CPU area.

The retail-box AMD heatsink/fan is halfway decent, but I first scrape off the chewing-gum stuff, clean thoroughly (large pink pencil eraser), and apply Arctic Silver.

Fan positioning: I went with the CPU fan blowing directly into the fins; you have to "refresh" those (on motorcycles engines, does the air go *from* or *to* the engine?) and on the case, I placed TWO fans sucking the air OUT of the case on TOP (hot air goes UP) and another fan at the base of the tower to get the fresh air IN the case (fresh air tends to stand UNDER hot air, it's physics...). I also put some fans on my Seagate drives since they're renowned to heat a little more than other brands cause they're "blimped", therefore much quieter than other brands).
I run 6 hard drives (Fuji, Matrox & Seagate) , all packed in a full tower, along with Athlon 1000, Promise, Matrox and other cards, etc... and had no problem so far.
Oh yeah, I forgot, since I got a few drives in there, I used ROUND IDE CABLES to allow more air circulation. I used 'em on both hard drives and cd-burner/dvd reader/floppy drive. I just wouldn't see what it would look under the hood with conventional "strap" cables... total air obstruction...