P4 2.8 w/ HT vs current AMD

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Nuzzles

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Apr 13, 2005
Messages
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My nephew is upgrading his computer, and I have the chance to buy a 2.8ghz P4 with Hyperthreading (it could possibly be 3.0, even) and his motherboard, an Asus P4S800, for a pretty good price.

Recently i've been getting into 3D modeling and all of that, and I know that AMD's aren't too good in this area. My current CPU is a 2500XP Barton on a MSI K7N2. Will I notice a noticeable improvement in areas such as these?

Also, I'll be getting it either way, since this is a good oppourtunity to get a standalone folding machine for me. xD But, still, some input would be appreciated.
 
If your talking about the athlon xp you mention vs the P4 you mentioned I'd go with the p4.... But If your talkin about a current AMD system, vs that P4 then I'd go with a current AMD system....

But that is just me......
 
I dont know about own..... :rolleyes:

But the P4 is going to edge out the AMD system in most benches......
 
Nuzzles, I assume you will be rendering in addition to modeling? If so, the P4 will have an advantage in that it supports SSE2 where the Athlon does not (assuming the software in question uses SSE2). If you are just modeling, you probably won't see much of a gain, if any.

If I were you, I would save your money for a bigger/better upgrade unless you are getting it VERY cheap.

FYI, I use LightWave.
 
The P4 will be faster than your current Athlon XP system. But almost any Athlon64 configuration will beat that P4.
 
Yeah, rendering of course. Using Cinema 4D currently.

Well, I'm getting them for $200 NZD, possibly cheaper. However, I don't believe this supports dual channel RAM, but from what I vaguely remember when I was researching CPUs a while ago, Intels have a better memory controller?

I think my CPU might be shitting itself anyway... : /
 
Save your money and hop on the Conroe bandwagon. Trust me, it's worth it. Come six months, your northwood (or prescott?) will be equivalent to the Athlon XP.

I say this as a person who had opportunities to upgrade his s478 box many times, but could never bring myself to pull the trigger for a paltry gain of perhaps 400-600MHz (less if the overclocking went poorly). I saved up until I could afford the system in my sig right now. Overbuild, it will last you longer.
 
Trust me, I would love to overbuild. But I simply cannot afford it. It would literally take me years to save enough money to buy a top of the line PC. And even then, that's another 2 generations ahead of what's currently being offered. : /
 
Nuzzles said:
Trust me, I would love to overbuild. But I simply cannot afford it. It would literally take me years to save enough money to buy a top of the line PC. And even then, that's another 2 generations ahead of what's currently being offered. : /
Click to expand...

$200 NZD is what? about 130 USD, used? That's not such a great deal. If you're the type who waits for hours on a big render, that P4 is still going to make you wait. First, I don't play with that stuff anymore so I don't know if the software you're playing with make use of multithreading. From a dual core point of view, if they don't use multithreading, you can still use your PC while rendering. If they do use multithreading, you're probably going to see significant gains. Maybe you should check to see if you'd want an alternative in a Pentium D 805 processor with a board that supports AGP and DDR. It would cost more but may be a more attractive alternative.

There were a few threads on those in this forum recently.

Edit: oops I'm not sure about the prices over there, so take that with a grain of salt
 
Let me put it this way. Brand new, a P4 3.0ghz w/ 800FSB is going to set you back $350.

While I'm rendering, especially animations, my CPU chokes. Big time.
 
Stepping up to the p4 will net you performance gains, but you're going to keep waiting for renders to complete. It's an upgrade from what you have now, just not necessarily huge.

Hmmm... That mobo has the SIS648 chipset. I can't tell you if thats good or bad. When the p4c's were king the Intel chipsets ruled. i875p, i865pe. The SIS chipsets end up in a lot of the discount motherboards. If I remember correctly the performance wasn't quite as fast as the Intel chipsets.

There are some great things on the horizon, there is always something new on the horizon... I'm not a fan of the waiting game. However, if you can put a way $50-$100 a month, by the end of the year you'll be able to buy something NICE.

Hell bro, I'm still running a p4c @ 3.6ghz...

Good luck,

-dB
 
Nuzzles said:
Let me put it this way. Brand new, a P4 3.0ghz w/ 800FSB is going to set you back $350.

While I'm rendering, especially animations, my CPU chokes. Big time.
Click to expand...

Last night, I managed to find a price for the PD 805 dual-core 2.66GHz processor - roughly 250NZD. Obviously, you're the one making the call. But, this chip, in addition to being able to do other stuff while rendering may also allow you to start and run a second job while the first one is still going. Who knows, maybe do some light browsing while two jobs are running. :) Seems to me like this would be an incentive for you.
 
Bao01 said:
Last night, I managed to find a price for the PD 805 dual-core 2.66GHz processor - roughly 250NZD. Obviously, you're the one making the call. But, this chip, in addition to being able to do other stuff while rendering may also allow you to start and run a second job while the first one is still going. Who knows, maybe do some light browsing while two jobs are running. :) Seems to me like this would be an incentive for you.
Click to expand...

Hmm, they do like a good deal, indeed. Definately have to look into it.
 
SIS is a solid chipset... or as far as my experiance goes I should say the 755 is a solid chipset....

I have 13 servers (Athlon64) (Iknow :( ) That have been running solid for almost two years now... On all but 3 I have had 100% up time... And the ones that did go down was becouse both drives in the mirror died in the same day... (happened on three differant occasions even)
 
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