Buying a new computer!

Vicsun · Post by **Vicsun** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 12:56 pm

I am proud to announce that from the 9th of September 2002 I will be the proud owner of a new computer

. While this topic is mainly to inform you (and boast

) I wanted to ask all the hard-ware people out there some questions:

1. Which processor is better - AMD or Intel? I have heard that intel is a lot better and one step forward than other processors, but I've also heard that the AMD chip are in some way specially modified for games (and games is what I'll pretty much all that I will use the computer for). After searching the net I found out some sites with computers.. The AMD processor was 1733MHz and costs almost exactly the same as the intel processor, but is noticably slower. This leads me to my second question...

2. The intel and AMD computers are almost exactly the same apart from the processor which I already mentioned, and the motherboard. I was thinking that the faster intel machiene was as expensive as the AMD because perhaps it had a crappier motherboard and doesn't have a cooler (though isn't the lack of a cooler-fan an advantige??)

The intel motherboard:
ECS Socket478 Bundkort
(PC133, 4XAGP, ATA100)

The AMD motherboard:
ECS K7S6a Bundkort
(FSB266, 4XAGP, ATA100, DDR)

Can anyone tell me what's the difference between the two? Those numbers and letters don't mean anything to me

...

3. How much RAM do you think is necessery (remember I'm using the computer for mainly games)? A friend (who is always doing something to his computer and I think knows quite a lot about hardware) claims that his RAM usage never goes beyond 300MB (even though he runs all sorts of applications on his computer) and getting over 512MB is useless. What do you guys think?

4. Which one of the two computers (links above) do you think is a better purchase? I seem to lean towards the intel due to the faster processor and not a very much higher price.

5. And finally if you know any other (danish, or atleast eurpean (i don't want to order a computer from the US and pay for shipping do I?

)) sites where I can buy a computer from? So far I've been looking at http://www.zitech.dk http://www.mm-vision.dk and http://www.dell.dk

Thank you

Silur · Post by **Silur** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 2:21 pm

1. This is a religious question, and I'm not going to get myself killed by either side by stating which one is best. Intel is generally more expensive at the same clock frequency, but it runs much cooler and doesn't need liquid nitrogen to cool it

. On the other hand, AMD have a few tricks up their sleeve with special instructions for games and multimedia - sort of like MMX but generally regarded as better, and a better arithmetic unit if I'm not misinformed (and no, it's not that the Intel cpu's can't count - that was years ago

). There's also a huge difference between different versions of the Intel P4 cpu's, which is an entirely different can of worms...

2. The motherboards are identical, except for memory and bus speed. The AMD board has DDR (double data rate) memory and a FSB (front side bus) running at 266MHz, so access to main memory and I/O devices is therefore faster than on the Intel board. The main bottlenecks will always be memory access and disk I/O, so the faster your memory and disk, the faster your computer. The clockspeed on your cpu will probably make less of an impact unless your running some heavy number crunching such as mp3/divx/mpeg encoding, encryption or similar.

3. You'd manage on 256MB, but I would recommend 512MB.

4. Like I said, Im not getting into that war... but I think the AMD is going to be faster overall, even at a lower clock rate - frequency isn't everything, it's also a matter of how well you use your available cycles...

5. Nope. Personally, I build my computers from components...

Vicsun · Post by **Vicsun** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 3:03 pm

Thanks a lot for the fast reply!

Originally posted by Silur:
<snip>
3. You'd manage on 256MB, but I would recommend 512MB.
<snip>

What I was asking was if 1024MB RAM would be better than 512RAM. I wasn't intending on getting less than 512

.

Silur · Post by **Silur** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 3:23 pm

Originally posted by Vicsun
What I was asking was if 1024MB RAM would be better than 512RAM. I wasn't intending on getting less than 512 .

Nope, Windooze is going to be swapping to disk anyway regardless (since it's braindead), so most of that memory will never store a byte

. There are a few tricks to get Windooze to stop swapping, but one runs the risk of having the computer run *much* slower in some cases, since M$ obviously believe you have to swap if you're a proper multitasking OS... thus M$ swap even when there's gazillions of bytes of RAM free.

Mr Flibble · Post by **Mr Flibble** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 3:26 pm

Good stuff! New computers are always good.

As for your questions:

1. Unless you're a major power user you probably won't notice the difference. AMD processors are generally a bit faster at the same equivalent clock rate than Intel, but at the speeds they're running at I personally don't think it really matters. Athlons perform better at most applications except audio and video compressions where Intel is quite soundly ahead.

The Pentuim 4 has a better response to excessive heat. If you're worried about CPU thermal death due to coolant failure or environmental conditions then go with Intel. AMD reduced the price of the Athlonn by not including and advanced features to protect against such things. Hopefully you won't ever need those features though.

This one really comes down to personal preference. I myself have never owned an Intel processor.

2. Price and features are the factors here. Most people don't consider the motherboard when deciding on a new machine, but they are the key to how well your system performs. Buy a cheap motherboard and you'll get a (mostly) slow and unstable machine. I find it's worth spending a bit more for a higher quality m/b for that very reason. Many manufacturers are adding extra features to their motherboards such as ATA RAID, onboard audio video and LAN etc..

The ECS Athlon board you're looking at seems OK, and includes support for DDR333 memory. Do you know the model of the Intel one?

3. Depends on operating system.. Windows 98 and ME don't make very efficient use of RAM above 512MB, so any more isn't going to do much for you. WIndows 2000 or XP love memory and the more you get the better it is. I'm using 512MB on XP and am seriously looking at doubling it. RAM is cheap (mostly) so get as much as you can.

4. My comments on this are very biased. Pesonal preference IMHO.

5. Can't comment. Wrong side of the plant.

Hope this helps you.

Silur · Post by **Silur** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 3:55 pm

Originally posted by Mr Flibble
Good stuff! New computers are always good.

3. Depends on operating system.. Windows 98 and ME don't make very efficient use of RAM above 512MB, so any more isn't going to do much for you. WIndows 2000 or XP love memory and the more you get the better it is. I'm using 512MB on XP and am seriously looking at doubling it. RAM is cheap (mostly) so get as much as you can.

On XP I would recommend it, although it will still swap to disk. I am very reluctant to move to XP since my own (limited) experience and reports from my friends/colleagues confirm that it's a huge memory/cpu/disk hog. W2k is my current preferred M$ OS, and unless you're running lots of programs in parallel, 512M won't be a problem. Even with 2G it swaps! Oh, and you cant trust the graph in the taskmanager, since it tends to count shared memory more than once...

If I have the choice of 512M more memory and a faster disk (as in low latency/seek time, not ATAxxx), I'd take the disk.

Edit: Oh, and I love your sig

Bloodstalker · Post by **Bloodstalker** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 4:02 pm

just a few thoughts..

1. personally, I don't see any real major difference as to either one. I have a pentium, and my friend has an athlon. the rest of the components are almost identical. I don't see any difference in everyday use, not enough to make me pull for one or the other. It IMO comes down to individual preference, as the only processor I have ever hated with a passion was Cyrix (sp?)

2. Enough has been said.

personally, I like Shuttle and have seen few problems out of Soyo. Onboard video and sound etc... doesn't excite me all that much, I just look to make sure I have plenty of room for upgrades (cheaper boards tend to have few slots availabe) and a good bus speed

3. agree with Flibble.

4. Strictly individual preference

5. I usyassl get most of my equipment from Tiger-direct. They have some nice stuff, and I have never had a problem with them as far as customer service.

humanflyz · Post by **humanflyz** » Sat Aug 03, 2002 9:03 pm

Does anyone know a site specializing in PC customization; I really would like to choose componets for myself. I live in the US so it would help if the store/merchant is located in the US. So far I've tried CyberPower, but I want to shop around. But I can't find any other site that lets me full customize my PC. So any help is appreciated.

Ode to a Grasshopper · Sun Aug 04, 2002 12:45 am

Congrats Vic.

Phantom Lord · Post by **Phantom Lord** » Sun Aug 04, 2002 3:11 am

Just some thoughts:

1) AMD and Intel provide almost similar performance at the moment, AMD is still slightly cheaper. The question is which standard will last longer, considering the possibilities to re-use the mainboard with a faster processor in a year or two.

2) The Intel mainboard has only 133 MHz frontside bus, you should look for at least 266 MHz. Concerning the AMD mainboard you can look for 333 Mhz, but 266 will do the job. In any case the MoBo should provide a USB 2.0 interface.

I personally don't like ECS mainboards and consider MSI, Gigabyte, Asus or Soyo better choices.

3) 256 is enough for a start, but more is usually better. It really depends on what you're planning to do with your computer. If you want to play the newest games or want to work with graphics a lot, 512 is recommended.

4) They're pretty much the same, except the frontside bus issue, so I'd chose AMD. I wouldn't buy a computer/monitor bundle, usually the monitors in bundles are not top quality.

5) There is a german vendor who provides real high quality machines at a fair price. The site is in german, so I hope you speak a little german.

KidD01 · Post by **KidD01** » Sun Aug 04, 2002 8:57 am

Originally posted by Vicsun
1. Which processor is better - AMD or Intel?

I gotta recommend Intel since my AMD gives me a real headache. My recent PC probs seems related with my processor. And from my experience Intel is more stable and rarely gives prob.

Rob-hin · Post by **Rob-hin** » Sun Aug 04, 2002 11:57 am

Buying a new pc is fun isn't it?
Those moments of picking new and VERY fast hardware and compairing it with your old stuff.

But about the AMD vs Pentium stuff.
I heard Pentium double checks on it's work.
AMD doesn't and therefor are faster with less actuall mhz speed. Thats why they call their 1600 mhz an 1800. I'm not to good on explaining since I dont really get it myself.

Don't know if this info means anything to you, but I thought I'd share it with you.

KidD01 · Post by **KidD01** » Sun Aug 04, 2002 12:14 pm

Top of all, AMD never publish anything when something is wrong with their processor (i.e. bug) on their news section. Yet they just put it on the Tech reference document which require advance technical knowledge to understand it. They must publish it on an open forum like the news section not just add it on the tech doc. The tech doc rarely downloaded by "common" users

I would name this action as "Cover up" and also "Scam".

Example case :
AMD K6-2 processors have certain known bug for RAM above 32MB. Which is why later they release reference B and C type for these processor. You can search for related thing using search engine for detailed matters.

Silur · Post by **Silur** » Sun Aug 04, 2002 3:09 pm

Originally posted by Rob-hin
But about the AMD vs Pentium stuff.
I heard Pentium double checks on it's work.
AMD doesn't and therefor are faster with less actuall mhz speed. Thats why they call their 1600 mhz an 1800. I'm not to good on explaining since I dont really get it myself.

The MHz discussion, and lately the GHz ditto, are a bit like comparing apples and pears. In the old days, there were two schools in processor design, one where you expected all instructions to be done in one cycle and another where an instruction can take a number of cycles. Intel pursued the later, called Complex Instruction Set Computer, or CISC. So, for a Pentium 4 cpu to do a floating point cosine calculation (instruction FCOS) it takes between 190 to 240 cycles, to add one to a register takes one cycle, and most other instructions fall somewhere in between. To make things even more complicated, there's things like pipelining and superscalarity. Pipelining means the next instruction starts execution before the previous one is finished (the next instruction "is in the pipeline"), while superscalarity means that two instructions utilising different parts of the cpu can be executed simultaneously. If you put all this together, you find that while clock cycles are important, they dont really tell you anything useful... except of course when comparing units within the same architecture.

oki101 · Post by **oki101** » Sun Aug 04, 2002 5:58 pm

Webshops

@Vicsun You might want to check out Hardware.no . They have adresses for amny shops in Norway where you can order parts.
Just check the section called Kjøpsguide.

I don`t know if they send to Denmark but it`s worth a try.

Me and my friends have used 2 of them. Komplett andPS Data .

Hope it helps

HighLordDave · Post by **HighLordDave** » Sun Aug 04, 2002 6:30 pm

I can't add much to this beyond what has been said but I will make a couple of comments about specifics:

1. Intel vs. AMD
Take your pick. Classic non-conformists like AMD because they're the little guy. I have always been satisfied with Intel processors, although all things being equal, an AMD with the same clock speed as an Intel processor costs less (the price of motherboards for each is about the same). Go with whatever one you can get a better deal on.

A note about the differences in cooling: If you believe that cooling is going to be an issue in your computer, plan ahead and buy a couple of extra cooling fans for your computer. Check out Mr Flibble's CPU temperature thread over on the tech support forum for some comments about keeping the temperatures in your machine down. AMD processors run a little bit hotter than Intel processors, but not to the point where they will overheat under normal use on a more frequent basis than an Intel-based system.

@Rob-hin:
AMD's latest line of processors, the Athlon XPs derive their names from the claim that they deliver the same amount of performance as an Intel with a higher clock speed. For instance, AMD says their Athlon 1900+ processor matches the benchmark performance of an Intel 1900 MHz CPU even though the Athlon's actual clock speed is something in the neighbourhood of 1.6 GHz. You might check with a resource like Tom's Hardware for some more information about these claims and whether or not it's true.

2. Motherboard
I had an ECS motherboard in an old Celeron 500 machine and I never had a problem with it. I've also had good experiences with Soyo and Epox boards. Most of the other name brands (Asus, Abit, Gigabyte, Shuttle, Intel, etc.) also put out good hardware and have good driver support. Again, take your pick.

If you're into gaming, one thing I'd advise you to do is avoid onboard components. Each of these is not only something else to break, but is one more thing to drain system resources. If you put expansion cards in for all of you major components (video, audio, network card, SCSI, etc.) you will be saving processor power for actual computing instead of "menial" tasks. I try to buy only boards with ports on them (parallel, serial, USB, PS/2) and not components.

Onboard video is the worst; make sure you have at least a 4X AGP slot and get a good video card. Not only is most onboard video of low quality, it often uses system RAM instead of DDR or dedicated video RAM. Plus, I've found it's hard to turn off if you decide later to upgrade to a higher quality video card. Onboard sound also uses system RAM and system CPU power, but not as much as video. Still, since you can get a fairly good quality sound card for about $50 (USD), there's no reason to have to settle for onboard AC97 sound.

Most full-size ATX motherboards will have an AGP slot and six PCI slots which should be more than enough for your needs.

3. RAM
RAM is like gasoline in your car; you can never have enough. If you have too much, that's great, but if you don't have enough, you'll sure as hell want more. Buy however much you can afford.

4. Price
A lot of people go about buying a computer the wrong way. Instead of listing the features you want and then buying a computer with those components, you should figure out how much you can afford to spend, and then buy the best machine you can get at that price. Any computer you buy will be obsolete the day you purchase it, so suck up the depreciation and get the most bang for your buck.

5. European websites
Sadly, I don't know about buying computers or components overseas, but Mr Sleep and others might.

thantor3 · Post by **thantor3** » Mon Aug 05, 2002 3:17 am

Originally posted by humanflyz
Does anyone know a site specializing in PC customization; I really would like to choose componets for myself. I live in the US so it would help if the store/merchant is located in the US. So far I've tried CyberPower, but I want to shop around. But I can't find any other site that lets me full customize my PC. So any help is appreciated.

After looking at several high-end gaming sites, like AlienWare and ViciousPC, I finally went with Puget Sound Systems in Seattle (here). Not only was I able to fully customize my machine, but they even allowed me to purchase the components elsewhere when they were cheaper and simply ship them directly to them. The customer service is great and the tech support is top notch. Very responsive and knowledgeable salespeople, reasonably priced system, and accessible tech support. Nice combo.

If you fill out their questionnaire, they will give you a 5% courtesy discount.

Since the doyens of tech have already spoken

D) I will simply say that I went with an Athalon system based on my research and wanting to support the "underdog". I chose the A7V333 Athalon motherboard because it was one of the few motherboards at the time that would support the Corsair 2700 CAS 2.0 RAM I wanted (actually, I wanted the 3000 but there was no support for it at the time). I went with 1 GB with RAM on a WinXP machine and have not been sorry, though the tech who built my system said that the 20% performance boost probably wasn't all that noticeable. I would recommend a GeForce4 TI4400 video card, which is comparable to the 4600 but less expensive. Also, I am very happy with the Western Digital Caviar SE 100 GB hard drive... all of these components have contributed to a very fast and responsive machine. If you are creating a system from scratch, an unglamorous but important consideration is the power source. Enermax is a good choice.

I am much less happy with WinXP. It is more stable but when it crashes it is a major pain. Because of the security features of the NTFS structure, it is difficult to find software that will create a rescue disk in the event that you hose your system. After 4 hours of researching, I discovered that the Backup utility is not configured by default on Win XP Home (you have to load it manually off the CD) and the vaulted Automated System Recovery option only works on Win XP Pro. Also, I have found the disk management tools in XP (like System Restore) to be underwhelming. Yesterday, System Restore failed to rescue my system despite going back over six system restore points. My impression is that you have fewer available tools to recover from a disaster with Win XP and it doesn't play nice with other applications.

Vicsun · Post by **Vicsun** » Mon Aug 05, 2002 3:55 am

Thanks for all the replies!

I have a couple of more questions though...

First of all what's the difference between the different gForce cards? I found a graph comparing some models, but I couldn't figure out what the units were

and what pixel and vertex shaders were.

I intend on buying a geForce4Ti4200 @ 128MB. Is there a big difference between the Ti4200 and the Ti4600? There's no way in hell I can afford a Ti4600 (almost twice the the price of a Ti4200), but I'm curious.

I also read an article recently about radeon's new Radeon9700 card. It is supposed to blow geForce4 away, and it's price was less than a Ti4600. Any comments?

And finally which OS should I use for a multimedia computer? I'm currently using WinXP Pro with no major complaints except that internet explorers seem to crash quite often, and there have been (quite old) games which refuse to work on it (but worked fine on my old Win98).

thantor3 · Post by **thantor3** » Mon Aug 05, 2002 11:15 am

Originally posted by Vicsun
I'm currently using WinXP Pro with no major complaints except that internet explorers seem to crash quite often, and there have been (quite old) games which refuse to work on it (but worked fine on my old Win98).

XP allows for a dual boot scheme. I have Win98 loaded on my other hard drive so that I can run some of my older programs (mostly games).

HighLordDave · Post by **HighLordDave** » Mon Aug 05, 2002 11:23 am

Originally posted by Vicsun
I intend on buying a geForce4Ti4200 @ 128MB. Is there a big difference between the Ti4200 and the Ti4600? There's no way in hell I can afford a Ti4600 (almost twice the the price of a Ti4200), but I'm curious.

You may wait for some of our GeForce experts to show up but the basic difference is that the 4600 has a faster core clock speed in the GPU and faster memory than the 4400 or 4200. It is my opinion that the extra $200 (USD) that it will cost you to buy a GeForce4 Ti 4600 is not worth the little bit of extra performance you'll get. You might read through this thread for some more comments about video cards.

I also read an article recently about radeon's new Radeon9700 card. It is supposed to blow geForce4 away, and it's price was less than a Ti4600. Any comments?

If you go with the Radeon 9700, you'll need to make sure that your motherboard has an 8x AGP slot, otherwise you're wasting your money. To put an 8x AGP video card in a 4x AGP mobo is like dropping a V-8 engine in a Miata but not upgrading the transmission and rear differential. There are some more comments about the new 9000-series Radeons at the end of the thread I linked above.