[ale] OT: motherboard/processor recommendations

Steve Long stl2 at mindspring.com
Thu Aug 15 15:30:05 EDT 2002


The fastest Athalon is the Athalon XP 2200+ running at 1.8 GHz  Cost around
$150 on pricewatch

The best Pentium is the IV running at 2.53 GHz   Price - $450 and up on
pricewatch.

The recent chipsets for AMD use DDR and they can go to 400MHZ FSB but the
Pentiums can go faster with the 533FSB.

I just bought a Soyo Dragon 333Ultra with an Athalon XP 2200.  The board is
listed as one of the top MB for Athalon.
But that was a couple of weeks ago.

I have yet to crank it up as I am waiting on the Video card.  A GeForce 4200
from OCsystems.

Check out http://www.ocsystem.com

They also have systems that are very fast.



However, the AMD chip is still slower than the fastest Pentium even with
overclocking and the architecture advantage AMD has.

Intel's sheer speed advantage is a little over the top of AMD but the
Athalon is much cheaper.

AMD also wants more power for the 2200+ and copper cooling.  Be sure what
you buy is on the list from AMD.

Take a look at http://www.tomshardware.com and read what he has to say about
the mother boards.

Tom gets a good look at the new ones.

The DDR stands for Double Data Rate (Synchronous RAM)

It does two data operations in one cycle..

It will not act like more RAM but it will process the data faster.

Http://www.kingston.com/tools/bits/bit33.asp


Dollars for bytes, AMD is better.  Sheer speed, Intel has the edge...  For
now.

Unless AMD comes out with something faster soon, Intel will best them again.












----- Original Message -----
From: "John Wells" <jb at sourceillustrated.com>
To: ale at ale.org
To: <ale at ale.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2002 2:05 PM
Subject: [ale] OT: motherboard/processor recommendations


> I typically build my own pcs from web-order parts, but have had no need to
> keep up with hardware trends since two years ago, when I assembled my
> current 900mhz athlon.
>
> I'm looking to upgrade the motherboard and processor, but don't know what
> my best options are.  Is the Athlon still outperforming the equivalent
> pentium?  If I stick with the Athlon, what are some good mbs to take a
> look at?  I'd like to go top of the line as far a processor speed goes.  I
> currently run an Abit KA7 and have been very pleased with performance.
>
> An additional question: is DDR practically (as opposed to only
> theoretically) equivalent to 2xSDRAM?
>
> Thanks!
>
> John
>
>
>
> ---
> This message has been sent through the ALE general discussion list.
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