Amd Lingo?

[healimonster]

I have never purchased an AMD anything, and I have been a PC user for 20 years.

We all know every thing there is to know about intel processors.

You buy a pentium 4 and the faster GHZ the better. The celeron is entry level crap.

I am pricing new parts to build my first PC but I don't even know the first thing about what is a new AMD card, whats old, whats fast, whats slow.

Could someone break down in a very thumb nail sketch kind of fashion what are the current AMD CPUs and what are the ranges of speeds that are out there.

The only thing I do know is that they tend to be cheaper and more widely available from re-sellers. So I am considering going the way of the AMD for the first time.

If cost of the AMD processors is the Pro, What are the Cons?

[bob_the_alien]

Well, the fastest Amd chips right now are
The Amd 64 3200, and FX. (The FX is the fastest but very pricey)

Fastest AMD (32) processor is the 3200+.
(Athlon Xp's start at 1500 and go to 3200)

Although now the TB core has been replaced with the Barton core, and it runs much cooler than the TB core chips did, it also has a 333 & 400 fsb.
However the Barton’s are a little less in GHZ than the TBs.

Example: Barton 2500+ 1.83, & TB 2200+ 1.83.
However the Barton’s are still a great improvement over the Tb's.

I personally have two systems currently running Barton
2500's. Systems bench about the same as a P4 2.4 GHZ.

And one really great thing about AMD chips is they are so easy to overclock, and overclock allot. So if you’re thinking about OCing, then AMDs are great chips to choose.

[clocker]

You will find that cooling is going to be more of an issue as AMDs tend to run hotter than Intels.
Not a major concern, but definately a factor to be aware of.