Pentium 4 3.2ghz Or Athlon Xp 3200+?

I&#39;m aiming to spend <£200 on a new processor, as my 2.0GHz Pentium 4 no longer fufills my requirements.

There are numerous benchmarks, testing the two processors here:

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/roundu...s-axp3200+.html

Both have their upsides and downsides - which ought I get? I&#39;ll be doing serious 2D stuff, like Photoshop, Fireworks, Word etc. I don&#39;t download every game, but I do enjoy an occasional game of Rise of Nations.

For my budget, I could alternatively get an Athlon64 3200+, not 3400 :( - would this be a worthy investment?

Serious 2D..... = word? :blink:


:lol:

Ok really. Depends. Remember you would need a new motherboard if you want the AMD, or even if the current mobo doesn&#39;t support the new p4 :(

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Originally posted by Amarjit@12 April 2004 - 14:03
I&#39;m aiming to spend <£200 on a new processor, as my 2.0GHz Pentium 4 no longer fufills my requirements.

There are numerous benchmarks, testing the two processors here:

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/roundu...s-axp3200+.html

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Once you managed to mount an AMD 3200+ Socket A CPU on your Socket 478 P4 board, be sure to tell me how you did it &#33; :huh:

Switching sockets will cost you more than 200 pounds, sorry... <_<

you can maguyver it together with a toilet paper roll and some toothpicks :P

see if your current board supports the 478 pin and then go for a better cpu (if your board supports a faster one)

Won&#39;t the older mobos be a bit crappy now anyway?


Go for a 64 3200+ if possible. A 33% increase in performance (with really bad drivers, too) can&#39;t be bad.

Yeah...Your current mobo dont even suport the 3.2Ghz P4 neway..you will need a new one. The athlon 64 would be the best way to go I feel.

Sorry, you have misunderstood. Let me clarify this situation. By my requirements of a new processor, I was implying the construction of a new computer new computer - blatantly denoting the purchase of a new motherboard.

I retain my criticism of the Athlon64, as soon to be released this year are several clock speed enhancements - from 3400 to 3700 and 4000+, which would render a premature seizure of a this relatively new technology meaningless.

oh, then build away. shop on tigerdirect.com or newegg.com. they got the best prices (newegg ships via fedex, so its faster)

Go for a 64 bit, when the newer ones come out they&#39;ll be expensive, but I guess the wait could get you a better PC. Your choice, but if you keep waiting forever you&#39;ll never get a new PC.

u&#39;ll live with a athlonxp 2500 oced to 3200 speeds. cheapest way. but the p4 3.2 is the most powerful, especially when u oc to 4 gighz. very possible and easy to do. just visit some ocing forums. a lot of ppl have done it

i oc mine to 3.6ghz. and that is just through the BIOS. it is nice
oh, i have a intel P4 3.0ghz stock northwood

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Originally posted by Mad Cat@12 April 2004 - 21:32
Go for a 64 bit, when the newer ones come out they&#39;ll be expensive, but I guess the wait could get you a better PC. Your choice, but if you keep waiting forever you&#39;ll never get a new PC.

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True. AMD have already announced that they are to shift the chips&#39; to a 90nm manufacturing process - which will result in a reduction in cost of the chips, as well as an enhancement to speed.

So I could wait, but do you think it&#39;s worth it, seeing as I could get a top-of-the-range P4 chip, as the 3.4GHz Northwood sucks, or harness the benefits of 64-bit computing - which might be ... ?

the PRESCOTTS are the one that supposedly suck. not northwoods.

Mesh Elite 3.4GHz Pulse makes use of the Northwood 3.4GHz processor, but PC Pro found they couldn&#39;t mantain system stability. Anyway it&#39;s off-topic, so any views regarding my above post?

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Originally posted by Mïcrösöül°V³@12 April 2004 - 16:11
i oc mine to 3.6ghz. and that is just through the BIOS.

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What else are you going to use? :lol:

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FlyingDutchman&nbsp;
Posted: 12 April 2004 - 09:47

Once you managed to mount an AMD 3200+ Socket A CPU on your Socket 478 P4 board, be sure to tell me how you did it &#33;

Switching sockets will cost you more than 200 pounds, sorry...

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:lol: That was almost spit on the screen funny. :lol:

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Originally posted by Amarjit@12 April 2004 - 17:20
Mesh Elite 3.4GHz Pulse makes use of the Northwood 3.4GHz processor, but PC Pro found they couldn&#39;t mantain system stability. Anyway it&#39;s off-topic, so any views regarding my above post?

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go for 64 bit, because in the future when 64 bit software is out youll be wishing you had one to try things out. the p4 may have better, or atleast very close to same 32bit performance. but being able to use 64bit software will rock&#33; lol

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Originally posted by bigdawgfoxx+12 April 2004 - 16:26--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (bigdawgfoxx @ 12 April 2004 - 16:26)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Mïcrösöül°V³@12 April 2004 - 16:11
i oc mine to 3.6ghz. and that is just through the BIOS.

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What else are you going to use? :lol: [/b][/quote]
i dont oc much, so i was under the impression that there were other ways to OC. :( not just the bios. hell, i dont know about this sort of thing.

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Originally posted by Mïcrösöül°V³+13 April 2004 - 00:16--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Mïcrösöül°V³ @ 13 April 2004 - 00:16)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

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Originally posted by bigdawgfoxx@12 April 2004 - 16:26
<!--QuoteBegin-Mïcrösöül°V³

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@12 April 2004 - 16:11
i oc mine to 3.6ghz. and that is just through the BIOS.

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What else are you going to use? :lol:

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i dont oc much, so i was under the impression that there were other ways to OC. :( not just the bios. hell, i dont know about this sort of thing. [/b][/quote]
Well you should have read a guide of some sort on overclocking before you posted :01: .

Get a 64bit, im getting one in a fe months, there the only way to go with Intel not producing a 64bit cpu.

I disagree to a minor extent ...

My preliminary decision has become influenced upon the numerous benchmarks, located here:
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/roundu...4-32ghz-ee.html

Scrolling to the latter segments witnesses the comparison of the the Athlon64 3200+ and Pentium 4 3.2GHz.

The majority of the tests see Intel dominating for victory. Aside from games, or fractional losses, the 3.2GHz P4 wins, evidently.

To worsen my tough decision, both chips do not different intensively in price.

Testing a 64 bit processor on a 32 bit platform isn&#39;t really unfair.

It&#39;s like racing a rally car and a formula one car on muddy hills. Its obvious the rally car will win, but whats not obvious is how it will perform given the right environment.

EDIT: I also don&#39;t know what they were doing in those tests, but I can easily get 5500-5900 mB/s peak memory bandwith. Looks to me like they haven&#39;t configured that FX beast properly.

Sorry, I should have outlined that I was making a referral to the 3.2GHz P4 vs. the Athlon64 3200+ benchmarks, towards the footer of the document.

Also, I have no desire to purchase the FX-51/53 chip as they excell in price - inadequate for my requirements. I&#39;m mainly focusing on the Athlon64 3200+ and the P4 3.2GHz.

Perhaps I ought to re-consider purchasing at this moment, and simply await the arrival of Windows XP 64-Bit Edition, to witness fair and comparable benchmarks. Additionally, the future sees a reduction to the manufacturing cost of the Athlon64, and an increase to the speeds, via utilising a 90nm technique.

I would go with the athlon 64, if you have money for that and also a compatable mobo to go with it, I would do that for sure
I would have done that but don&#39;t have that kinda money ATM, so I went with the 2500+ and oc&#39;ed it to 2.3Ghz from the stock 1.83Ghz
but yeah if you have enough money get the athlon 64 and a decent mobo as well

This is the one decision that is holding me up from building my new system. Everytime I think I have made a decision on which I am going to buy I read something new which puts me back on the fence. One of these days I guess I will just have to take the plunge and live with my choice.

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Originally posted by rewski54@14 April 2004 - 18:48
This is the one decision that is holding me up from building my new system. Everytime I think I have made a decision on which I am going to buy I read something new which puts me back on the fence. One of these days I guess I will just have to take the plunge and live with my choice.

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yeah you gotta build sometime...
not sure why anyone would wanna build right now though, with all the new stuff coming out :frusty:
but whatever floats your boat...

I&#39;d like to be able to wait but the system I&#39;m using now is a piece of crap. P2 550, 256 ram, 13 gig hd and so on. I need a new machine.