AMD Processors vs Intel

[pdb1951]

what's the difference between duron, thunderbird, Athlon, and Intel 3? Which would you recommend? Thanks

[Szech]

The Thunderbird is AMD's mainstream processor. It boasts speeds up to 1200 Mhz, and 256K of level 2 cache. The Duron is AMD's budget processor. You can get them as fast as 800 Mhz (although anyone here will tell you that they run quite well at over 1000), and they have 64K of level 2 cache. The Athlon is AMD's last generation of processors, which come in a slot A package, come in speeds up to 1000 Mhz (I think...), and have 512 K of level 2 cache that runs at a fraction of the core speed. The Pentium III is Intel's mainstream processor (The P4 is a joke, besides being too expensive), which comes in speeds of up to 1130 Mhz, has 256K of level 2 cache, in a socket 370 package. I'm not sure if it comes in a slot1 package, but it might.

Which would I recommend? The Thunderbird is kicking the **** out of Intel's processors, so if you have the funds, I'd suggest you go that route. If you're looking for a budget processor, then I would suggest going with the Duron. They're stable, they're fast, they're cheap. If you already have a slot 1/socket 370 motherboard, and don't want to change it, then I would suggest the Pentium III. The Athlons cost about as much as the Thunderbirds (due to the cost of slot packaging), so I don't recommend them for new systems.

[NDD]

Although I'm a pure fan of AMD K7 line processors, it depends of what kind of software will you be using with your system, sometimes it's better to have Pentium 3 to work with SSE optimized Adobe Photoshop, for example ...
But generally, Duron/Thunderbird will sutisfy all your needs at much lower cost http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

Best Regards ...