AMD 64 Vs Northwood

**Yoshi** · 03-09-2004 12:32 AM

Building a PC for a friend, and I wanted to know what would be better for games, a AMD 64 3200+ or 3400+ or a 2.8C overclocked to like 3.4+

**scottluebke2003** · 03-09-2004 01:07 AM

If budget is an issue, then get the P4, if not, get the A64. It will do more....most of the time.

**RamonGTP** · 03-09-2004 01:21 AM

I'd go A64... Equal or better performance than the P4 2.8 and more future proof.

**Vampiel** · 03-09-2004 01:41 AM

Athlon 64 is better, plus as RamonGTP mentioned it's "more future proof" b/c it supports 64-bit. The northwood is allready being replaced.

**MadPistol** · 03-09-2004 08:41 PM

P4 is a better deal right now than the AMD 64. That's the big issue I guess. Besides, a P4 2.8 ghz (I have one right now) will suffice for a long time from what I can tell. I can play any game I want to right now and run it at max detail with little to no slow down. A pretty powerful processor in its own respect.

**tasty danish** · 03-10-2004 01:16 AM

now is kind of a touchy time to upgrade, we are in a transitional phase between technologies that are not backward compatible, even though you arent supposed to wait with how quickly technology progresses, now is one of the few times i would say wait.
64 bit has yet to be truely utilized and is a rather infant technology to home users, and 32bit is in 99% of household computers.
like it or not, companies do not make their money off of the power users like on these forums, they make it off the masses who are running lowly dells and hp's and dont want to upgrade for awhile.
thus, 32 bit compatibility will not leave anytime soon, but will be phased out slowly giving even the average joe time to get on the 64 bit bandwagon and move into the future.

current high end 32bit is plenty fast enough, with 64 bit counterparts being barely faster.
by the time 64 bit is actually needed, there will be much better chips to make use of it.
so i say, hold off on the major upgrades for now, i couldnt really agrue dropping 70 bucks on a barton 2500 for a few months if you are really in need of an upgrade right freaking now, but hold off on the uber mobos and chips if what you have already is decent enough.

**morpheus kain** · 03-10-2004 02:13 AM

I'm with danish I'd wait a little bit and see how things pan out the new AMD and Intel chips are in their infancy and they haven't quite shown their full capacity. If you're looking for something RIGHT NOW I'd probably go with a mobile Barton 2500+ overclock it to about 2.5ghz and be happy because I saved a crapload of money and still have great performance. You have to remeber that this is a very transitional time we even have DDR2 coming around the corner and it could prove very beneficial for the P4 with it's bandwidth hogging Netburst architecture.

**lptech** · 03-10-2004 02:14 AM

Yoshi-

If your really want to build a system that can do more overall, then go with the AMD Athlon 64 CPU and motherboard combo. Intel's Pentium 4 is as mentioned going to be phased out. As we speak, Microsoft is fully supporting the AMD Athlon 64 platform for their Windows XP 64-bit (in beta currently). They are allowing free download of beta version right now and have been pushing the AMD Athlon 64 platform as the platform that they are intent on supporting fully. Henceforth, the future-proofing part of what others are telling you about. Good luck!

LPTECH

**morpheus kain** · 03-10-2004 02:41 AM

Yes if you absolutely-friggin-lutely must build a new fairly powerful and futureproof PC right now I'd go with the A64 architecture when building a new PC.

**causticVapor** · 03-10-2004 09:51 AM

He who has not seen the "Definition of the word F***" swf, raise your hand.

**dosmastr** · 03-10-2004 03:15 PM

Originally posted by scottluebke2003
If budget is an issue, then get the P4, if not, get the A64. It will do more....most of the time.

i'm gonna second that, they both will need a new mobo if you goto upgrade them.... but who upgrades these days? don't we all just say ok time for new pc and build a new one?

amd is bumping ev erything to sock 939 i think (consumer end anways) and intel is jumping from sockets to some totally new thing where the pins are on the board and the pin holes are in the cpu package

**tasty danish** · 03-10-2004 04:06 PM

and dont forget that ddr2, t-sockets, and pci-express are just around the corner.
if you drop a bunch of cash on a new setup, you would like to take advantage of these features correct? why pay a bunch for ddr, agp8x, and pent 478's when these are all going to be phased out soon.
dont worry about doom and halflife, hell will freeze over soon enough and we may see them, but for the love of God dont upgrade for them yet.

remember what ati said about their r450 using pci-express that is TWICE the power of the 9800? now wouldnt it suck if you spend all that cash on a agp8x system and then had that drop on you?

give her awhile, this is a very rare moment in technology.

**causticVapor** · 03-10-2004 04:57 PM

He who waits until the equinox of fall is the wise one.

**morpheus kain** · 03-10-2004 07:31 PM

The Wise One gets better bang for his buck I heard!

**scottluebke2003** · 03-12-2004 04:44 AM

If you want to buy now, then buy the best that your budget can afford. If you can stand waiting another 6-12 months, then go ahead and buy a newer setup. But that is always gonna be the case, we will always have newer and better technology just around the corner.

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