AMD 64 2800+ Or P4 3.0 GHZ?

[piyonerd]

Okay... i need a bit of more help on picking between a INTEL and AMD. Also keep in mind that theyre the SAME EXACT PRICE.

INTEL P4 3.0 GHZ___________________________________________

-TURBO X-DREAMER CASE 350 WATT W/ WINDOW & LCD Temperature Display (Black)
-STANDARD CASE POWER SUPPLY
-12" COLD CATHODE NEON LIGHT SOUND ACTIVED (Blue)
-(800Mhz FSB) Intel® Pentium® 4 CPU @ 3.0GHZ 1MB w/ Hyper Threading
-*(DDR400-800MHz FSB)ABIT IS7-V2 848P, Intel® i848 Mainboard PRESCOTT SUPPORT w/ LAN & 5.1 SOUND W/SATA
-Geil Value 256 MB PC3200 400MHz DDR MEMORY
-IBM 80GB 7200 RPM IDE ATA100 2MB BUFFER INTERNAL HARD DRIVE
-NVIDIA GeForce-4 MX-4000 64MB AGP
-CD-RW 52X32X52
-3D WAVE ON-BOARD 5.1 SOUND CARD 18 BIT
-Intel Pentium 4 478-PIN CPU COOLING FAN
-Logitech X530 70Watts 5.1 Configuration Speaker System
The keyboard & mouse junk i discluded.

AMD ATHLON 64 2800+_______________________________________
Same exact thing i posted above but the differences are as follows:

-(754-pin) AMD ATHLON64 2800+ CPU w/ Hyper Transport Technology
-(754-pin Socket) Abit KV8 PRO VIA K8T800 Chipset AGP8X w/LAN,USB2,&Audio
-GEIL VALUE 512MB PC3200 400MHz DDR MEMORY
-NVIDIA GeForce-FX 5200 128MB DDR W/ TV OUT & DVI


Okay the difference between two is ram, cpu speed, and video card. I'm guessing that the p4 3.0 w/ hyperthread makes up for the crappy 64mb vid card and the crappy 256 mb of ram? Main question is.... the amd or the intel? I prefer amd as of now. REMEMBER they are the SAME EXACT price.

[saphalline]

I'm guessing that the p4 3.0 w/ hyperthread makes up for the crappy 64mb vid card and the crappy 256 mb of ram?
Uhh... not when you're playing a game!!! For overall performance, especially in graphics intensive apps, the extra RAM and better vid card are going to pull that Athlon64 2800+ so far above the P4 3GHz that it will seem like an angel! Go for the AMD system because, woah, it's way better than the Intel system.

512MB of RAM is what I consider the minimum for WinXP for a power user. Old grannies can run fine on 256MB, but everyone else should have 512. Also, that GF4 MX-4000 was a decent vid card... about two years ago! :eek: But these days, anything less than the FX 5200 and you might as well go with onboard video. The chipset is also a factor here. That Intel system is paired with the older and inferior i848P chipset, which, among other things, lacks dual-channel RAM. On top of that, the choice of the Prescott core over the Northwood C drags performance down even more. Finally, the CPU socket for the Intel system is Socket 478 which is nice because it's tried-and-true, but good luck upgrading! How much further can you go? Up another 400MHz to a P4 3.4GHz. That's it.

In short, I recommend the AMD system because, while it's not top-of-the-line, it's also not bottom-of-the-line like that crappy P4 system.