AMD vs INTEL

Hi,

I’m planning to build a big music PC here at work. There are pretty good chances that it will be a bi-CPU thingy…

I neverd any problems with my Ahtlon 1ghz at home, never any problem either with my 1Ghz P3 at work (although the Athlon seems to be slightly faster). This also includes Renoise, which runs without any trouble on both (although the GUI is a lot slower on the Intel, maybe because it runs 98).

But for a bi-CPU matter, I never got to test either Intel or AMD. So I’d like to share experience with people who own or used to own bi-CPU, before making the big choice…

Thank you !

Take a look at Toms Hardware. They have good tests and comparations between differnt processors etc.
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/index.html

An AMD machine will be cheaper then a pentium machine but AMD have some issues with cooling wich mean that you will have to get a bit more powerfull cooling-system on a AMD-machine and that can lead to a more noisy machine but with a good noise-reducing chassy you can often solve this. So I prefer AMD.
If you have money enough to buy the fastest processors I guess intel will be a better choise though…

Please do not forget tom mention the chipset problems. I just specify VIA here. The weekly 4-in-1 driverupdate. Most chipsets which come shipped with boards for AMD CPUs may cause several problems with low-latency audio cards.

And by the way most software manufactorers optimize their programs for Intel. I´ve never seen a selectable athlon XP 64 support so far in a program, but many selectable optimization controls for several intel cpu´s.

Don´t forget that older AMD Cpus only support handling of 4 IRQ´s. That means you may expect problems e.g. when inserting more than 4 card in a computer.

you are talking about very old stuff here. the pci-bug that caused that problem for low latency audiocards was in the KT133 chipset that is nolonger chiped on any new mobos…
I take it for granted that we are not talking about to buy any second-hand computer here… ;)
the computer-technology is evolving all the time so just because one thing was true yesterday it is not nessesary it is the same today…

and by the way. if I would buy a amd-mobo today I would have bought a mobo with the nforce chipset…

well, that´s right, but I guess most people acting with shareware do not buy a new computer all 3 months.

But newer Via chipstes do have pci problems, too - we tested those issuesat work.

And I won´t buy anything from ASUS (puke) - yesterdays power combined with todays prices and what pupils are working for their hotline by the way???

Why?

My ASUS A7N8X mainboard performs great, and has reached the top in many online tests I’ve seen. Also, it was not expensive at all. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone having special problems with ASUS, I’ve only got recommendations.

My abit older Asus A7V333 works perfect aswell, and that card has a VIA-chipset, and I havn’t heard about anyone havng problems with audiocards together with this chipset, and exactly like Martinal I have only heard good things about ASUS. They are always rated as one the leading manufacturers of motherboards and they have a VERY good reputation in the computer-market. So I don’t realy know where you get your info from, maybe you just have had some bad luck with one bad ex of a card but that can happen to any brand…
If not, I realy suspect you work for Intel or something similar… ;)

Well Asus are know to be the best in tests for booth quality and technology, so I don´t know why you don´t like em?

Nope! I made my experience. If you buy an Asus - are you sure you got a real one? I had to change my board about 6 times to get a original …an dthis one had a bad bios rev. So I ran for the new nbios and what should I say preparing to flash and than chesum error. Okay…let`s give the german hotline a try after 3 weeks, I really caught somebody on the phone…who just told me, “nah checksum is nor much of an error…simply flash it”…hahaha…bouy…what a F***…

And if I see the new board coming with hyperthreading and overclocking of the chipsets at times the chipsets never allow nor could magae…I really have to laugh…

By the way the ASUS A7N8X is the board of the new Lidl coputer…That`s whre I expect ASUS to go for…price dumping at Lidl and selling the rest of their shit for an absolutely unmoral price to the real customers and shops.

I learned from my experiences - bye bye ASUS.

It more sounds like it something wrong with your computer-dealer rather than ASUS. If you buy an ASUS you will get an ASUS if your not swindled by a middleman… And do you realy phone the official ASUS-support or your computer-dealers support? German ASUS support 02102 / 9599-0…

“unmoral price”? ASUS doesn’t cost more than any other brand on the market, atleast not here in sweden…

yep. that was the number…but anyway…I dont care any more... I didnt buy something from them lately as I´ll do in the future. I learned my lessons…and payed enough. But anyway thanks for your suggestions.

I’ve used a bunch of ASUS boards over the years (actually all of my own and at work I believe) and never had any problems. Same with GFX cards. You must have been really unlucky!

If you got the dough, go for The Vole … err Intel.
I’m STILL doubting though.

Maybe I’ll grab the slowest Opteron, see what performance that one gives …