Athlon 64 vs Pentium 4

This has probably been talked about before here...

I'm building a new system...the goal is to avoid building a new system
for the longest possible time. It's come down to getting an AMD Athlon
64 3200+ with 1MB cache, or a Pentium 4 (Prescott) 3.0 GHZ with 1MB
cache.

In my research I've found that a prescott will beat the Athlon in most
benches. The prescott also seems attractive because it can be
overclocked to 4 GHZ (!).

But is the future of operating systems 64-bit? Or is it going to be
years before windows will be 64 bit in the mainstream?

So in other words, is 64-bit silly, and should I just go for the
speed?

but would you want a first gen 64bit system? First gens are usually
expensive and bad when you look back and compare them to the 2nd or 3rd
generations.

"man" <> wrote in message
news: om...
> This has probably been talked about before here...
>
> I'm building a new system...the goal is to avoid building a new system
> for the longest possible time. It's come down to getting an AMD Athlon
> 64 3200+ with 1MB cache, or a Pentium 4 (Prescott) 3.0 GHZ with 1MB
> cache.
>
> In my research I've found that a prescott will beat the Athlon in most
> benches. The prescott also seems attractive because it can be
> overclocked to 4 GHZ (!).
>
> But is the future of operating systems 64-bit? Or is it going to be
> years before windows will be 64 bit in the mainstream?
>
> So in other words, is 64-bit silly, and should I just go for the
> speed?

I'm running the AMD64 3200 and am quite pleased with it. The system performs
well and is stable. It is somewhat "future proofed", in that it is capable
of running the 64 bit OS (though I chose not to install the Beta version).
Most major hardware manufactures have 64 bit drivers available now. Prices
have already dropped considerably on the 754 pin 64's.

The 64's do seem to be very demanding of RAM, and quite a lot of the stuff
that is out there doesn't do well even though the manufacturer's rating says
otherwise. If you go with the AMD, get high quality RAM, and a lot of it-
the 64 will make use of it ( 1 GB Mushkin Level 1 PC3500, and I've seen the
system using over 850 MB's).

I'm an AMD fan, but between the two processors your comparing, your not
going to "see" any performance difference...you can't blink fast enough. For
the 8 bucks difference in price (M-Wave), pick the one you want- you won't
be disappointed in either.

Fitz

>
> I'm an AMD fan, but between the two processors your comparing, your not
> going to "see" any performance difference...you can't blink fast enough.
For
> the 8 bucks difference in price (M-Wave), pick the one you want- you won't
> be disappointed in either.
>
> Fitz
>
>

Finally a voice of reason. -Dave