Advice/ideas/info please CPUs Athlon64 v P4

Hi all,
I've been approved for funding to start a web design and hosting
business. It's a good thing I have gotten assistance as the costs of
startup are higher and the growth of opportunities, i.e. income, is slow in
coming. Anyway, part of what was approved, and I am lucky in this matter
was a computer upgrade of the MB and CPU. Having been using an Athlon XP
1700+, I've had to put on hold some opportunities that my system could not
keep handle, that is unless I shutdown everything else besides one app and
then let it go on its own. But that is the issue of concern in my choice.
I had been thinking that the Athlon64 was the best choice, with the better
performance on 32 bit apps then Intel's 64 bit CPUs. It's been a little
while since I did the Computer Engineering type work and designing systems
but my training was enough to suggest that a Athlon64 versus a Pentium 4 at
the same speed or comparable speeds would show the Athlon64 to be a greater
performer.
Then it was pointed out by a computer dealer who I use often that
since I do multitask that the hyper-threading would be best for me. In
fact I do, as a web designer multitask, in so far as I'd have perhaps,
Flash, Dreamweaver, and Photoshop open at once and other applications in
the background such as an apache server, mysql and php. That I use mainly
to test applications before uploading them.
Anyway, I had thought that I had read that the Athlon XP and Athlon64 both
offered multithreading. In fact it is multitransport on the Athlon64
versus the 32 bit Athlons, such as Athlon XP CPUs. So, I did some research
trying to figure out which would best meet my needs or offer the best
performance in relation to my typical use of the system. Some reports say
that the P4 with Hyperthreading beats the Athlon64 with hypter-transport (
I recognize these are different concepts). So, I could use some advice, or
web links to make informed decisions, to make comparisions... My research
so far has left me vacilating between the best choice being the P4 and the
Athlon64. One factor is the relatively or seemingly small different in
multitasking performance that the P4 might have in any reports I have read,
or reviews. For Streaming media, video editing, audio/video/multimedia or
other I/O issues the Athlon64 at comparable speeds does win out. The
Athlon64 3200 (should there be a + there as in the Athlon XP?) and the P4
3.06GHz. I beleive the onboard memory controller does have an impact on
the I/O because I/O will be going into memory and the access to memory for
the Athlon64 is faster with the onboard memory controller.
Any advice, feedback, refrences to pursue, i.e. web sites, would be
greatly appreciated, along with of course some explanations to clarify my
thinking and understanding,
Thanks,
Bruce
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Bruce Whealton
Triangle Web Hosting and Web Design
http://TriangleWebHosting.biz
or http://TriangleWebHosting.net

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

Good luck, you'll need it.

Hypertheading only speeds up apps that take advantage of it. It's not the
same as multitasking, which to me is running more than one app at a time.
Each app has to support Ht or there is no gain from it. So figure out if
the apps you are going to use make heavy use of HT. If not, forget it.

There's lots of comparisons on the web between AMD and Intel, so all you
need to do is find one that compares apps like you use.

 

In a world in which hype and counterclaim are increasingly used to
disguise lack of real innovation, it's a relief to get down to real
data. Our indefatigable colleague Kai Schmerer from ZDNet Germany has
taken AMD and Intel's fastest desktop processors and put them through
exhaustive tests. The results are clear -- in almost every way, bar
intensive multi-tasking, AMD wins.

http://comment.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020505,39164366,00.htm
http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/0,39023100,39164010,00.htm