computer advice

[nevnut]

<p>My boss told me if i wanted a new desktop, he would fork over half the cost. I'm checkin' out both a Dell with&nbsp;Intel Pentium D and a costum-build with AMD Athlon 64.</p><p>The guy doing the costum-build tells me the Pentium dual processor has an overheating problem and I should get the Athlon 64. I've always had Pentiums with no problems and don't really trust salesmen.</p><p>What have any of you guys heard.</p>

[Death Metal Moe]

Pentium 4 with Hyper Threading.&nbsp; Dell eats dick though.

[ADF]

I dunno about overheating problems, but if you're choosing between two comparable chips, I'd go with AMD.&nbsp; They generally perform better than Intel.<br />

[furie]

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y178/furie1335/pics/logo_apple.jpg

[PaulF]

<p>I build a couple of machines a month for clients, and AMD is always my first choice.</p><p>More bang for the buck, and yes, much cooler running, even with the factory heatsink and fan. The last one I built (AMD 64 3200+) runs about 20C cooler than the last Intel I built (P4 3ghz) and I've got two extra fans in the Intel case. Heat is absolutely the enemy. Weird glitches, shorter life, and more noise from cooling options.</p><p>The P4 with HyperThreading boosts performance by about 30% if you use applications that can take advantage of it. Most standard apps, Office, web&nbsp;browsers, etc. don't benefit from it unless you manually assign processes to target one core or the other to balance out the load.</p><p>By going with the AMD, the money you save on CPU can go to other areas - optical drive, ram, video card, etc. Also, An AMD 64 with a decent video card, or at least a motherboard capable of handling one, with leave you with a system that can handle the next version of Windows (Vista) if you wanted to upgrade in the future.</p><p>Dell has gone drastically down hill in my book, both in quality and support. Unless you are a large corporation with with a large installed base, forget about talking to a support individual you can understand (Indian) or actually getting the issue resolved in a reasonable amount of time.</p>

[Hottub]

<p>I am currently running an almost 3 year old AMD. It has been flawless, except for a pesky 1/0 error when I try to launch any ID Software (Doom, Quake, etc.) Has this problem been addressed? I am ready to build another machine and want to go with AMD again, but I need my ID!!</p>

[JustJon]

Dual core 64-bit AMD (Intel's dual cores use a front side bus), water cooled, 2 gigs of ram, SATA RAID 0 array, 2 ATI Crossfires running in SLI, Audigy X-Fire, HP dual layer DVD burner with Lightscribe<br />

[Furtherman]

<strong>nevnut</strong> wrote:<br /><p>My boss told me if i wanted a new desktop, he would fork over half the cost. </p><p>Half the cost?!&nbsp; I'm curious&nbsp;what kind of company would make its employees chip in half for supplies, or rather a necessary desktop.</p>

[Death Metal Moe]

<strong>Hottub</strong> wrote:<br /><p>I am currently running an almost 3 year old AMD. It has been flawless, except for a pesky 1/0 error when I try to launch any ID Software (Doom, Quake, etc.) Has this problem been addressed? I am ready to build another machine and want to go with AMD again, but I need my ID!!</p><p>I have a 3-4 year old 1.31 Ghz AMD in the computer I just gave my band to use.&nbsp; Never problems with it.&nbsp; I am personally an AMD fan, but I got a computer form someone with the P4 HT in it and it's amazing.&nbsp; Only reason I'm recommending a Pentium.</p>

[MadMatt]

<strong>JustJon</strong> wrote:<br />Dual core 64-bit AMD (Intel's dual cores use a front side bus), water cooled, 2 gigs of ram, SATA RAID 0 array, 2 ATI Crossfires running in SLI, Audigy X-Fire, HP dual layer DVD burner with Lightscribe<br /><p>You know you're a geek when reading the statement above starts to make you feel hot and bothered.</p>

[MadMatt]

<strong>PaulF</strong> wrote:<br /><p>Dell has gone drastically down hill in my book, both in quality and support. Unless you are a large corporation with with a large installed base, forget about talking to a support individual you can understand (Indian) or actually getting the issue resolved in a reasonable amount of time.</p><p>Very true.&nbsp; I have not been very happy with Dell recently, since they went offshore with their support.&nbsp; Used to be top notch.</p><p>I have a pentium now, but I'll be going with an AMD for my next system.</p>

[nevnut]

<p>Half the cost?!&nbsp; I'm curious&nbsp;what kind of company would make its employees chip in half for supplies, or rather a necessary desktop.</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><br /><br />It's my computer, at home, forever.</p>

<span class=post_edited>This message was edited by nevnut on 2-17-06 @ 10:47 PM</span>

[nevnut]

<p>Got a Compaq with AMD Athlon 64 3500+ . Seems to run real nice.</p><p>Still haven't heard from the guy for the custom build. He was suppose to call me last night, and I still haven't heard from him. His loss.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>thanks for all the advise!!</p><p>kag</p>

[SatCam]

By going with the AMD, the money you save on CPU can go to other areas - optical drive, ram, video card, etc.
Agreed... first off, you'd have a 64-bit chip which runs a lot faster and is what processors are being migrated to.

Also, don't be discouraged by AMD's cockrate versus Intel's... AMD can do much more per clock cycle, so an AMD 2.2ghz chip may very well be faster than a 4ghz Intel, especially if one is 64-bit and the other 32-bit, respectivly.

All that, plus the price of AMD, I would go with AMD no questions asked.