[RESOLVED] Worth waiting to buy Athlon?

[Jonnyg]

I'm looking to upgrade in the next month or so, and fancy building a K7 600/Geforce DDR/Soundblaster Platinum/ATA-66 based system. I know that the 0.25 micron K7's do not overclock well because of the heat they generate, but do hear that the 0.18's should be better. However, I have yet to see 0.18's at lower clock speeds available commercially. Also some of things i've seen about the 0.18 cache speed issues are not good.

I have had my heart set on an Athlon for some time now, but am now less than convinced. I saw DriverGuy's message about a end-of-month Athlon price reduction, is this likely to influence my decision a great deal?

Jon

[Larommi]

You have alot of the same concerns that I do. I am going to build a Athlon in the next few months. In fact, roughly the same specs you are looking at. I am waiting for the new generation of boards, PC133 and 4xagp.

As far as overclocking goes, from what I understand you have to take the cover off the chip and cut and move resistors. You can do some overclocking with the mainboard and from the reviews I have read the ASUS board is the easiest to work with.

The speed of the cache does not become and issue untill speed of over 700. At 600 you should be fine with the cache speed.

------------------
I always do what the voices in my head tell me!

[Jonnyg]

I would overclock by simply bumping up the FSB so no need to get into the nitty-gritty of fooling with CPU innards.

However, I am tempted to wait as you for the next generation and hopefully get a 1Ghz system up and running http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/smile.gif

Thanks for the reply.
Jon (struggling along on his old PII)

[Shaggy]

Personally I would rather go for the Intel solution. I have had many incompatibility problems with Athlon processors. I think the Coppermine is a better option because it overclocks better and has no incompatibility problem!

------------------
<_-ShaGGy-_>

[Jonnyg]

Sorry but the old incompatibility problem thing just is not a problem any more. This was issues with the K5 and K6 model's from years ago. In the hundreds of people i've spoken to who own an Athlon, all of them report absolutely no problems whatsoever. I am also extremely impressed by the huge price cuts that have come through today.

Jon

[NPaladin]

I don't know why everyone's so hot about the Intel processors like the Coppermine....the Athlon is a faster and better-running processor....and will be able to run in parallel once the SMP-capable motherboards are released (that's what I'm waiting for.) If you look at the past several years, AMD is the company that has come up with most of the processor design advances, such as the 100 mHz bus, and a 3D instruction set. Now they've finally outdone Intel 100% designwise, and the processor is even cheaper than Intel's. So why are people so hyper about Intel? I mean, I can understand INTEL being hyper...they're scared.

[Greywolf]

Unfortunately, you may have to open up the chip to overclock the Athlon much. These EV6 FSB's are not regular on Athlon, remember it's running at 2x clock cycle. The 20-micron chips produce 60 watts of heat, so HUGE cooling is required to overclock these babies much.

I have seen plug-in overclock cards for the Athlon however, that spare you from soldering tiny resistors on the processor card itself. Someone also once said they had bought a 650 that was actually a 700 underclocked from manufacture, but I can't confirm that. ;)

Your best bet would probably be to wait, actually, when the 700's get into the $200 range. The 18-micron process chips are indeed cooler-running and more overclockable because of this. But shoot, 700mhz is pretty damn fast as it is. The improvement from 700 to even 800 would be slightly noticable on these already-efficient chips, and it may not even be cost-effective to try overclocking them. Of course, you must decide for yourself. :)

Have fun!
Mark
Happy Athlon-650 non-overclocked owner
greywolf@windrivers.net

[bohr]

I'm definitely interested in a 1 ghz athalon system when Xmas comes around this year and prices will be a little cheaper. My question is why overclock the athalon? Amd has finally developed one great piece of technology that currently outperforms any Intel processor at a cheaper price. Amd deliberatetly made it difficult to overclock in order to protect their patents and investments. Why tinker with something that doesn't need to tinkered with? Even an overclocked celeron or PIII doesn't either meet or just barely meets the performance of an athalon.

[Timelapse]

I am hoping to upgrade to an Athlon soon too and I tell you that I am impressed with it! We've built two nearly identical systems, one with a PIII and one with an Athlon, and the overall and general performance was better in the Athlon. Of course, the PIII does have it's advantages in certain fields, but I think it's a matter of deciding what you want the system to do. I know for me the Athlon is perfect, and it will be mine. . . .oh yes it will be mine.

------------------
Timelapse
http://www.TimelapseProductions.com

[Greywolf]

Note, there might be some compatibility (most likely a timing and/or driver issue) with ISA devices on some Athlon systems.

All of the devices on the mainboard apparently run at differing bus speeds, therefore there is no FSB, perse. I've experienced some problems with my USR v.Everything 56k ISA modem, that would act strangely in my Athlon system. Wether this is a clockspeed issue, compatibility issue, Windows98SE issue, or a driver issue I'm not sure - in any case, all PCI devices work just fine. ISA IS being phased out, I guess.

If you are thinking of getting an Athlon system, you might want to investigate this further. I really like my Athlon. It's fast!! I had to buy a new PCI modem to replace my ISA one, but that was simple, and now I get faster net connections. ;)

[lilthrift]

I purchased an Athlon 750 with a Asus K7M board. After getting PC built it lagged very badly in all applications. I had a PIII 450 with Abit board and bought the AMD as replacement. I have sent the AMD and board back because it performed worse than my PIII. After extensive testing, I dont know what caused it to not work correctly http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/confused.gif I bought the AMD because of all the good praise but have since returned the AMD and ordered the PIII 700 with Abit BE6-II board. Not a very impressive first round for AMD for me http://www.windrivers.com/cgi-bin/forum/frown.gif I really wanted it be all it was supposed to be!

-R.I.P. (Q3 name)