Your honest comments please - PIII or Athlon?

I've decided it's time for an upgrade. My small budget can stretch to either an Athlon 650 or a PIII 550. I can get either processor for the same price, I'm sure you guys would love to give your 2 cents worth

Cheers

I had the same situation. I ended up getting a Pentium III 667 (it would of been a 666 if Intel wasn't worried about the "Mark of the Beast" thing). AMD's are faster and cheaper, but they're trickier to set up and keep running. I didn't want the hassles I've seen with some AMD machines, so I got the good o'l reliable Pentium.

If you're willing to spend the time figuring out what will work with the Athlon, by all means go with the Athlon. I mess around with enough computers at work, so I want everything to go smoothly on my home PC.

-Paul

ive never heard about any programs nopt working on a p3...(trophy bass) heh....

Oooh, that was quick. I'm not worried about setup hassles, I'm buying a barebones system (must be getting lazy in my old age) so someone else can have the sleepless nights!

Dont do it !

Buy an Athlon man, I mean look at the benchmarks, properly setup an athlon will trounce all over a PIII and as for problems I find this is more down to the motherboard than the chip.

In the past two months, i have gone through two athlons... not because they are bad, because I love them. Better performance and better price than the Intel.

I bought a 70, then sold it and got an 800. Tricky to setup? Are you kidding? All you have to do is drop in the cpu and set the side pins. The motherboard does the rest....
It even autodetects the processor.

My MOBO is a gigabyte 7IX. Have also heard good things about MSI mobos. If the RAM you get is higher than 64mb (in one module), make sure to get CL2 memory. PC100 memory works fine as long as it is a 32mb or smaller module.

Problems with Intel come not because it is a bad processor. IT is because people are not willing to give AMD a chance. People like above who said programs don't work in AMD. It is because the program was made for Intel, and not AMD. One of Intel's way to squash competition was to offer kick backs to vendors for putting AMd on the back burner.

its not that im not willing to give amd a try. ive used one a few times and i liked it, but i didnt buy it. personally, i dont want to invest money into a board and processor only to find out that amd HAS been put on the back burner and that i cant run a specific piece of software..thats all.

i wasnt trying to knock AMD, i was just looking at the reality of things....

Do it right and get an Athlon. See if you can get the new Thunderbird chip that they are releaseing!

I have built many PC's both for corporate and home use with AMD chips and have had no problems with them.

For the cost and performance, you'd be stupid not to go with the Athlon. Also, I do have a tip for you if you go with AMD. Don't cheap out on the type of RAM you use. They can be a little picky, so go with either 6n's or 7n's RAM. I have heard (but never seen for myself) Athlons having problems 8n-10n RAM. Plus, you get better performance with the 6 or 7 anyway.

I have also found the AMD CPU's are not hard to setup as long as you can read your mainboard manual, you'll be fine.

AMD.

Just gone an ordered the Athlon! Thanks for the feedback

don't worry, you'll be fine. If you run into issues, we are here to help you.

Good luck, and keep us posted!

Honestly this is a no brainer. Not only was the over-hyped ZX replacement chipset defective, but Intel reluctantly recalled the 820 chipset. I had the displeasure of trying to figure this problem out at work before finally finding this fact out (by chance right here in windrivers). The Intel processors are HIGHLY over priced for their performance (as compared the the Athlons price). I would never have thought myself capable of saying such things, for years the quality of the Intel cpu's were unheralded! - nothing came close. As a technician that changed when i started running passmark performance test(insert trademark https://forums.windrivers.com/images.../2000/09/1.gif on all Athlons and PIII systems i constructed. The majority of cpu performance tests were overwhelmingly in favor of the Athlon over the PIII in nearly all floating point operations ( equal Mhz ratings, i.e.-600 vs 600). I have a Microstar6167 here at home running a 850 Athlon. For 5 months- this system has NEVER frozen or locked up, in both windows98 and windows2k. All software runs excellent on the system.
Ultimately you must choose, but choose wisely https://forums.windrivers.com/images.../2000/09/1.gif

Until very recently this was a no brainer. Intel. But with the release of the newer motherboards AMD does have a better bang for the buck (if it is under 800 mhz and not the thunderbird core. Sorry, but 300mhz for cache just does not cut it). But the first two generations of Athlon motherboards were buggy while Intel still had the BX to reply on. But with the BX finally getting too old to use for all the bell and whistles and the newer AMD boards out, well.... (and without a good motherboard all that faster processor is going to do is crash that much faster).

Now mind you, this is at the recomended speeds. Once you start overclocking then Intel kills AMD as far as ease goes. Pop the processor in, go to the bios and set it up and poof. A 550 PIII at 825mhz. With AMD it is a bit more of a hassle. The jury is still out on the thunderbird core though. It could make things very interesting.

Having built systems with both chips, I've got to say you made the right decision with AMD..just make sure your power supply is AMD approved, and you have enough cooling and you should have no problems..the comment about memory is right on track..get the fastest and best you can afford, and get a good mb..I've had no problems at all with any business, game, or home program not running on these machines, and I've built a lot. My home computer is an 800mhz Athlon, and it wouldn't be if it gave me any problems.

Hi!
I would prefer Athlon.
But last word have to say ordinary customers.
From theirs decision depend, win AMD this unfair competition or lose position
for long time.
And we have to help whem to make right decision.