Is there a big difference in XP processors? (1 Viewer)

[Rob Varto]

I know that Intel is famous for releasing a new processor every couple of months just to keep the market fresh. The jumps in technology are minute at best (ie. 1.5 to 1.6 GhZ). Now it seems that AMD is doing the same thing. Is an XP 1900 really that much better than an XP 1700? or 1600?

 

[Parker Clack]

The difference in noticeable improvement from a 1.5 to 1.9 is going to be small unless you run a lot of graphic intensive software or run a lot of software that requires a lot of calculations by the CPU to be done. If on the other hand you use your computer to run Internet apps, Word processing and play back of mpeg audio stuff then you won't notice that much of an overall performance improvement between them.

The 1.9+ XP Athalon is only around $285 anyway so its not much of an investment as opposed to the 1.8+ running around $40 cheaper.

Parker

 

[Carlo_M]

My personal belief is that you need at least a 15%-20% increase in CPU speed (within the same line, let's not get into the P4 @ 2Ghz is slower than an Athlon at 1800Mhz type of argument) to see a difference. So at 1500, 15% would be about 200 Mhz, 20% would be about 300Mhz. So using my theory, jumping from 1500-1600 wouldn't make too much of a difference, but by 1700-1800 you should start to tell. Of course, I'm assuming you're going to do something intensive, whether it's graphics or high-end gaming. If you're just using Word and Excel and Email, you can probably get by with a Celeron or Duron at 1Ghz...

 

[Bob Hill]

If you really are looking for speed you should look at the the whole architecture of your box. Big things that seem to be overlooked regularly are front side bus speed, the affect of having a really good AGP video card and fast storage access. The increase in processor speed from 1.5GHz to 1.9GHz won't even be noticable to a normal non graphics intensive user. If you are looking at AMD, they support a 266MHz FSB which is huge benefit and I am not sure about the new Pentiums FSB support. Also using a good video card takes a lot of load off your main processor(s) even for basic Windows operations. The storage access issue is another big one. A lot of times when you are waiting on something on your computer it is due to seeking the info on your storage media i.e. your hard drive. Having really fast read/write times on your storage is very easily overlooked as a speed improvement area. Ever wonder why all us graphic geeks use SCSI hardware? Hope this helps out.

Why make it ugly just because you can?

 

[Carlo_M]

Bob brings up an excellent point. A PC is only as fast as its weakest link. If you have only 128MB of RAM, PC100 RAM, a 5400RPM ATA33 HD, a 16MB or less graphics card, all the CPU power in the world isn't going to help you.

Definitely get a board that supports the 266 FSB, and preferably DDRAM (PC2100). Get at least 256 MB of quality DDRAM, like Crucial...it's cheap so don't worry about breaking the bank. NVidia's graphics card are great, I am still doubtful of ATI's ability to support and release regular driver updates. NVidia is great about that, and there is a huge tweaker community to draw from. The best bang/buck combo seems to be the GeForce3 Ti200, which is basically an underclocked GF3 Ti500 at half the price. You can overclock it to come close to the Ti500. And of course, get an ATA100 HD, preferably at 7200RPM, and less than a 9.5ms seek time (Seagates are really nice).

Good luck!

 

[Rob Varto]

Thanks for everyone's input... I was definitely going to go with a 266FSB board and 512MB DDR2100 RAM. I just wasn't sure if I should get the XP 1900 or 1800. Thanks.