tech question 2- athlon vs intel

[inertiacreep]

ok, my second question.
i have a 3.0ghz pentium 4, with an 800mhz front side bus and hyper threading... if you read my other post,...
this guy i work with says he has some athlon 2.0 ghz with a 1200mhz front side bus.. and that service pack 2 upgraded it to 64 bit, but it doesnt upgrade intel to 64 bit...
so.. i find it hard to believe that he says he has a faster processor than mine...
so... first, who makes faster processors.. intel, or athlon??
i looked at alienware and saw you could choose which processor you wanted, so that didnt help...
second.. do i have 32 or 64 bit? or will service pack 2 update it?
and third... what exactly is a front side bus?

 

[The Merlin]

1. Hard to answer..... AMD makes better gaming CPU's with teh AMD64, BUT you have a Socket 478 mobo, so you'll need to get another motherboard

2. You have a 32 bit processor, Intel only makes 64bit server chips. And SP2 does not unlock 64bit or whatever he said Windows was supposed to release XP 64 bit this month, but it has been delayed to who knows when and reportedly may only be released with OEM systems

3. FSB is the speed at which the rest of the components "talk" to the CPU via the motherboard AMD64's have an integrated memory controller which makes their's 1600mhz max, his is 1200mhz, because it is an Nforce2 150 or something P4's max out at 800mhz, but will upgrade to 1066mhz later this year I believe

 

[inertiacreep]

so.. how good is my processor? ..from what you said, it sounds like amd are alot better.. wtf? why would intel only make 800mhz front side bus? and that upgrade to 1066mhz... is that only on new chips?

 

[TheMajor]

AMD's are better for gaming and Intels for heavy apps like photoshop, golive (video editing etc)

 

[BlazingWolf]

AMD has the faster Frontside bus, Intel has the faster processor speed. In this day and age I think you could say that the frontside bus speed is more important than the processor speed just because the processors are so powerful these days.

Each chip has it's strengths and weaknesses. There is no clear-cut 'winner' because it depends what you want to use the chip before.

And SP2 doesn't 'unlock' 64bit so upgrading really gives him no adavantage over you, and you could get SP2 just as easily as he did.

 

[The Merlin]

Well your CPU is still very good, I have the same, but you'll need to upgrade shortly

I for instance and looking at jumping to a 3.6 or 3.8 LGA775 Prescott early next year If you wanna make the switch to AMD though thats another story

 

[inertiacreep]

ill have to upgrade shortly? youre shitting me.. what are those processors youre talking about? are they intel?
and are you saying just upgradeing my processor, or my entire computer?

 

[uNsaiN]

Yeah, the LGA775 is a CPU Socket and it's Intel. I think he means just upgrading the processor.

 

[inertiacreep]

how much would that upgrade cost?
if hes talking about upgrading like that... i want to ask the question... would it be smart always spending money upgrading your computer... or just keep your computer for a couple years and then buy a new one.

 

[lazerman]

There is no need to upgrade, he's just saying the other intel processor is faster and more even to the amd 64. Your processor is fast enough to play the newest games and use the newest applications.