AMD or Intel??....

[bgavin]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

I'm late to the party, but has anybody considered the wonderful bargains to be had on eBay for new Intel boards?

Yesterdays hot-rod boards are selling at firesale prices. I bought a brand new Intel D945GCZ in BTX format for $39. The anti-static bag is factory sealed and the board comes with all the box candy. These are overstock items being sold by the hundreds on eBay. There are plenty of these in ATX configurations also.

You would think these hot-rod boards would be noticeably quicker, but they are not. I'm doing a Vista downgrade to XP-Pro on an Intel board, 1333 FSB, 3.0 GHz Quad, etc. The fresh load of WinXP feels the same as any other load. It doesn't leap from window to window with blazing speed. I swear MS puts a boat anchor in the code...



I no longer have a favorite between AMD or Intel. This mostly has to do with the available boards, not the processor. As a faithful reader of AMDMB, Tom's, Anandtech, etc, etc, it seems there are so many problems with the non-Intel boards. For stability, the Intel chipset has always been favored. I find boards with the most driver problems are AMD types. I love AMD processors, and used them for many years. Socket 478 Athlon-XP power all my home systems quite reliably. I have KG7/8K7A boards with AMD-761 chipsets in critical customer servers that run for years.

It is the new boards that cause me much consternation. I don't need the grief of unstable boards, or those that run red hot and burn out prematurely (like PCIe video cards do). I have absolutely no need for products that run at 70C degrees. These should be water cooled, which I am not inclined to do.

I've been buying yesterdays' Intel technology, and recapping the new boards. Yesterday's boards and processors are today's firesale.

[gonzo0815]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

Absolutely, regardless if you buy some premium components or not, from my point of view after market cooling solutions are always an requirement.
At least chip set and GFX need this on most boards. Even on those high end heat pipe equipped boards the cooling solution is very often marginal and simply not working.
An Zalman VF 7000AlCU and some ZM-NBF47 or similar fits any budget and i have had it in any of my systems on any hot chip.


But some basic knowledge about bios setup, chip set driver and some other things is simply mandatory for building an maintaining a stable system. And most people simply have no clue and blame the chip set, the os or the hardware.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

Vista -> XP is an UPGRADE not a downgrade.

In case no one has noticed:
Dual Xeon MoBo's at 400 or 533 FSB (and the CPU's to go with them) have gotten very cheap.

The 800 FSB versions have way cheap boards but the CPU's for them are MO $$$ so they cost more overall.

There are a couple nice things about going this route.
-
These boards usually have 8 or more memory slots and the chipsets can usually handle 8 to 12 GB of memory. So many slots means you can start small and add memory later WITHOUT removing the old modules. Just add and keep the old ones too.
-
They tend to have 2 or 3 INDEPENDENT PCI busses and one or more are 64-bit PCI.
A.K.A. way more system bandwidth
-
Usually have dual LAN. Usually one or more are Gigabit LAN.

Obviously these are great for general servers because that's what they are but with that kind of PCI bandwidth they'd also be great for media servers (bus won't limit drive bandwidth) and with that much memory capability they'd be great for graphics/video editing.

You don't HAVE to use two CPU's to get those other advantages but the socket 604/533FSB Xeon CPU's are so cheap right now - WHY NOT?

-
I've seen used Xeon *PAIRs* in the 2.6-3.0 GHz range go for $20-$40.
MoBo's are running $50-$75 usually and often they are brand new 'old stock' with all the retail goodies (cooler retention, back-plates, cables) in the box.

.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

Oh, and many of them use poly/organic/solid caps instead of lytics....
{But you have to look.}

[shadow]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

People from another forum have told me to go for the AMD setup, since the mobos for AMD are cheaper. Is that true?

Yes, usually this is true. At the very least, there are far more lower priced options for the AMD setup than the Intel setup in terms of motherboards.

[grss1982]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

Yes, usually this is true. At the very least, there are far more lower priced options for the AMD setup than the Intel setup in terms of motherboards.

Hmmmm... that's interesting.

I actually checked out the price list of one store here in my city. Limited choices though in terms of AMD boards. AND Too many choices for LGA775



NOTE: It's in Philippine Pesos. Current Foreign Exchange Rate: $1.00 = 42.00 Pesos

[PCBONEZ]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

Damn!
It was $1.00 = 22.00 Pesos last time I was there.

[grss1982]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

OK. disregard the previous store's pricelist.

This is the pricelist of the store I want to buy from:


Note: Its in Philippine Pesos. Currently $1=P42.

SO any suggestions for a Processor-Mobo Combo capped at P7000? :-)

[zandrax]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

Any suggestions for a Processor-Mobo Combo capped at P7000? :-)

I suppose you are looking for a board with integrated video, so I choose 4 combos:

a) Athlon X2 4000+ (3170 P) + Asus M2A-VM (3740 P) = 6910 P
b) Athlon X2 4200+ (3800 P) + Asrock ALiveNF7G-HD720p (2650 P) = 6450 P
c) Intel E2140 (3220 P) + Msi G31M-F (3640 P) = 6860 P
d) Intel E2180 (3950 P) + AsRock Conroe1333-D667 (2290 P) = 6240 P

At stock speed the 4000+ is slightly faster than the E2140 and the 4200+ slower than the E2180, but Intels can overclock better if board and memory can stand with it.

I think you're stick with Intel G31 and 945GC chipset for Intel processors: the boards with Intel G33 are out of budget and I fear most Via and nVidia powered ones are not so good. Sis' ones are a lottery: some good, some bad - I tend to avoid them.
The Msi has a 3 phases vrm with polimer caps, the AsRock a 4 phases with standard electrolytitcs ones - so check their brand before buying.

For AMDs the chipsets are AMD 690g and v or nForce 405/430 and 630a: Via products are quite outdated and both nForce 500 SLI and 560 SLI are the old nForce 4 SLI renamed (it still has a lot of trouble with PCI timings, so I don't like it). nForce 520 is acceptable too, but lacks the integrate graphics and force you buying a graphic card.
Both Asus and AsRock feature a vrm with electrolytic caps, so same suggestion here (check their brand).

Zandrax

[bgavin]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

Avoid the G33 chipset boards entirely. They are not worth the hassle.

I just finished a marathon session with a Gateway GM5643E purchased from Costco. This is a hot-rod Core 2 Quad Q6600, 3gb DDR3, 1300 FSB, etc, etc.

First, the G33 boards requires a specific set of drivers for the ICH9R/ITE* Atapi controller combination.
Next, this board does NOT have a floppy controller installed.

This means you have to find the right drivers (Intel ITE* series), then slip stream these into your txtsetup.sif, or OEM$ setup on your WinXP install CD. It took me a very long time to figure this out. Heads up. The Intel drivers don't work with XP/64, but there is a solution for this if you need it.

No floppy controller means you cannot do F6 install of these drivers with a normal XP cdrom. This sucks. WinXP does not recognize USB floppy drives during F6 installation. Unless you have a PCI floppy controller card (I do not), you have to install the drivers onto your CD.

The last thing is, this is a micro ATX board, and does not have the benefit of the huge BTX-style HSF. I did not bother looking at the caps on the board, but this machine does come with a super-cheesy, shitty little power supply that will probably kill this machine somewhere in the future. Pity.

If you get stuck with the proprietary Gateway board (DG33SXG2) you can use the drivers, etc from the production Intel board DG33LT. The amusing part is, the Intel Chipset ID 3.22 does not recognize the Gateway board Southbridge. And it is an Intel board.

[bgavin]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

Via products are quite outdated and both nForce 500 SLI and 560 SLI are the old nForce 4 SLI renamed (it still has a lot of trouble with PCI timings, so I don't like it).

Thanks for the tips.

My experience with VIA goes back many years, and VIA sucks hard. I refuse to own one, or provide one to a client. They have always been a nightmare, and I refuse to play along.

My nForce experience is confined to nForce-2. I own a few of these boards and really like them. This post is being typed on one... However, the Newegg feedbacks show nothing but DOA grief with so many of the higher boards, including nForce, that I opted to not play any more.

I contract at Intel regularly, and have been told by the engineers that the Intel chipset produces superior (cleaner) waveforms when scoped. I am told the Asian clone chips are more sloppy. I take the comments at face value, as I've never had VIA-like stability problems with Intel chipsets.

Considering the reasonable pricing I've seen recently, I think I'd opt for an Intel manufactured board. If you dig, you can find the web page that shows specifically who manufactures each board model. Most are Foxconn, but Intel manufactures a few models. Assuming of course, the web page is not a lie.

[grss1982]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

I suppose you are looking for a board with integrated video, so I choose 4 combos:

a) Athlon X2 4000+ (3170 P) + Asus M2A-VM (3740 P) = 6910 P
b) Athlon X2 4200+ (3800 P) + Asrock ALiveNF7G-HD720p (2650 P) = 6450 P
c) Intel E2140 (3220 P) + Msi G31M-F (3640 P) = 6860 P
d) Intel E2180 (3950 P) + AsRock Conroe1333-D667 (2290 P) = 6240 P

At stock speed the 4000+ is slightly faster than the E2140 and the 4200+ slower than the E2180, but Intels can overclock better if board and memory can stand with it.

I think you're stick with Intel G31 and 945GC chipset for Intel processors: the boards with Intel G33 are out of budget and I fear most Via and nVidia powered ones are not so good. Sis' ones are a lottery: some good, some bad - I tend to avoid them.
The Msi has a 3 phases vrm with polimer caps, the AsRock a 4 phases with standard electrolytitcs ones - so check their brand before buying.

For AMDs the chipsets are AMD 690g and v or nForce 405/430 and 630a: Via products are quite outdated and both nForce 500 SLI and 560 SLI are the old nForce 4 SLI renamed (it still has a lot of trouble with PCI timings, so I don't like it). nForce 520 is acceptable too, but lacks the integrate graphics and force you buying a graphic card.
Both Asus and AsRock feature a vrm with electrolytic caps, so same suggestion here (check their brand).

Zandrax

Thanks Zandrax.


Looks like I can narrow down my choices to:

b) Athlon X2 4200+ (3800 P) + Asrock ALiveNF7G-HD720p (2650 P) = 6450 P

d) Intel E2180 (3950 P) + AsRock Conroe1333-D667 (2290 P) = 6240 P

The Intel setup is actually the perfect choice for me since I don't want to overclock. Well maybe later when prices of the p35 mobos go down

[grss1982]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

CRAP!!!!
@Zandrax:
The Mobo on option b has TK and OST caps!!!! ugh......






Same on Option D too. :-(

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

My nForce experience is confined to nForce-2. I own a few of these boards and really like them. This post is being typed on one... However, the Newegg feedbacks show nothing but DOA grief with so many of the higher boards, including nForce, that I opted to not play any more.

That likely is because of a reported flaw with nForce2 chipsets, the BIOS chip can get corrupted, just because you take the settings higher.

Thus, with my Asus A7N8X-X, I had to pray that the BIOS chip didn't get corrupted just because I raised the FSB by 1 Mhz!

Asus apparently don't support C.P.R (CPU parameter recall) with nForce2s!

Thus C.P.R likely can't support nForce2!

Also, one reported 200 Mhz being unstable with nForce2s.

But in my case, it's likely because my RAM is rated only PC2700.

Memtest86 gave me at least one error at anything higher than 195 Mhz.

Memtest86 gave at least 1 error at 196 Mhz

Memtest86 gave 10 errors at 200 Mhz. (at 1 hour and a half or around that)

That was with an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe with BIOS 1009.

But returned that motherboard, because I needed a better video card!

Back then, only had a Radeon 9000 Pro 64 MB and wanted a GeForce 4 Ti 4200.

That was in late 2004.

[gdement]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

I like the nForce2 pretty well, and am building my next machine with one. I don't trust VIA and I want a best-possible 32-bit Athlon machine, so nForce2 was my pick.

The things I don't like about nForce2 boil down to the fact that it's pretty anti-legacy. That's a problem for me because I tend to use some old hardware. (Obviously - since I'm talking about building a "new" computer with this chip)

1) I was 1 of maybe 4 people on earth who initially tested an nForce2 board with a PCI video card. Doesn't work - it'll POST but as soon as you try to use anything outside of legacy standard video modes then it just goes black screen. Finally found out that the nForce2 honestly doesn't support PCI video. I had no idea this was something that required explicit "support", but I'm over it now. The PCI card just happened to be conveniently at hand at the time, I didn't really need to use it.

2) No ISA slots. Welcome to the decade, I know. But this is slightly annoying because I'm one of those few people who still like to have a legacy Sound Blaster plugged in. I'll live.

3) No ECC support. I've had enough runins with glitchy DDR ram that I'd really prefer to have this feature. SDRAM never gave me much trouble, but DDR seems to be more unreliable. Maybe it's just bad luck.

4) Totally screwed-over 15-pin joystick support.
An explanation: The nForce2-MCP southbridge does support 15-pin joysticks, and electronically/logically it's present. But I've only heard of 1 motherboard which actually has headers available to plug one in (DFI I think).
The common solution is to buy a PCI sound card with a joystick port, and disable the southbridge's joystick function so there won't be a logical-conflict. Problem is, you can't actually do that without disabling the MCP-T's excellent onboard sound. The 2 features are completely inseparable, so if you want the sound then you can't fix the joystick conflict. Great job nVidia.
This joystick problem really irritates me because I have a nice CH Products joystick which I've used for 10 years. The same stick is still available in USB, but it costs $100.


[At least I still have a floppy drive. Can't wait until my next upgrade when I get to deal with that hassle.]

... a reported flaw with nForce2 chipsets, the BIOS chip can get corrupted, just because you take the settings higher.

I haven't been hit by that yet, but it is interesting how my NF7-S and AN7 boards both seem to save their settings into the flash ROM. There's a scary warning telling you not to disconnect power while it saves the settings.

Also, one reported 200 Mhz being unstable with nForce2s.

There could be some explanations for that though.
Not all nForce2's officially support 200MHz, that was added in later revisions. Also, many (most?) nForce2 boards were designed in the time of the earlier 166FSB revision. When the 200FSB chipset came out, some manufacturers might not have spent much effort reviewing and revising their old board design. Instability in that case might not really be nVidia's fault.

[zandrax]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

First, the G33 boards requires a specific set of drivers for the ICH9R/ITE* Atapi controller combination.
Next, this board does NOT have a floppy controller installed.

Thank you, I had no idea of this: the real hassle is you can't install any driver because the floppy controller needs a driver too. What a smart move
Why XP SP3 can't allow us to load drivers from usb pen drives?

Thanks for the tips.

My experience with VIA goes back many years, and VIA sucks hard. I refuse to own one, or provide one to a client. They have always been a nightmare, and I refuse to play along.

I think Via chipsets were not that bad: their northbridges had something innovative (e.g. first asyncronous ram access, first with an Agp 4x) and had performance comparable to Intels while costing less. They were the choice for Amds for a long time (from Kt133 to Kt600), because Amd stopped its chipset after the 761 and both Ali and Sis products were plagued with incostant quality and stability, until nVidia launched the nForce 2 (and started promoting its SLI). OTOH, they had some bugs (the forementioned Agp 4x wasn't stable on 694 and Kt133 ones, so most graphic cards had to run at 2x speed), their southbridges weren't as developed as northbridges (weakening the entire platform) and the drivers were troublesome: the goal was finding by trial-and-error the one which didn't crash or slow down your specific configuration [I know, I tried three or four Via 4in1s with an Asus Cuv4x-e ...]

I'm more prevented against Sis: they used to manifacture chipsets with integrated graphics and they were quite decent on paper if you didn't care about performance and, of course, the lowest 3D support available. Some of them had even success: the venerable 496 alowed 486DX4s to reach near-Pentium performance, the Sis 630 was a good chipset for P3s and deserves its fame of Intel 810's rival.
Unfortunately, driver support was even worse than Via's one (a real lottery) and they mostly equipped cheap boards by cheap manifacturers, so their instability spoiled even more the Sis brand.

CRAP!!!!
@Zandrax:
The Mobo on option b has TK and OST caps!!!! ugh......






Same on Option D too. :-(

Sorry, I saw only front views - I can distinguish polymer caps from electrolytics ones but not brands.
So AsRocks are crappy boards - you can buy one and gamble, not the best move to do.

Unfortunately, good boards for Amds are hard to find - Gigabyte reserves polymer for Intels only (perhaps they consider Amd cpus inferior? So their boards are inferior too?), Msi and Asus are sloppy sometimes, Redfox (aka FordLian aka Aprocom aka Polaris aka Bravo ...) seems a PcChips-like manifacturer (bulid crap and sell it under other brands), Ecs ... you got the picture. Good and cheap are rare: I found good reviews about the Abit AN-M2 (slightly more expensive than Asus M2A-VM), but is not in your list.

Intel based good boards are more: the Msi is a good choice to me, Gigabyte manifactures some good ones (only avoid the too stripped down versions, those ending with L, such as G31-S2L). Intels are expensive and forbid you buying a dual-core cpu: you could afford a DG31PR + E2140 if your budget were around P7500.
OTOH, both Asus P5GC-MX and MX/1333 mount electrolytic capacitors (who checks their brand?), older boards are unsuitable (those with i875, i925, Sis 665, Via P4M800), those with the Via P4M900 northbridge employs a really ancient southbridge (VT8237, dated back to Athlon XP golden age, not the more recent VT8251) and those with Sis 671 are, IMHO, limited by Sis driver support.
If you trust Ecs, you can try the G31T-ML, which features a polymer based vrm; bioses are sometimes updated, but you get only what you paid for.

Zandrax

[gonzo0815]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

I have used SIS skt A chip sets extensively and have had very minor glitches compared with the nForce2.
Furthermore, the chip set design was very good, especially with modern simultaneous data transfers and access.
I even have used many ECS K7S5A and have had very good results with them (despite the bad design and QS from ECS).

The problem with SIS was Nvidia and the higher end motherboard makers, which got significant freebies from Nvidia and early chip delivery as long as they haven`t used the SIS chips.
Another issue was the bad PR the SIS chip sets have earned from the usual fan boy like biased review sites.
But most technologically oriented sites have realized the theoretical potential, those SIS chip sets have had on a quality board from a reputable manufacturer.
In most benchmarks, the SIS chips of this era where very close or better then the competition.
But some people have declared the useless memory bandwidth of dual channel memory as the holy grail, so that SIS chips could not compete in this particular area (and yes, the FSB bottlenecked the bandwidth to the memory any way).

[zandrax]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

I have used SIS skt A chip sets extensively and have had very minor glitches compared with the nForce2.
Furthermore, the chip set design was very good, especially with modern simultaneous data transfers and access.
I even have used many ECS K7S5A and have had very good results with them (despite the bad design and QS from ECS).

I know more about Sis chipsets for Intels: when I bought an used Pentium 3 motherboard, the Sis 630 powered ones were my third choice, because it was a quite good chipset.
Other ones, such as old 55xx series for Socket 7 platforms and 74x-76x for late Athlons, were not that great.

The problem with SIS was Nvidia and the higher end motherboard makers, which got significant freebies from Nvidia and early chip delivery as long as they haven`t used the SIS chips.

nVidia should have learned this trick from Intel, because Intel started promoting its chipset division in 1995-6, dealing directly with manifacturers and killing concurrents such as OPTi and Umc. Sis managed to survive only by pricing very low and dealing with minor or cheap manifacturers: as I wrote, IMHO bad motherboards spoiled the Sis brand with them, late released and buggy drivers ruined it completely.

Zandrax

[gonzo0815]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

Sure, the older SIS chips where not that good and competitive, i only have used the later SIS 730 upwards chips, which where very innovative compared with VIA and other vendors.

For an Intel system, i would probably not use anything else then an Intel chip. This is simply as Intel does not share their knowledge with other vendors to keep competition down.

Regarding Asrock & badcaps, i think it should be ok for an intermediate board embeded in an future upgrade path.

[hataish]

Re: AMD or Intel??....

Hi, This post is very informative, however ther are some queries to ask about some specific topic. If someone can help me then please send me a private message. Thanks,