question about stability of AMD XP processors

External Since: Jul 27, 2003 Posts: 1

Hi. I am looking at purchasing a new computer, and I am trying to decide
between AMD Athlon XP and Intel Pentium 4. I've been hearing about
"stability problems" with the Athlon processors. Can anyone give objective
opinions on the pros and cons of AthlonXP versus Pentium 4.

I'm using the new computer for small business purpose...

Thanks
Chris

External Since: Nov 08, 2003 Posts: 160

On Sun, 27 Jul 2003 07:59:14 GMT
"chris watkins" <chris.DeleteThis@nospam.dayad.com.au> wrote:

> Hi. I am looking at purchasing a new computer, and I am trying to
> decide between AMD Athlon XP and Intel Pentium 4. I've been hearing
> about"stability problems" with the Athlon processors. Can anyone give
> objective opinions on the pros and cons of AthlonXP versus Pentium 4.
>
> I'm using the new computer for small business purpose...

I have a number of Intel-based machines and a number of AMD-based
machines. They are pretty much equally stable--neither presents any
real problems in that regard--I find that if either type of machine is
unstable it's telling me that something is broken, not properly
configured, not properly installed installed, not getting enough power,
or not getting enough cooling.

General advice--if you value stability above performance, don't go for
the cutting edge--go for components that have been on the market for a 6
months to a year so any problems have surfaced and so that there's been
time for the drivers and BIOS to be debugged. Don't overclock. If you
can afford it go for a server or workstation board that takes ECC
memory. Get a decent power supply and make sure it's large enough for
your needs with a good margin for growth. Airflow is your friend.
Research all your components--google and google groups help here.

Pros and cons--for some jobs Intels give a little better performance,
for some AMDs give a little better, for most there's not enough
difference to worry about. You'll hear FUD about AMD processors running
hot or burning up--they run fine with the factory heat sink as long as
you have enough airflow in the case and don't overclock--if you go for a
third-party heat sink you can get them to run even cooler--the"burning
up" FUD comes from a"test" that somebody did in which they ran an AMD
without any cooling at all and it did what you would expect. Intel has
decided to idiot-proof their chips so that they protect themselves if
some moron tries to run them with no cooling--some advocates pretend
that this is some huge advantage--personally in 24 years of working with
microcomputers I've never seen a real-world situation in which such
protection is needed. Some of the Intels have a new feature called
"hyperthreading" that lets a single processor pretend to be a
dual--advocates make this out to be another huge advantage but in the
real world it gives a percent or two on some benchmarks and takes away a
percent or two on others and in general doesn't make much difference.
Both AMD and Intel add a few new instructions with each generation--if
you make heavy use application that uses the ones in the latest AMD or
Intel to good advantage then it might be a good idea to go with
whichever one the application vendor recommends--this is rare
though.

The bottom line is that if you don't have any special requirements then
either will work fine for you.

> Thanks
> Chris

--
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)