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"Pentium 4 Vs AMD Athlon"

ok, the Athlon has some strong points and some weak ones. So does the p4

But which one is actually better?

Having looked at benchmarks on various sites the p4 mostly ranks under an Athlon in perfomance.

so what do you think?

Consider building them yourself if you're reasonably confident (it's not hard, you cant get things in the wrong place, just beware of static) - I'm putting together a new 1GHz box (geforce2, 256mb ram) for around £500 - much cheaper for lower specs, look for second hand components too.

Yeh I may get a new PC for Christmas or something, Base units are pretty cheap now!

New Jimmy, sorry to tell you but will probably be cheaper buying a new computer in the long run. If your money is low though, check the newspaper for cheap 2nd hand pc's, you can get pretty darn decent pc's for £200. For that kind of money you'd be able to get 300Mhz machine with 32-64mb ram 2Gb(slightly higher I would think) and some software. My tip is when buying a 2nd hand pc is check the pc actually works, get the price, haggle-try to get £50 knocked off of it. The lowest anyone would probably go is about the £150. If you like your current monitor then just buy the actual pc unit and leave the monitor as this should knock a bit off the price. Just keep your eyes peeled for any pc. If the pc is still out of your price range then become a gigalo. If you do agree on a price and it suits you then make sure that the seller agrees to sell the pc to you and ignore any other offer if it comes in later. Good luck on a new pc. (if the seller is not too smart about computers, comment on how computers depreciate in value by hundreds (even more) within a month and that even a great brand new pc with lots of extras will cost less than £1000 (about £800-£900) and even comment on how low RAM is at only £30 for 128mb)

Thanks will do, Im a bit strapped for the cash so Im just wondering If I could by a cheap chip somewhere.
200Mhz would be dreamy from where I'm sitting!

To be honest mate i dont know that much about it, depending on much money you've got id recommend that you buy a new mother board and processor, but the you'll have to get a new graphics and RAM as well.

Your best bet would be to find out the make and model of your mother board and email, or look at the website to see what processor you can get.

Changing a processor isnt too difficult, again if you dont know what you are doing take it into an SR shop or some such place and get them to do if for you.

hope that helps.

Ok you guys seem to know what your talking about, I have a very old PC, a Pentium 133Mhz chip from intel in a Socket 7 socket....what processors can I upgrade to, I think I can upgrade to a intel 200Mhz chip but Ive never changed a processor before.

..what chip would you get for a Socket 7 motherboard???

The Athlon is AMD's answer to the P3, the Thunderbird is their answer to the P4.

Ive got an old AMD k6-2 400 in my machine and i can still run all the latest games, im looking to upgrade in a bit though, so when you decide can you let me know mate?
Cheers.

Thanks, But are AMD K7 DURON's and Thunderbirds not as long lasting as Athlon's then and which is the cheapest?

Duron is AMD's budget range of processors, still pretty sweet - several of my mates have got them, and they're all happy.

Good Choice Big Foot 17

I'm not a AMD Worker but my over curiousity as a 15 year old tells me that AMD is more reliable.

My testing shows that the registry related to Processors on my dads Pentium 3 and my AMD K6-2 show mine to be more reliable and also better built because my dads once broke.