Simviation Forums

Hi all,
With the new FS9, I am about to upgrade my DIY PC.
Can anyone, please, unravel the misteries of say, as an example:-

1.  Intel 2.4GHz Celeron

2.  AMD Athlon XP 2500+

a) Assuming that the speed of a PC is measured by its CPU speed in GHZ, if the first of above is 2.4GHZ, then what is the speed of the second, 2.5+ GHZ? or what?.

b) Assuming the same Mobo, Ram, HD e.t.c in a box, If you take an Intel and an AMD of same amount of GHZ, would you expect the same performance out of each ?, or for some reason one make could be faster that the other?

c) Is there a preference between the two CPUs, specifically for use in F.Sim?

Thank you

[quote]Hi all,
With the new FS9, I am about to upgrade my DIY PC.
Can anyone, please, unravel the misteries of say, as an example:-

1.

AMD smokes the Celeron, or any Pentium CPU.  Just my 2 cents worth.

Speedbird_1961

How about an AMD Athlon 3000+ against a Pentium 4 2.8Ghz?

DiveBomber89

How about IT? What is your opinion? How about price?
AMD Athlon 3000+

The AMD chip will out perform that Intel one.
The 3000 costs

Just my $0.02 but If you are getting an AMD get an Athlon XP 3200+ if you are going to get a P4 get a P4 2.8 with 1mb cache and an 800MHz FSB. With a fast processor like that you'll have great FS preformance. BTW, I've never used the 3200+ is it faster than the said 2.8?

I would go the AMD64 route myself. Its a little more future proof.

A little tip. AMD's strange names come from the Athlon XP's war with the P4. I have an AthlonXP 2000+. AMD's are much more efficient at processing data than P4's so will do more work at a lower speed. That's where the numbers come in. My XP2000 runs at 1.67ghz but will actually equal the preformance of a P4 2.0ghz. An XP 3000 equals a P4 3.0. I'm not sure if the same applies for the Athlon64's because they are in a totally different league than the Athlon XP and P4.

I agree with Gixer on going the Athlon64 route if you can afford it. Computer Power User magazine just published their PC Modder edition and it has a round up of the best P4 and Athlon 64 mobos to go with the latest CPUs.

If you buy the 2500+ Barton make sure you get a motherboard that will run at 200 FSB. That will pump your 2500+ up to a 3200+ without the cost of a 3200.

Remeber it must be a mobile 2500 though otherwise the multiplyers will be locked.  To do what is said requires overclocking too so you gonna have to know a bit about what your doing  ;)

My parents have always bought gateways with pentiums processors in them, and I've always had a comparable system with AMD processors in them...

In just about every case my AMD's always outperformed the pentiums performance wise for me...

there, my two cents worth...;-)

I've had my P4c 3.2Ghz HT, Asus P4C800-Deluxe, ATi 9800XT, 1024Mb Corsair Ram system for over six months. It handles everything I chuck at it excellently and during that time I've had not one crash, not one!

If I compare that to my old system, AMD Athlon XP 2000+, Jetway (VIA) mobo (urghhh!), FX5600, 512Mb no-name ram. It seems to crash about once a month, and the FX5600 used to just freeze the whole time.

In fact i've just finished completely taking it apart and starting again after it got foobar'd again - Its now working nicely dual-booted with 98/Fedora Core 1. Interestingly enough I was asked to set Linux to the default on the bootloader! With linux handling the email, internet & games (puzzle and card games :-/) now, windows does'nt have a huge amount to do! + seeing as linux handles the ICS through this PC automatically there is no chance I'm gonna bother with windows!

Oh well - I'm actually looking forward to its next crash! I'm going to put Fedora core 2 on - no windows!

PS. AMD 64 is the best choise at the mo in my view, just saying you can't go a huge amount wrong with a P4c for most stuff!

Bird Man, I think it's your mobo. My system is pretty close to that. I'm using an Elitegroup (ECS) K7S5A 3.1 mobo and my computer has never crashed. No two mobo's are alike, even if they use the same chipset. It could even be a bad install of Windows that's causing the problem.

The thing to remember is not to go to unknown mobo manufacturers, especially if it's a low cost board. The K7S5A I have isn't an expensive board but it is produced by a major manufacturer.

I'm certain its the mobo and the RAM

The point I forgot to make in my post was exactly that - forget cheap unkown manufacturers. (eg. Asrock & Jetway)

I don't think its worth replacing it now though -