> Hi,
> I'm getting ready to buy a new computer. My main goals are Nascar
> Racing 3, 4, etc.. With all the different processors on the market
> today, I don't know which type to buy. Any suggestions? Also, what is an
> acceptable MHz to get? Thanks for any opinions! Sincerely, Mick
If you are after a fast computer, i.e. something above Celeron-level
performance, you simply have to choose the AMD Athlon and not the Intel
Pentium III. The Athlon is *faster* and *cheaper*!
If you can, wait until the summer, when AMD will introduce their new range.
At the very least, this will make Athlon prices fall.
If I were buying now, it would be an ABIT motherboard, with an Athlon 750,
and a SB Live! (128MB RAM, big hard disc.... obviously)
As for graphics, well, it depends which games you want to run. If they are
Direct3D, an NVidia card will be wonderful. If you want to run Glide
software (e.g. GPL) then a Voodoo card is a better plan.
--
Richard.
"Cellophane flowers of yellow and green. Towering over your head."
> > I'm getting ready to buy a new computer. My main goals are Nascar Racing
> > 3, 4, etc.. With all the different processors on the market today, I
> > don't know which type to buy. Any suggestions? Also, what is an
> > acceptable MHz to get? Thanks for any opinions! Sincerely, Mick
> If you are after a fast computer, i.e. something above Celeron-level
> performance, you simply have to choose the AMD Athlon and not the Intel
> Pentium III. The Athlon is *faster* and *cheaper*!
> If you can, wait until the summer, when AMD will introduce their new range.
> At the very least, this will make Athlon prices fall.
> If I were buying now, it would be an ABIT motherboard, with an Athlon 750,
> and a SB Live! (128MB RAM, big hard disc.... obviously)
> As for graphics, well, it depends which games you want to run. If they are
> Direct3D, an NVidia card will be wonderful. If you want to run Glide
> software (e.g. GPL) then a Voodoo card is a better plan.
> --
> Richard.
> "Cellophane flowers of yellow and green. Towering over your head."
I haven't seen any review with the Athlon getting smoked like it did on that
review. I can find a more typical review over at firingsquad.com
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/chipset2/default.asp ) that shows the
Q3A tests with a GeForce. One big thing - CNET was using the old revision
of the AMD chipset - any AMD 750 motherboard you get today should work just
fine with a GeForce and 2x AGP, and enable Super Bypass mode that speeds
things up about 5%. The newer KX133 chipset allows 4x AGP, and 133MHz
memory access. That they used a crippled Athlon testbed (compared to what
can be purchased today) shows bias in that CNET review, IMHO.
That said, I don't think you can go far wrong with either an Athlon or
Pentium III. For sims, it seems that Athlon actually comes out doing better
with it's better floating-point unit, and is usually cheaper MHz-to-MHz.
--
Ken's Sig 3.01
"Who is the more foolish? The fool, or the fool who follows him?"
- Obi-Wan Kenobi
volksy(at)yahoo(dot)com
Go #43 and #44!
> > > I'm getting ready to buy a new computer. My main goals are Nascar
Racing
> > > 3, 4, etc.. With all the different processors on the market today, I
> > > don't know which type to buy. Any suggestions? Also, what is an
> > > acceptable MHz to get? Thanks for any opinions! Sincerely, Mick
> > If you are after a fast computer, i.e. something above Celeron-level
> > performance, you simply have to choose the AMD Athlon and not the Intel
> > Pentium III. The Athlon is *faster* and *cheaper*!
> > If you can, wait until the summer, when AMD will introduce their new
range.
> > At the very least, this will make Athlon prices fall.
> > If I were buying now, it would be an ABIT motherboard, with an Athlon
750,
> > and a SB Live! (128MB RAM, big hard disc.... obviously)
> > As for graphics, well, it depends which games you want to run. If they
are
> > Direct3D, an NVidia card will be wonderful. If you want to run Glide
> > software (e.g. GPL) then a Voodoo card is a better plan.
> > --
> > Richard.
> > "Cellophane flowers of yellow and green. Towering over your head."
--
Joe Marques
http://dirkwagner.de/english/english.html
has a bundle of benchmarks relating to GPL, so expect similar for the
Nascar 4 thingy.
Phil
> Hi,
> I'm getting ready to buy a new computer. My main goals are Nascar
> Racing 3, 4, etc.. With all the different processors on the market
> today, I don't know which type to buy. Any suggestions? Also, what is an
> acceptable MHz to get? Thanks for any opinions! Sincerely, Mick
Mmmnnn... I don't understand that!
Mind you, isn't Rambus a bit expensive? How did the pricing compare?
Ah! That explains it. Benchmarks - you simply cannot take *any* notice.
I think it is better, but maybe not, 'saving grace'! :-)
--
Richard.
"Got to be good looking, cos it's so hard to please."
> http://dirkwagner.de/english/english.html
> has a bundle of benchmarks relating to GPL, so expect similar for the
> Nascar 4 thingy.
> Phil
> > Hi,
> > I'm getting ready to buy a new computer. My main goals are Nascar
> > Racing 3, 4, etc.. With all the different processors on the market
> > today, I don't know which type to buy. Any suggestions? Also, what is an
> > acceptable MHz to get? Thanks for any opinions! Sincerely, Mick
If you want to send me email, go to the first URL shown
above & click "Send Me Mail" in the contents frame.
=========================================================
> > Just for fun, head over to Cnet and choose the gamecenter. There is a
> > direct comparison of the Athlon 800 & PIII 800. Similar systems, but the
> > PIII had Rambus memory. With TNT's the systems were very close. But with
> > GeForces, the PIII pulled ahead significantly.
> Mmmnnn... I don't understand that!
> Mind you, isn't Rambus a bit expensive? How did the pricing compare?
> > Doesn't mean squat without realworld benchmarks,
> Ah! That explains it. Benchmarks - you simply cannot take *any* notice.
> > but the Athlon isn't the saving grace everyone thinks it is...
> I think it is better, but maybe not, 'saving grace'! :-)
--
=========================================================
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If you want to send me email, go to the first URL shown
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=========================================================
> > Just for fun, head over to Cnet and choose the gamecenter. There is a
> > direct comparison of the Athlon 800 & PIII 800. Similar systems, but the
> > PIII had Rambus memory. With TNT's the systems were very close. But with
> > GeForces, the PIII pulled ahead significantly.
> Mmmnnn... I don't understand that!
> Mind you, isn't Rambus a bit expensive? How did the pricing compare?
> > Doesn't mean squat without realworld benchmarks,
> Ah! That explains it. Benchmarks - you simply cannot take *any* notice.
> > but the Athlon isn't the saving grace everyone thinks it is...
> I think it is better, but maybe not, 'saving grace'! :-)
--
=========================================================
Redneck Techno-Biker (Zerex12)
http://www.members.home.net/jms1/index.html
Barbarian Diecast Collector (420+ cars and counting)
http://members.home.net/jsimm/diecast_index.html
DeMONS Scheduler for N3 and NL
http://www.paddedwall.org/demons
If you want to send me email, go to the first URL shown
above & click "Send Me Mail" in the contents frame.
=========================================================
The Athlons had generally performed better than the Katmai Pentium III's.
The Coppermine variety of PIII's coupled with RDRAM have been out for a
while now and they generally seem to outperform the Athlon systems (I
thinjk one test had W-NT OpenGL professional stuff when run on GeForce
cards coming out much in the Athlon systems favor though), at least once
you get into the >700Mhz sort of speed range- their cache keeps up better
at the fastest processor speeds. I think the SSE instruction set has proved
to be superior than the Athlon's 3Now, so for sim stuff that might give
more edge to the PIII's and may have wider support- although the FPU unit
seems to be better in the Athlon and eventually video card-T&L games will
narrow such an advantage. Putting together your own system with RAMBUS ram
is really expensive though. It doesn't really make sense. If you buy pre-
built, from Dell or such, then RAMBUS PIII systems aren't as much of a
premium though. However, I think that there may be motherboard DDR ram
systems coming out in a few months. If you build your own system, that
would seem to be a much better way to go than RDRAM. In addition, at least
according to one set of benchmarks I saw, the DDR systems will be better
overall anyway. One of the new upcoming Athlons plus a DDR ram motherboard
might be the best deal. I'm not sure if DDR motherboards will be out in his
time frame though.
>> Hi,
>> I'm getting ready to buy a new computer. My main goals are Nascar
>> Racing 3, 4, etc.. With all the different processors on the market
>> today, I don't know which type to buy. Any suggestions? Also, what is an
>> acceptable MHz to get? Thanks for any opinions! Sincerely, Mick
Eldred
--
Tiger Stadium R.I.P. 1912-1999
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Never argue with an idiot. He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
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