rec.autos.simulators

Which is best and which should be avoided (heard one of them was unstable
but can't remember which)?

Other mobo recommendations?

Just to tell you that if I had another choice to make it would
definately NOT be a SiS chipset. They have issues with several
hardware (e.g. my Samsung digital camera) and the system is
notoriously unstable under WIN98 since I installed a Gforce2-400

Maybe things have improved over the past two years. I cannot recommend
new boards as I am not planning to replace it in the near future,
hence I am not following up on things...

Not a P4 man myself ( over priced by 30 - 50% ) but the Abit BH7 is a
cracking motherboard for the 80ish mark.

USB2, Serial ATA, Onboard Lan, 6 channel sound - all good stuff on the very
reliable Intel 845PE chipset.

I mean - if it were my choice - I'd be getting an Asus A7n8X with an athlon

Doug

In a single sentence you pretty much extinguished all hope I had of ever
seeing RL.  I mean if your so far away from reality on CPU prices then I
really question your estimates for the release of RL.

Athlon 2500 333 is $179
P4 2.53 533 is $186

Now I'm no mathematician but I would say the price of these CPU's is more
like a <5% difference than you're est. of 30-50%.

Mitch

( over priced by 30 - 50% ) but the Abit BH7 is a

Athlon 1800 - 45
P4 1800         100.55
P4 - 223%

Athlon 2100 - 65
P4 2000         123
P4 - 189%

Athlon 2400 - 93.50
P4 2400         117.60
P4 125%

Athlon 2500 - 129
P4 2500 -       141
P4 109%

Athlon 2600 - 154
P4 2600      -  176
P4 - 114%

Athlon 3000 - 414.70
P4 3000       - 462
P4  - 111%

Average - 145%

prices - overclockers.co.uk

There is a pattern from low end -> high end for Athlons to become much
closer in price to P4's of similar spec.

However - there is also a trend that an Athlon CPU's PR rating, for *** -
performs approx one step ahead compared to P4. i.e.  Athlon 2400 performs
similar to P4 2530 ( typical example )
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

Which would change the 2500 comparison from 109%  to 151%

Certainly in the field in which I work - 3d Animation - buying medium price
range ( thus approx 2400 ) CPU's for rendering - P4's are at LEAST 30% more
expensive for equiv. performance.

And quite how you managed to get RL involved in this thread - well - wow -
some people must be obsessed. Get a life dude.

Doug.

It's worse in faster processors.  AMD and Intel pricing is almost identical
at the 3Ghz range, and the testing I've seen shows the P4 as an overall
faster processor.  I'm not quite sold on that multi-threading stuff though.
It's been causing some problems...

AMD needs to remember that it was the Price/Performance ratio that allowed
US to bring them to where they are.  If they are thinking of changing that
strategy then, well, let's just say Mr. Groves is probably very happy right
now :)

Larry

AMD 1800        US56
P4-1.8          US103
183%

AMD 2100        US79
P4-             US145-169 (2.0-2.26)
200%

AMD 2400        US134
P4-2.4          US156
116%

AMD 2500        US179
P4-2.5          US186
104%

AMD 2600        US224
P4-2.6          US236
105%

AMD 2800        US367
P4-2.8          US353
96%

AMD 3000        US571
P4-3.0          US557
97%

Average 128%, leave out the below 2400 CPU's and we get 104%

You guys are geting screwed on Intel CPU's, the "interesting" CPU's,
2.4/2400 and upwards are just about equal in price with the high end
CPU's from Intel being a tad cheaper than AMD in many places, they use
the same memory and the MoBo's cost the same, unless you're putting
together a "low end" computer and have to cut corners somewhere, there's
no argument for going AMD on cost

As for the AMD's being faster in most games....that would depend on the
game

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1783&p=14
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1783&p=15
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1783&p=16
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1783&p=17

http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030210/barton-14.html
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030210/barton-15.html
http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030217/cpu_charts-24.html

I'd say they're rated pretty much spot on, on average

Beers and cheers
(uncle) Goy
"goyl at nettx dot no"

"The Pits"    http://www.theuspits.com/

"A man is only as old as the woman he feels"
--Groucho Marx--

OC's nicely too, 3175 Mhz :-)

But yeah, I agree with most you said, AMD used to have a nice
price-performance advantage, in the high end segment this is all but
gone and in case of the 2800/3000 CPU's Intel is often a tad cheaper
even, guess Intel has decided to take AMD's challenge a little more
seriously

Beers and cheers
(uncle) Goy
"goyl at nettx dot no"

"The Pits"    http://www.racesimcentral.net/

"A man is only as old as the woman he feels"
--Groucho Marx--

Intel's P4 3.0Ghz is, average, $625 let's say.  That's been pretty close to
the typical price point for the latest and greatest Intel Chip (maybe even a
little higher).

AMD's 3000+ is about the same price, around $625, but what's different is
AMD's highest end processor used to come in at around the $350 to $400
range.

It seems that it's the "New Part Introduction Price" is where AMD has
strayed beginning with the 3000+.

Larry

Beers and cheers
(uncle) Goy
"goyl at nettx dot no"

http://www.theuspits.com

"A man is only as old as the woman he feels........"
--Groucho Marx--

Larry

Todd