3/21 I've always built Intel but now I want Athlon. Athlons and their
motherboards are reliable right? What specific CPU / motherboard
would you recommend? Pointer to performance comparison so people
don't bonk me on the head would also be appreciated. Thanks.
\_ No. Wait 2 months.
\_ Agreed. At the very least, do *not* buy a MB based on AMD's
Irongate chipset. Get one based on VIA's KX133 (such as the
soon-to-be-out Asus K7V)
\_ Any reason you want to buy Athlon? -emarkp (Intel employee)
\_ [Ignoring the drivel below]
The Athlon is cheaper at the higher clock frequencies.
\_ But the cache runs at 1/3rd speed. The next ones out will
low performance, kinda like a rice-boy who spends 15K
be faster, probably full speed. That's why I said wait 2
months. Also the MBs are kinda shitty.
\_ Most RISC CPUs have full or 1/2 speed caches, and 1 MB
his civic even if he used his NO2s.
and 2 MB caches are pretty standard, rather than exotic
and "revolutionary" as they are advertised for older
CISC crap. Also buying Athlon means you have to deal
with sitty PC BIOSes and IRQ's and such. Sparc and PPC
mb's have all the latest stuff like USB, FireWire and
PCI while also giving you the advantages of OpenFirmware.
Buying a PC is just like buying a cheap car and then
tricking it. Its a waste of $s since what you end up
with underperforms the equivalent "professional"
version. Further more, clock speed is not everything.
Both PPC and Sparc execute 2 or 4 instructions per
clock cycle, thus at lower speeds they are more than
competetive.
unlike the athlon?_/
clock cycle, thus at lower speeds they can outperform
the chips from Intel and AMD. Also RISC chips like
PPC generate less heat and use less power, so compared
to x86 or Athlon, its like buying a v8 that gives you
the gas milege of a v4.
\_ note how you can't drive a formula one on public
streets, also i have an athlon. just got it and
it has 2 usb in the back besides RISC can't
optimize for crap anyway.
\_ Uhm yeah. I'm specifically talking about the 1/3rd
Athlon cache speed on the 1 giga hz chip. Not your
generic, knows-nothing-about-Athlons description.
Anyay, what the hell good is your Sparc or PPC or
whatever if it doesn't run my software?
\_ It's to impress all his geek friends. Geeks don't
run apps. They just like specs.
\_ Its more than specs. A Lose* machine
couldn't handle the kind of things I
ask my systems to do. A Linux/*BSD x86
box might be able to, but by the time
I added a decent nic, scsi etc they
aren't all that cost effective. Also
x86 based systems are saddled with
the crappy pc bios and all of the other
problems associated with it. I recently
bought a laptop with USB, FireWire, VGA
out, S-Video out, dvd a 5 hour battery
life and wireless 11 Mbit ethernet (that
has encryption enabled). Guess what, it
isn't based on a x86 (or clone) chip. In
fact most x86 vendors can't even match
all these features.
\_ What things do you ask of it? The box
you spec'd out is nothing special. And
what's wrong with the pc bios? You
tried out a pc bios written in the last
15 years?
\_ Yes. I have a pc bios for my x86 box
that was written circa 1996. It is
in no way as easy to use as open
firmware on my mac and my sun. show-devs
.properties, printenv and a full forth
interpreter blows the crap out of a
any bioses I've every seen.
\_ That's nice. And uhm exactly how
much time do you spend in the bios
writing forth code? You're coming
off sounding like a geek which is
normally pretty hard to do on the
motd, given the audience. We're a
long way from 1996 and thank god I
don't have a stupid forth
interpreter in my bios. What next?
MS Basic? Get real.
an Athlon. PPC is much better.
\_ Because he doesn't know anything about processors and wants
to buy a CISC x86 clone instead of a modern RISC processor
like Sparc, PPC (RS6000,Power4) or Alpha. He's all about
low performance, probably a rice-boy who spends 15K
tricking his 12K civic so its a rice-rocket civic racer.
If he decides to put all is money together (27K) he could
by a real man's car with at least a v6 that would trounce
his civic even if he used his NO2s. -- driving American v8
and computing with Dual PPC's and Dual UltraSparc 2's.
\_ PPC's rock! Down with Intel!
\_ And how many miles per gallon do you get on your American v8?
\_ Roughly 23. Depends on how fast I drive same as anyone
else. Never below 20. Never above 25. Always have AC
on.
\_ Mine give 15 to 20. But I care about performance not
about fuel efficiency. If I wanted power/thermal
efficiency in a processor I wouldn't pick x86 or
an Athlon. PPC is much better and faster.
\_ Thermal efficiency is important for laptops. I
don't care if my cpu will blacken an egg so long
as it doesn't burn itself up. Heat the whole
damn building for all I care. Power, baby! Gimme
speed!
\_ Or spend the $27K on a Prelude from the same manuf.
\_ A Civic weighs a lot less once you strip it. A lot of
racers then swap engines for a Prelude or Acura
engine. It makes for a fun hobby, I guess. --dim
\_ RICE BOY ALERT!
\_ Nah. My brother is into all of that shit. --dim
\_ Slap him awake. Do him a favor.
\_ And if the apps aren't available for the OSes that run on
those nifty processors, what's the point?
\_ QUAKE3!!!@!@!!11 |