Step 4: Know your CPU.
I have heard that AMD walks on water. I’m told that it is so fast that even the Enterprise can’t catch it (Star trek quip). Not only that, but the company is giving them away at bargin basement prices. Thats almost like free, right? And free is good. Right? However, in my estimation, Intel makes the better chip. Why? Because all the major corperations have been writing code for Intel all along. Windows was written to run on Intel architecture. I hear that AMD is now a Microsoft partner. But it wasn’t always like that. In the dark times of computing there were certain games that would refuse to load up on an AMD system. Heroes Complete 3 on an AMD 300 for example. I’m told that they fixed the problem after the 500 so….I built two boxes, pretty closely matched. The differences aren’t enough to worry about. One is my wife’s box that supports an AMD 1200+ and one is mine that supports a 1.4 Gig P4. The only major difference is that I run Win 98 on my wife’s and XP on mine. All drivers are always up to date. Since AMD changed the rules to favor their CPU (Intel agreed so big deal right?) the 1.2 is considered faster than my 1.4.
In conclusion, there are some games that simply will not run properly on an AMD. Morrowind for an example, it runs in slo-mo. Same with Divine Divinity. Diablo II plays just fine on the AMD. Luckily my wife doesn’t play games. She leaves the childishness for her husband just as it should be. For an all around rig I prefer Intel. Just remember that their tech support isn’t that good. When I first bought my motherboard and hooked everything up I realized that a P4 doesn’t like Win 98. So I called to ask some questions. I was told to pay $25 or they would not talk to me. I reminded them that I had just bought my motherboard and CPU that very day and usually a company gives free tech support for the first year. I was told to pay $25. They did offer me free e-mail support, but it took almost a week to exchange messages and they told me absolutely nothing that I didn’t already know. So now my friend, you too know. Good product, tech support not that good. On the otherhand, AMD has good tech support from what I am told. I couldn’t tell you for sure since I’ve never called. If I had a home office and really didn’t play any major games I would go AMD. I have no experience with their 64 bit FX chips. At this time, there are no known games or major software that use 64 bit technology, so why bother? I am told, however, that games scream on it. But still thats why I’m glad that AMD is in business. It may not keep Intel humble, but it might just keep them honest. By the way, Win XP solved the problem. Once I loaded it every thing worked fine.
Step 5: Motherboard, Memory and CPU:
If you want to save money, don’t do it here. Some of the hardest lessions I ever learned were over these three items. For example Asus is supposed to be a good motherboard. Guess what? I quit buying them. My first Asus was a slot one PB3-F. I had it teamed up with a P3-350. I downloaded a flash to allow my motherboard to use a P3-600 that I had recently purchased for pennies on the dollar. You see, it was advertised to run from a 300 to an 850 CPU, it even said so on the box, but they were only kidding. Apparently the packers put a motherboard in the box that “could be flashed” to an 850. So I flashed the bios. I prefer the modern Windows flashes that Intel uses to the DOS flashes that AWARD uses, but the flash worked. Everything went fine for about six months. Then, all of a sudden, my baby forgets she has a hard drive one day. I reseat the memory and it works for a short while but, I call ASUS. Their tech support was very good. They had me remove the motherboard and send it to them. They reflashed it and sent it back. I was told that everything was just fine. Long story short, I sent it back three times. The third time the techie was telling me that I wasn’t doing things right and that there was nothing wrong with the motherboard. I figured it was time to change my stomping grounds.
To date I had been trying to save money by buying an Intel chipset on another company’s motherboard. Smelling a rat, I laid out the bucks and bought me a D850GB motherboard with a P4 1.4 Gig CPU and 256 Rambus ram. The 423 chipset was supposed to be Intel’s flagship chip for the next few years. The 478 was its cheaper cousin. At least that’s what they said in the beginning. I bought the 1.4 gig CPU because at the time there was a $300 difference between that and a 2 gig chip. I just didn’t have the money. In between, Asus calls me from California and tells me that I was right. They had the wrong bios on my motherboard. The bios was not condusive to my chipset, thats why it was forgetting that it had a hard drive. But, I still got the motherboard. Its in the exact same box they shipped it in. Sitting in a drawer. Collecting dust. Anyway, the P4 runs just fine and I upgraded to 512 Ram because although Microsoft recommends 256, my research says that it runs better with 512. So anyway, my youngest brother is running an AMD 1.2 gig machine. After it crashes, he is so pissed off that he wants to migrate to Intel. I tell him to let me look at it first. Maybe I can save him some money. Unfortunately he gets so upset that he buys a new motherboard and CPU that very night. When I arrive two days later my new motherboard and CPU are sitting on the table. Hey, its an AMD 1.2 gig, I always wanted to see which one was better, AMD or Intel. Hey, its an Asus 700 series motherboard. Guess what? Motherboard was bad. I was told that the board that I had was one of the worse that they had ever put out. I was told that Asus was a great company until they moved their business from Taiwan to Communist China. I no longer buy Asus. I have enough junk and I’m not an artist.
As for my Intel chipset? I went to upgrade to a 2.0 Gig CPU, I’ve got more money now. Guess what? Right. The 423 chipset is no longer their flagship model. The European community didn’t like the Rambus architecture and the Americans complained that it was too expensive. But, hey, it was never the flagship model; the 478 was. At least that’s what I was told. Changed history in mid-stream. Luckily for me my P4 runs flawlessly. Thats why I recommend always buying the top of the line CPU, Memory and Motherboard. Try looking for a 2.0 Gig socket 423 CPU. I looked for six months. Then I quit. Doesn’t matter anyway, I’ve got more games than I can play in a single lifetime. By the way I also had to get rid of my legacy cards when I built my P4. The cards that passed Intel’s inspection failed Windows XPs. I ended up buying all new cards. But both the Western Digital hard drives were ok. I always did like Western Digital. I think that the worst hard drive I’ve ever owned was an IBM. I’ll never again waste my hard earned bucks on an IBM hard drive. Too bad, to my knowledge they invented the first hard drives.
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