lifespan of the athlon compared to P4?

"Iain" wrote in message
om...
I am getting a new gigabyte mobo (with the help of the good people in
this ng) and read last night while researching the subject that the
Barton core on the Athlon XP is likely to be the last revision and AMD
will be concentrating on their new 64bit chips. I'm thinking that
maybe buying an Socket A board is not the way to go as ideally like to
keep the mobo but get a new processor in a year or so, to keep up to
date.

If I bought a P4 (say a 2.4GHz) with the 800MHz FSB and an appropriate
board it would cost me a bit more but would that have a longer
lifespan? I believe the P4 has a lot more left in it so if I bought a
board that supports the 800Mhz FSB hopefully the next years worth of
P4's will be usable on that board? I don't want to buy into an AMD
solution that has no future, even though I'm an AMD-boy at heart.

Any thoughts on this subject greatly appreciated,
Iain
Unfortunately, I'd say it was impossible to be sure...
The problem is that though the P4'core', has further to go, in terms of
future expansion, than the current Athlon core, it is perfectly likely (it
has happened in the past), that a new 'format' will be needed with faster
cores, as the supply requirements change.
Intel have historically changed packages more often than AMD.
Realistically, you should accept, that in any timescale much beyond perhaps
eighteen months, the chances of being able to get a faster processor to fit
an older board are fairly limited.

Best Wishes

Iain wrote:
I am getting a new gigabyte mobo (with the help of the good people in
this ng) and read last night while researching the subject that the
Barton core on the Athlon XP is likely to be the last revision and AMD
will be concentrating on their new 64bit chips. I'm thinking that
maybe buying an Socket A board is not the way to go as ideally like to
keep the mobo but get a new processor in a year or so, to keep up to
date.

If I bought a P4 (say a 2.4GHz) with the 800MHz FSB and an appropriate
board it would cost me a bit more but would that have a longer
lifespan? I believe the P4 has a lot more left in it so if I bought a
board that supports the 800Mhz FSB hopefully the next years worth of
P4's will be usable on that board? I don't want to buy into an AMD
solution that has no future, even though I'm an AMD-boy at heart.

Any thoughts on this subject greatly appreciated,
Iain

If Tom's Hardware is correct, the P5 Prescott should initially be released
Fall 2003 in the Socket 478 with a change to Socket 775 by Spring/Summer
2004. The XP3200+ is the last of the Socket A processors. By fall of 2003,
the Athlon64 should be starting to appear. If you need to upgrade right now,
the Intel solution looks best for longevity. If you can afford to wait a few
months, the Athlon64 appears to be the way to go.

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So basically both platforms have a limited life - outmoded by the end of the
year. I feared as much. I think I'll stick with the slightly cheaper athlon
xp.

Cheers guys



"S.Heenan" wrote in message
. ca...
Iain wrote:
I am getting a new gigabyte mobo (with the help of the good people in
this ng) and read last night while researching the subject that the
Barton core on the Athlon XP is likely to be the last revision and AMD
will be concentrating on their new 64bit chips. I'm thinking that
maybe buying an Socket A board is not the way to go as ideally like to
keep the mobo but get a new processor in a year or so, to keep up to
date.

If I bought a P4 (say a 2.4GHz) with the 800MHz FSB and an appropriate
board it would cost me a bit more but would that have a longer
lifespan? I believe the P4 has a lot more left in it so if I bought a
board that supports the 800Mhz FSB hopefully the next years worth of
P4's will be usable on that board? I don't want to buy into an AMD
solution that has no future, even though I'm an AMD-boy at heart.

Any thoughts on this subject greatly appreciated,
Iain

If Tom's Hardware is correct, the P5 Prescott should initially be released
Fall 2003 in the Socket 478 with a change to Socket 775 by Spring/Summer
2004. The XP3200+ is the last of the Socket A processors. By fall of 2003,
the Athlon64 should be starting to appear. If you need to upgrade right
now,
the Intel solution looks best for longevity. If you can afford to wait a
few
months, the Athlon64 appears to be the way to go.

--
Winerr 00B - Push Error; Removing Files to Make Room for Advertisement

Iain Robinson wrote:
So basically both platforms have a limited life - outmoded by the end
of the year. I feared as much. I think I'll stick with the slightly
cheaper athlon xp.

Cheers guys

FWIW, the move to 64-bit computing won't happen over night. Besides the
bragging rights involved with owning a 64-bit CPU, you won't miss much in
terms of performance. If I was building a system right now, I'd be looking
at an Nforce2 board and a Barton core Athlon. The Nforce2 is mature and
solid. I don't expect the first 64-bit systems to be bug-free and I'm not
sure a 64-bit Windows OS will be available at a reasonable cost. A few Linux
distributions will ship with 64-bit support.
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Winerr 00B - Push Error; Removing Files to Make Room for Advertisement