Thanks for your detailed response.
The Enermax case has a 365w Enermax power supply. It doesn't
have the Pentium square 4 pin connector which argues for limiting
the choice to AMD (unless there is a reliable adaptor).
I have been researching the XP-M processors since you wrote
and it seems that any one of the 2400, 2500 and 2600 XP-M
processors would be a good choice especially in terms of
reducing cooling problems and, as well, leaving open the option
of overclocking.
Mike Eisenstadt
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Sproule" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 10:44 AM
Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] AMD XP vs Pentium 4
> You mentioned having an Enermax case that you are looking to use for your
> new system. If it comes with a power supply, you might want to take a
look
> at who makes it and what the power ratings for it are. While Enermax
makes
> some very nice power supplies, they often use some other no-name brand in
> the cases that they sell; otherwise, they sell their cases without a power
> supply. (Why they don't bundle their good power supplies with their good
> cases, like Antec does, has never made sense to me.) Ideally, the power
> supply should be new enough to have the special 12 v connector for the
> motherboard that the Pentium 4 motherboards use. This is a little square
4
> pin connector.
...
> For good performance and better savings, the Athlon XP 2600 (Barton core,
> 512 KB L2 cache, 333 FSB, and 1.9 GHz clock speed) that your orginally
> mentioned is a good choice in terms of getting the good bang for your buck
> from this product line. The retail version of this processor is going for
> $90. In terms of how this processor would stack up against Intel's P4
line,
> I think it would be a bit slower than a Pentium 4 2.4C (with hyper
threading
> and running on a 800 MHz bus). AMD seeems to have inflated their model
> ratings with the Barton processors, perhaps because they saw themselves
> falling behind the performance Intel was getting out of their 800 MHz bus
> Northwoods. Although the retail Athlons come with a heatsink and fan,
many
> people prefer an aftermarket cooler over those provided by AMD. If you
are
> inclined to overclocking, take a look at the mobile version of Athlon XP,
> such as the 2500 (OEM $90) and the 2600 (OEM $99). These have unlocked
> multipliers and tend to run cooler, because of lower voltage requirements,
> than the standard Bartons.
>
> A basic Nforce2 400 Ultra chipset motherboard can be had for around $55,
> such as the Shuttle AN35N-Ultra. The Abit AN7 adds all the extras, such
as
> firewire, SATA RAID, and Nvidia's soundstorm audio, and it seems to be the
> darling of the overclocking crowd. It sells for $105. The comparable
Asus
> board would be the A7N8X-E Deluxe, selling for $113. Some of the little
> details that separate out these Athlon motherboards is whether they have
> mounting holes around the socket, so heatsinks can be attached directly to
> the motherboard (just because the holes are present doesn't necessarily
mean
> it will be compatible with this kind of heatsink, so check the heatsink
> makers compatibility list) and whether they can make use of the 12v
> connector that Pentium 4 motherboards require.
...
> John
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