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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