Some info for ya [from memory, so double check my stuff]:

Yes, you need a motherboard that supports DDR SDRAM. It requires different voltages [¿and possibly a different pinout?]. There are many DDR boards out for both the P!!! and the Athlons. Some of the DDR boards have both SDR and DDR RAM slots, which can be nice [you only use one or the other though]. VIA is about to launch a DDR P4 chipset, but Intel is hassling them about licensing, so there are no DDR P4 boards on the market yet.
I don't think there are any retail boards with dual P4s, but you may find them at places like ServerWorks [$$$$], or similar. Not 100% sure though.
All P4 boards use RDRAM right now. Intel has a DDR/SDR chipset on the way, and VIA has the above mentioned chipset almost ready. I have heard good things about the Abit TH7 [and the TH7-II, for the new P4 PGA478 pinout]. If you really want a P4, I'd say wait for the PGA478 P4, and avoid the current PGA423s, as this will limit your future upgradeability.
I don't think there are any 10,000RPM ATA drives out right now, only SCSI [also 15K]. I saw a recent note that Intel just finished the ATA/133 spec., but there aren't any ATA/133 HDDs on the market yet.
I prefer TEAC FDDs, but I think Sony and Mitsumi are OK, too.
I'm not very knowledgeable about RAID, in general, but I do know that most of the retail boards that boast IDE RAID support only support RAID 0/1/0+1. To get RAID 5 on a retail board, you'll need a second PCI card, and they can get expensive [i like Adaptec, but I hear good things about Promise and Tekram as well], especially when you go SCSI.
P4 boards are not ATX [most anyway]. They are MTX [i think that's the new term]. It's a kind of extended ATX, that arranges the board 'upside down' from the ATX spec., and has support brackets for the heatsink, as well as requiring an extra power lead, thus a different power supply - something to look for when you get a case/PSU.
As for AMD.... This is an invitation for a holy war. 1) It uses the same RAM as Intel. Actually, AMD has DDR boards for their top systems, but there is no RDRAM chipset for AMD CPUs. 2) There have been incompatibilities with some software/hardware from AMD chipsets, but most of these are fixed now [many related to SoundBlaster Live! cards, FYI]. 3) As for price differences: yes, AMD is cutting low to get marketshare, but I think they are better at 'recycling' older technology, as compared to Intel's constant invention of new tech., so that may explain how they make it by on lower income [their marketing budget is a lot less than Intel's, too]. OT) My next system will be AMD [unless I go for an Apple TiPb w/OS X to get my useable UNIX on - another invitation for flames]. I was anti-AMD after my run-in with a K6-2, but I cede that they have the better value for the buck right now, especially if you're into overclocking.
[/list=1]
OK, like I said, this is from memory, so don't just take my word for it all, check around some more [hopefully others will comment here as well].
 
Good luck with your new system,
-bZj

There's not too much more I can add to the above post, as it covers just about everything you asked.
 
The only thing I will comment on is the AMD front.
 
I've been a stalwart Intel man for years, but have recently bought kit to build an AMD system. It hasn't gone too wel to start with as the AMD chips are bit more fragile than the Intel ones.
 
If you're careful though, you shouldn;t end up frying the CPU like I did
 
The price/performance ratio is definately on AMDs side right now, and with both P3 and Athlon chips generally outperforming the P4, it would make sense to go that route. The new palomino chip is also something to consider, but its price will be high as it's new.
 
If you're interested in clocking your PC, then again, AMD is the best buy. Intel chips are multiplier locked, so the best you can do is up the FSB a bit. All AMD chips from 1.2GHz upwards are multiplier unlocked. The 1GHz chips can be unlocked by joining the L1 bridges with a pencil. Depending on the stepping code of the CPU, you could get an extra 500MHz out the chip with careful clocking.
 
There are alos plenty of alternatives to Creative Labs sound cards. I bought a Sonic Fury to put in mine.

Yeah, watch out for the AMD cores--really fragile SOB's. Cracked a 600 Duron that may of hit 1GHz, but I'll never know.
I'd hold out until we see a P4 DDR board from Via, as the prelim results look pretty sweet, see [H]ardOCP for details. Intel is pissed about Via's P4, and says they don't have an offical P4 license.
If, and that's a big if, we see the i845 bearing DDR, and not crippled, I heard someone say it could be the next BX, but I don't know--that's a pretty hard task to do now.
 
If you want dual P4's, you'll have to settle for the uber-expensive Xeon's 8) and motherboard, RDRAM, and such. Probably not the route you'd wanna take.
If you want duallies, you can't beat the Abit VP6 with a couple of PIII's---1GHz if you can afford it.
 
Oh, and the SBLive issues are with Via chipsets, specifically boards carrying the 686B south bridge and the KT133/A northbridge. It does affect Intel setups, but I haven't heard as many ppl be-atching about it.
Ah, well, Creative seems to pissoff quite a few ppl anyway, so the SBLive! might not be an issue any longer.

Exellent responses.. thanks you you all!
 
Here's what I decided:
 
I figured that just because I have money now does not mean that I should spend it, so instead of spending 2 grand on an entirely new system and waiting a couple months for the hardware you are talking about, I will upgrade part by part. Also, it does not look too enticing to buy a Pentium 4 setup right now so I've decided to go top of the line Pentium 3 (1GHZ) with an ASUS CUSL2-C mobo. This is going to be a very sweet upgrade for me since I'm currently running a Pentium 2 504mhz (112X4.5) on an Amptron 3100B mobo. My hard drives are ATA/66 and my current motherboard supports only ATA/33, my RAM is pc133 but is currently running at 112. I have a Sound Blaster Live Value sound card and because of those compatibility issues with the Via chipset, I went with the CUSL2-C mobo, which has an Intel chipset... so shouldnt have any problems there. Also my video card still aint bad... GeForce 2 GTS DDR 32meg. My case is an ATX Enlight Corp. case and according to Down8 P4 mobos have a whole new form factor, meaning I would have to get a new case as well.
 
Given this, I narrowed it down to the primary things that I should upgrade... my mobo and my processor. Doing so would give the rest of my hardware the oportunity to perform at it's maximum potential, which is still quite fast even by today standards. Also it means that I can continue to use the hardware that I still have. I don't have to run out and buy a new case or RDRAM or anything else.
 
I got the motherboard and the processor for $297 without shipping. I think that's a pretty sweet deal. Thanks again for your input!

I would wait until the 2nd gen of the P4's come out. They will have a new chipset (intel has hinted at a ddr config). They will break 2Ghz and probably start laying into AMD. AMD at this point is having a hard time gaining market share. Even if the flood gates did open at this point AMD would not be prepared to even meet the damend of gaining 10% of the market. I'm not saying AMD has bad chips. The fastest Athlon's beat or match the higher clocked/priced P4's, but the problem is Intel is going to sell more to the mainstream market with the P4 than AMD is with it's followers. AMD has a high % of the gaming market, but is not high on the low end server, workstations, and home machines.

With the Palomino MP chips, I think we could start to see some AMD servers start to appear from some of the major companies fairly soon.
 
The main problem (for home users) is that the only board that will take dual Pallys is from Tyan. It's a server class board with onboard SCSI and everything else that servers need. This puts the price waaay up.
 
Once a few lower spec dual Palomino start appearing, it will become a viable option for home users as well.
 
And as for buying a P3, are you not better off getting one of the new Tualtin (sp) P3s? They clock slightly higher at 1.2GHz and would give you slightly more future proofing. As to how long the P3 will hang around after this is anyones guess though.
 
In order for Intel to start shifting P4s (which a lot of customers aren't currently buying) they could kill the P3 fairly quickly. This will then leave them with the P4 at the top end, and maybe a redesigned Celeron/P3 at the value end.
 
Undoutedly these will all require new motherboards ;(

AMD based servers will not get a foothold in the market.
Unfortunately they still can't be trusted to be 100% reliable.
Network Administrators don't necessarily want speed at all costs, most will settle for slower servers that they know will be reliable.
Dual AMD systems is so very new that any organisation worth their salt wont touch one with a barge-pole until they have been out to market for at least 18 months - we all remember the early chipsets for Athlon CPU's.
 
The argument about Intel CPU's and requiring a new motherboard is mirrored accross to AMD, but with one exception.
Sure, the new Palomino will fit into quite a few existing motherboards, however you will get no advantage from doing so, you will be effectively crippling the new CPU because the older chipsets can't use the new CPU features.
You are better off waiting for the new chipsets too, which of course could have exactly the same problems as the early Althlon chipsets.
 
As always, if you want plug everything together and go, Intel is your choice.

Then it sounds like I've chosen well. Thanks!

Quote:
AMD based servers will not get a foothold in the market.
Unfortunately they still can't be trusted to be 100% reliable.
Network Administrators don't necessarily want speed at all costs, most will settle for slower servers that they know will be reliable.
Dual AMD systems is so very new that any organisation worth their salt wont touch one with a barge-pole until they have been out to market for at least 18 months - we all remember the early chipsets for Athlon CPU's.

The current server boards out there do not use VIA chipsets. They use AMD chipsets. If anyone can deign a chipset that will work correctly with an AMD processor, it's AMD themselves. I don't expect large corporations to suddenly through away their Intel servers and replace them with AMD. That would be stupid. I do think that some of the large computer manufacturers such as DELL and Compaq may start producing servers and workstations based on the Palomino. Price/performance is better than Intel, and for these guys, margin is very important. They also have a lot weight to throw around, so if there are problems with chipsets and reliability, they will have the muscle and expertise to get the problems sorted.

Quote:The argument about Intel CPU's and requiring a new motherboard is mirrored accross to AMD, but with one exception.
Sure, the new Palomino will fit into quite a few existing motherboards, however you will get no advantage from doing so, you will be effectively crippling the new CPU because the older chipsets can't use the new CPU features.

Not true. Current motherboards (and I mean new boards like the Epox 8K7A) will take the Palomino chip, and with a BIOS flash, hey presto, full functionality.

But you're still missing the point. If you have an older board that won't recognise the benefits of a Palomino, you have 2 choices. 1 - upgrade the motherboard, and run your old CPU on it until you can afford to change the CPU as well. or 2 - upgrade the CPU and run it without new features until you can afford to upgrade the motherboard.

In either case, you will get performance benefits.

With Intel, everything has to be replaced in one go. Want to go to P4 from a P3? Ok sir, that'll be a new motherboard, CPU, RAM, power supply and probably a new case as well.

Want to go to a Palomino from an Athlon, best scenario is that you only need the CPU. Worst case is you need a motherboard, CPU, RAM and power supply. Not hugely different, but at least you don't have to throw your case away. It would probably also be a couple of hundred pounds cheaper.

Oh I have no doubt that AMD will start to take a foothold into the Workstation market, however your post talked about AMD based servers which just aren't going to take much of the market share away from Intel, if at all.
Dual-CPU setup's is still not really a valid solution for home users, sure Win2k or WinXP Professional will make use of the second CPU, but only 10% of applications and no games, so it's really a waste of time & money, not least because some hardware devices (mainly soundcards) have real hassle with dual-CPU setup's.
 
The simple truths are, if you want the highest performing processor on the market, you'll go AMD.
If you want the easiest processor to setup then you'll go Intel.
 
What makes you think AMD's chipsets's will be perfect?
If a company with many years experience in designing & building chipset's (VIA) have hassle, how do you really feel a relative newboy to the chipset market will work?
It's not as if AMD kept things secret from VIA as without the likes of VIA the Athlon would have totally flopped (Nice CPU, shame there aren't any boards to run it etc).
AMD will be working from the same reference designs given to the likes of VIA, yup we could well see a company unable to make a 100% reliable chipset to work with their own CPU.
 
New case when you upgrade from P3 to P4?
Hummm, your call, I think I'll just keep my current case if/when I make the upgrade, saves you a good £50 at least.

I not saying that AMDs chipsets are perfect, just that seeing as they developed the CPU, their chipsets should work without the flaws you might associate with a VIA chipset.
 
It's not as if Intel can make a perfect chipset either. Look at the MTH problems they had in the not too distant past. Plenty of customers had to have the boards swapped out and replaced. If that was me looking for a stable system at that time, it would have seriously dented my faith in Intel being able to supply a fully working and tested product that I could run my business on.
 
And as for cases, the P4 has 4 extra holes around the motherboard for mounting a heatsink onto the CPU. These must be secured into the motherboard tray. If your case does not have the required holes in the tray, good luck at running a P4 without the heatsink being properly attached.

I haven't owned a case that doesn't have enough holes in it to mount any form factor of motherboard, well with the exception of the AT format, but that's dead & burried.
 
The MTH issue was not experienced by all, in fact until Intel actually went public with the problem there were actually very few cases reported.
However, Intel did the right thing, came clean and offered everybody who bought an 820 chipset based motherboard with SDRAM either a swap for an 820 motherboard & 64MB RDRAM or the option of getting a full refund - no matter who manufactured the motherboard.
There is yet another thing in Intel's favour, they come out with the known problems with their CPU's / chipsets.
When was the last time you heard AMD come out and say 'We have the following errata?'
If you think this is because they don't have any problems or errate with their CPU's, then your living with rose-tinted glasses on.

You're completely missing the point I am trying to make.
 
I wasn't saying that Intel are rubbish and AMD or great, or vice-versa. I was just trying to point out that Intel are not the great company that many people believe them to be. They have their own problems with their own products. The MTH issue may have been handled well by Intel, but the fact that the products had to be replaced in the first means that they weren't tested as throughly as they should have been. That was the point I was making.
 
Maybe the reason that AMD haven't issued a recall on any of their products is that none of them have had problems serious enough to warrant it. AMD do run a list of problems with the CPUs and chipsets, saying otherwise is daft.
 
You need to accept that AMD is starting to pick up sales not just in the home market but in the workplace too. With the Palomino CPU they have a viable workstation and low end server solution. Until AMD can produce 4/8/16 way servers they will be restrained to that section of the market. But with HP/Gateway/Compaq already supplying Athlon based machines, it's surely only a matter of time before they step up to offering the Palomino.
 
For the case thing, it's not a matter of being able to fit the motherboard that's the problem, it's fitting the heatsink. The mobo has 4 holes around the CPU socket. The heatsink should have 4 bolts which fit through these holes and bolt into the motherboard tray.
 
In order to fit into the motherbaord tray, you need to have a case that supports the P4. Not all cases do. No heastink support holes, no upgrade to a P4.
 
Check your GW802 case. You'll likely find an abscence of the required holes meaning that you will in fact have to change your case should you fancy moving upto a P4.

It's not the need to accept that AMD are taking market share.
The statement was made:
"AMD will be taking a share of the server market"
 
This statement was incorrect, the actual amount of market share AMD will take in the server market will be low, single figure percentages.
These servers are also highly unlikely to be running mission critical software / networks.
AMD has a very immature server solution and their dual-CPU setup is even more so.
The majority of companies feel safe with Intel, safe in the knowledge that once the server is up and running and part of the larger network it will not fail or hang for no apparent reason.
 
It isn't difficult to convince a home user to use an AMD CPU.
For the most part, 100% reliability isn't an issue to them and the odd occasional freeze is not going to worry them.
However, the Intel branding is high in the mind of the home user too - AMD simply don't advertise and the reasons behind this would be that AMD are still a company in dept.
 
AMD holds a niche market.
Home users who either want the very fastest CPU or people 'in the know'.
However from a corporate point of view, AMD does not carry the same weight as Intel.
Even from a workstation point of view, you know that with an Intel system it is "Out of the box and on the network in seconds".
It is also widely accepted that any application you throw at a Intel CPU will work.
The last issue is speed.
Those IT people in the know, also know that although on paper the AMD CPU's are faster, this isn't necessarily the case in 'real-world' & business applications.
The benchmarks show that the Intel CPU's can and will out-perform the AMD's in both business applications and those applications demanding a lot of Floating Point operations.
 
Until AMD can offer a tried & tested solution, something mature, something that is 100% reliable and that can compete clock for clock against the Intel CPU's on ALL applications, they will never take any serious chuncks out of the Intel market share.
AMD may be coming on leaps & bounds in the home user market, but they aren't in the corporate world and that is where the money is.

A share is a share. Doesn't matter if it's 1% or 90%. You can't launch a new product and expect to dominate the market overnight. So therefore as they sell servers, they will gain market share. The statement is not false.
 
Take a look at: http://www.amd.com/about/operations.html and tell me where the red lines are. You'll notice they are in past. All fingures from 2000 onwards are firmly in the green. Your assumption that they are a company in debt is wrong.
 
Your next point about performance is where your argument really starts to fall down. Check any number of independat review sites, and you will generally find the following benchmark results:
 
Memory bandwidth - The P4 will walk all over the AMD chips due to RDRAM
WinStone benchmarks - The Athlon 1.33 will be approx 10% ahead of a P4 1.7GHz. These are business related benchmarks
3D Rendering - These vary, but the 1.33 is always ahead of the P4, sometimes by 8 seconds, sometimes by 2 minutes or more depending on the scene.
PhotoShop 6 - Again the 1.33 Athlon beats the P4 1.7GHz
MP3 Encoding - Once more the Athlon beats the P4.
Quake III OpenGL - OK, so it's not a business application, but it's one of the few areas where the P4 can outperform the Athlon, so I thought I'd include it for you
Just about every DirectX Game - Oops, AMD is quicker again.
 
Now lets look at the practical side. Athlon 1.33GHz CPU, £95 + VAT. P4 1.7GHz CPU £304 + VAT (or £390 + VAT to include 2x128MB RIMMS).
 
So that's 3 times the price for around 90% of the performance. This doesn't even take into account the Palomino chip. A Palomino MP clocked at 1.2GHz (stock speed) will whip an Athlon right upto about 1.8GHz. So benchmarks between a Palomino and a P4 are likely to show an even larger difference between the two.
 
So where does that leave your Intel performance claims? Laying on the ground in tatters I think you'll find. If you have some independant benchmarks that show the P4 to out perform an Athlon (or preferably the Palomino) then please post them.

OK, fine.
AMD is the way forward.
 
I'm afraid you are living in a very false world if you honestly believe that AMD are going to make any major impact against Intel in the Server market.
They will go slightly better in the workstation market, but again they aren't going to be taking any major share.
 
New product?
AMD have been around for a very long time, as has the Athlon - why hasn't it made any major market penetration yet?
Bit like all the LINUX people telling us they would hold 40% of the desktop OS market by the end of 1999, think the final figues were in the region of 10%.
 
If I must I'll pop off and grab some benchmark scores to show you how the Intel CPU's can and do outperform the AMD's in 'proper' applications, depends if I actually have time this afternoon or not.
 
As for AMD being a company in dept, I stand by that statement, I don't see a 'Final Balance' on the link you've posted.
 
Anyway, I shall try and find those benchmarks for you, but then that will just lead to further postings here, so I'll leave you to live in your perfect world.
The one with AMD taking massive slices of the corporate market - we'll see.

Yes, but should there be 300MHz speed gap between the Athlon and P4? By all means, the P4 should be stomping the Athlon at every point, but it doesn't. All the sandra scores are synthetic too, so it's not real world performance.
 
You may not need to get a different case. the Asus P4T apparently has some setup that you can mount on the backside of the board, and leave you one less item to buy.
 
I'd rather have dual P3's than a P4 right now. Once socket 478 gets in full swing, we should see some killer P4's. The only S478 is the Abit TH7-II, at least to my knowledge, but it still uses that RDRAM.
 
I don't know about you, but I really don't care what's powering my box, so long as it's fast, and doesn't require taking out a home mortgage. I would however go with intel for server's and laptops over amd, as intel has been doing that stuff with their power chips a bit longer than AMD. Even the Duron run's hotter than a P3 of the same clock speed. This is what I personally would say AMD's achilles heel is, heat. The irony here is that they are better overclockers in my experience, yet that causes them to produce even more heat, which is bad.
 
I hope my incessant babbling has clued you guys in some more.

Why is it you never actually take any notice of what has been posted? You just reply and talk about whatever you happen to think is close enough to the topic to get by.
 

Quote:I'm afraid you are living in a very false world if you honestly believe that AMD are going to make any major impact against Intel in the Server market.Where did I say major market share? Like everything, it takes time.
 

Quote:AMD have been around for a very long time, as has the Athlon - why hasn't it made any major market penetration yet?The Athlon was aimed at a different market. It was a competitor to the P3. As the P3 was already well established on the corporate dekstop, it is not surprising that it did not make major in roads. The future is the Palomino which should make much better progress.
 

Quote:If I must I'll pop off and grab some benchmark scoresGood, I'll be waiting. Oh, and don't forget those ones where the P3 beats the P4 as well
 

Quote:As for AMD being a company in dept, I stand by that statement, I don't see a 'Final Balance' on the link you've posted.I'm not a financial expert, but isn't operating income something close to this? I've looked it up and it says "The excess of revenues over expenses derived from normal business operations." This to me means 'the amount of money left at the end of the day'. $880 Million left in your bank sounds pretty healthy to me.
 
Brian, the AMD chips do run hot, there's no denying it, but the fact you can get a dual Palomino in a 1u case with 4 SCSI drives means that AMD must be heading in the right direction to help cure that problem.
 
All of these posts probably make me seem like an AMD zealot. That is not the case at all. All of my PCs are Intel, and I have only recently been buying kit to build my first AMD machine. I've had nothing but grief (not all down to the fault of the kit - some of it was me) trying to get the thing built. It just irks me when people post stuff that they haven't really done the research into.
If Intel were fantastic and produced solid, high performance CPUs and chipsets, AMD wouldn't even get a look in. The fact that AMD are around must point to some kind of deficiancy in Intels pricing and or products.
 
I really don't expect all of the major companies of the world to start using AMD servers, and let's be honest, even if the Palomino out performed the P4 by 2:1, a dual CPU machine just wouldn't be enough in a lot of cases. AMD have a lot of work to do to get anywhere near to threatening Intel in the big server market, but they will get there.
 
Out of small acorns, do mighty oaks grow.

I know where we can rent a squared circle, and I have some old gloves...