Looking at Buying New P4
 

Hey all. Lately ive been thinking i need to trade in my 1.5 P4 for something a bit racier (3.2). Only thing is all the 3.2 P4's i see say 800 Mhz, THATS LAME!!! lol my 1.5 is 1500 Mhz... whats up with that? Can someone tell me?
Thanks in advance
ThaGuvNa

800Mhz is the front bus speed. Its the speed at which data is transfered from your CPU to the RAM. Your current computer is probably in the 133Mhz range...

This speed is critical for memory intensive task.

And to do some Mac shamelesss promo, the new G5 is at 1.25Ghz on each proc...

buhuhuh mac.... lol I live in a place where intel is the main work provider so everyone i know works there, including my father. lol WOW thats wicked then, i thought that 800 was the total Mhz, wow.... thats a lot considering the price... when i get money i might buy that, unfourtunately im broke as of now :)

well, a top of the line pc cost much more than a G5. Getting a fast CPU is only one part of the machine, it will slow somewhere else.

If you plan to go strong on Maya, I would advice you to invest in RAM. It will give you the biggest bang for the buck. Other strategy would be to go for fast HD. Get a 36gig Raptor now and latter get another one and put them in RAID. If your work is diskbound, it can imprve performance by 10-20%. And best of all, when you get your new machine, you can transfer the 2HD in the new oneand get back your investment. Finaly, other possibility is to get a pro videocard. But this will only help you if you have a crap load of poly on the screen or need preview of the material, etc... It wont help on render time.

As you can see, I prefer modular upgrade, especialy the ones you can transfert from one pc to the next since its a nice money saver. Dont think that buying a sub 1000$ system would be a great investment, they are only good for gamers or to surf the net. High end machine cost much much more.

Buy

1x GA-8KNXP Ultra-64 (Intel 875P Chipset)
1x 3.2Ghz Intel P4 Hyperthreading Enabled
1x 73GB Maxtor Atlas 10K IV - Ultra 320 - 68Pin

That will give you the basis for your system SCSI 320 bus and drive, good CPU and an excellent motherboard. (onboard 64 bit SCSI 320, and SATA for storage drives if needed).

Add RAM and video card to taste (or price range)

Its what I'd buy now if i was looking for a new PC

David.

Well... for now what i have is a 1.5 Ghz P4 with 526 or somethin RAM and then I've got me Radeon 9600, dunno what model though, Ive got a hella fast mother board (or so Im Told) but i dont know. Thanx for posting all your advice... Im thinkin about goin for the 3.2 P4 when i get some money, and maybe a stick of 512 RAM or whatever it comes in, like that. Ive got four Memory Stick Slots. so i can prolly fill that up with 128's and a 512 or w/e,
-ThaGuvNa

Cool man. Maybe just buy a new processor for you computer.

Nonono, you all miss direct the man, listen to me!!
You must buy Athlon 64 procesor with NewCastle core, some mother board with Nforce2 or 3 chipset and two moduls of 512 corsair or kingston or twinmos memory that works on 466 mhz or higher, twek and cloc it nicley and there you go yuo will have realy good work station for not so mutch money that you will give for Intel crapy comp, You will get mutch bether resoult with Athlon 64!!!

or maybe you should wait and save a year more until it gets really outdated...(or put that money on courses...)

.. ankalagon, im prolly gunna get chewed out for this but... I hate AMD lol Where I live Intel is Big... Really big, i have friends who have good athlons... but thier systems crash all the time and i wouldnt buy one anyways... No power behind it.:)

I run 4 AMD systems at home that never crash, I also run work based AMD servers that are up for weeks at a time with no problem. If your friends systems are crashing it probably has nothing to do with there CPU's

I also run p4 based systems 800mhz FSB the AMD at same speed benchmark much faster for what i use them for.

Run p4 if you like, I run them myself there a nice processor for certain things. But to say AMD processors are unreliable or have no power behind them is an opinion born from ignorance.

David.

Exactly! im ignorant... :D

Its not the fault of the AMD if the computers crash, its because of windows...

kinding, dont want to start a os war.. :-D

But seriously, I dont think that its a good time to buy a new complete system, just upgrade yours so it will last a while onger and get a new one in 6 months. A lot of new and interesting technologies will be availlable then at a reasonable price.

I totally agree with Mantat. Wait 6 months or so and all the 64bit processors will drop in price. PCI-x will become more mainstream and then you can take advantage of the latest goodies at a much lower price.

where do you live than ?