Questions needing answers

[whack_amol]

Hi i've been planning on getting a new computer for a while now, and cant build one cause parents wont trust me to. But im smart, i know Dell is a crap company that overprices, and Gateway does too. So i plan on custom building from either www.cyberpowersystem.com or www.ibuypower.com

I was planning to get an Amd Athlon XP fully loaded, but have a few questions that came up

Anyways, i was wondering why is it better to buy an AMD athlon xp than a P4, i mean what differance is seen through every day use?

Also are all dvd-rw's able to make cdr's and cd-rw's, or does one have to buy a dvd-rw/cd-rw drive

[chrisjk]

Originally posted by whack_amol
Anyways, i was wondering why is it better to buy an AMD athlon xp than a P4, i mean what differance is seen through every day use?

if you want the techno wizz-bang explanation it is because the P4 has twice as many pipelines (20 to be exact) than the Athlon or the P3

It therefore takes twice as long to process a calculation...so in a perfect world a 1GHz Athlon could do as much as a 2Ghz P4

Of course, it isn't a perfect world and in reality the Athlon only makes 140% over the P4 instead of the magic 200%. The reason the P4 uses 20 is because it makes it easier to rack up the clock speeds with no bad-ass changes to the architechture; Intels 10 pipeline architechture had run out of steam by about 1.2Ghz (speed of top spec P3's)

The layman's explanation is because a like-for-like Athlon is faster, less expensive to manufacture and therefore cheaper to the consumer.

[whack_amol]

Very informative, ill go on with my processor choice, now just the dvdrw question needs an answer

[JoshT]

When you say DVDRW, do you mean DVD-RW, or DVD+RW, or DVD-RAM? I haven't seen one that doesn't do CDRW, but I'm wasn't too impressed with my DVD+RW drive (HP DVD200i, but it's by HP and it's not a printer...)

[JPicasso]

Without visiting either site or paying too much attention to what you said....

I'd bank on the fact that the dvd-rw
is a dvd/cd player that will burn cd's, making it
a dvd-r/cd-rw.
dvd burners are getting cheap, but I don't belive they are cheap enough
to be included with desktops yet.

However, I'm pretty stupid.

Also, not all DVD ROM drives will burn CDs, but they will play them.

I hope I've not clouded the issue.
and I lied, I did visit the first one you posted,
during the writing of this... Cool yellow case man.

matches my yellow sponge texture.

[whack_amol]

i mean a dvd-rw, its by pioneer to be exact. It can burn dvd-rw's and dvd-r's. I was certain all dvd-rw's can burn cd-r's and cd-rw's, but then i saw ads for dvd-rw/cdrw

[SoCalled]

Fully load your RAM slots and run Win2k, that way it doesn't really matter what modern CPU you use. For most desktop apps you ain't really going to notice a hell of a lot of differences.

[JungleMan]

Originally posted by whack_amol
Hi i've been planning on getting a new computer for a while now, and cant build one cause parents wont trust me to. But im smart, i know Dell is a crap company that overprices, and Gateway does too. So i plan on custom building from either www.cyberpowersystem.com or www.ibuypower.com

I was planning to get an Amd Athlon XP fully loaded, but have a few questions that came up

Anyways, i was wondering why is it better to buy an AMD athlon xp than a P4, i mean what differance is seen through every day use?

Also are all dvd-rw's able to make cdr's and cd-rw's, or does one have to buy a dvd-rw/cd-rw drive

Check out www.monarchcomputer.com the people there are nice helpful etc.

Yeah, Chris pretty much said it. Athlons can process more instructions per clock cycle...thus a 1.8Ghz Athlon also known as XP2200+ can beat a 2.4Ghz P4 in some benchmarks.

[nabeels786]

hmm that cyberpower place isnt bad

CAS: Aluminum BLACK TurboGamer 10-Bay Soho Server SX1040 Case 420 Watt Power [+99]
CASUPGRADE: "See Through Side Panel Window" Installed [+17]
CD: 56X CD-ROM [+25)
CDRW: ---Optional----
CPU: AMD ATHLON XP-1800+ [1.53GHZ QuantiSpeed] 266 FSB CPU [+119)
FAN: AMD CERTIFIED CPU FAN, HEATSINK & 2 EXTRA CASE FANS[XP2400+] [+9)
FLOPPY: MITSUMI 1.44 MB FLOPPY DR [+ 10)
HDD: 60GB 7200 RPM ATA 100 HARD DRIVE [+82]
HDD2: ---Optional---
KEYBOARD: [BLACK] PS2 COLOR MULTIMEIDA KEYBOARD [+12)
MEMORY: 512 MB PC266 PC2100 DDR MEMORY (REQIRES DDR MB) [+129)
MEMORYUPGRADE: ---Optional----
MODEM: ---Optional----
MOTHERBOARD: AZZA KT-266A PC2100 DDR MB 4X AGP *[+68)
MOUSE: MICROSOFT OPTICAL INTELLIMOUSE MOUSE USB [+25)
NETWORK: ---Optional----
OS: NONE FORMAT HARD DRIVE ONLY
RAID: ----- OPTIONAL REQUIRES (2) IDENTICAL HARD DRIVES-----
RUSH: NO; SHIP OUT IN 5~10 BUSINESS DAYS
SERVICE: STANDARD 3-YEAR PARTS AND LABOR WARRANTY INCLUDED
SOFT1: ---Optional----
SOFT2: ---Optional----
SOUND: Creative Labs SB AUDIGY 5.1 W/ IEEE [+69)
SPEAKERS: [Black]Creative Labs Inspire 4400 4.1 Subwoofer Speakres [+59]
SUPER_PAK: ---Optional----
Subtotal1: (+982.00)
Subtotal2: 982.00
VIDEO: Nvidia Geforce-4 TI4400 128MB DDR w/ TV Out & DVI [+259)
ZIP: ---Optional---- 982.00

hmm

but its also no OS and no NIC