Tell me why a Duron over tbird, celeron or P3..

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03-07-2001, 09:57 PM
Darth

Tell me why a Duron over tbird, celeron or P3..

This is going to sound strange, but I have a friend looking on who wants to upgrade his PC..he is a non gamer, will be using it for surfing and office applications and is on a limited budget..I suggested a duron 750@900, An A7V at a real good price, I know you guys will say MSI for budget minded, but it was a real good price.. and 128mb crucial cas2.The rest of his pc will remain for now.. Now here's the problem, my friend is a not a pc minded person, he has no idea about the intel-amd wars and all that, but he has co-workers giving him advice like crazy and he's real confused..most people tell him amd is inferior and especially not to use the duron..I tried to explain the differences and he believes me but I figured let me show him what real computer people will say.. ..thanks and sorry for the long post

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~OC CRUSADERS~
My Rig and screenshots
03-07-2001, 10:00 PM
marv

MB and CPU or is his current MB able to handle a new CPU change only? That could influence his upgrade path.

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cel.600@928
03-07-2001, 10:04 PM
Darth

sorry should have mentioned he has an old celeron..he thinks 300, his budget is $400..

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~OC CRUSADERS~
My Rig and screenshots
03-07-2001, 10:45 PM
ADebar

Durons are fine. His coworkers are probably spitting the same rubbish that their friends told them that their friends told them that their friends told them.

just keep the duron cool. thats all i got to say. read my sig for my system specs if it helps.

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TBird 1.2Ghz @ 1.46Ghz(10x146 @ 1.85v)
FOP38 w/ Arctic Silver II
Abit KT7A-Raid
512mb Crucial 133mhz CL2
IBM 75GXP 30gb HD
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Windows ME
03-07-2001, 11:42 PM
The WhiteRabbit

Sounds like a good plan to me, my only suggestion is to get whatever Duron is cheapest. . . virtually all of them have the same OC potential and it's just luck of the draw if yours will top out around 900, 950 or 1 GHz. Just make sure that you have decent cooling for him(although at 900 MHz you ought to be able to keep the voltage pretty low, so heat shouldn't be too bad either) and his Duron system will rock. https://www.sharkyforums.com/images/.../2005/06/5.gif

Also, if he can afford it you definately may want to consider upgrading his HDD to a 7200 RPM model, as HDD speed is often the biggest bottleneck in system performance. A 15-20 GB model should cost you under $100, so even with motherboard, ram, and processor you should still be able to afford it, and he can then use his old drive for file (mp3, etc) storage. Oh, and see about getting a decent KT133A mobo, they give a decent performance boost above the KT133 mobos when you use the 266 MHz FSB. You may also want to consider getting 256 MB of RAM, since it's not at all expensive right now, though from what you describe 128 will probably be enough.

Let's see, here are some rough estimates -- should be more or less accurate, including shipping

Inexpensive KT133A mobo = $130
Cheapest availible Duron = $50
HSF = $20
128 MB CL=2 PC133 RAM = $55
20ish GB 7200 RPM HDD = $100
Total = $405 dangit, over budget and with only 128 mb of RAM! Well, if he's got a decently fast HDD, he could axe the HDD for now, and bump up to a 256 MB stick for $40 extra dollars, bringing the total down to $345, leaving enough room in the budget for paying a little more for various components if my prices happen to be a bit off -- probably safer going that way, actually since I didn't check my prices (except for the RAM) and just guesstimated. https://www.sharkyforums.com/images/.../2005/06/6.gif

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OC Knight of the OC Crusaders

ABit KT7-Raid
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GeForce2 GTS (230/394)
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03-07-2001, 11:44 PM
Vindir

To start the Duron is the same core as the thunderbird. It has 33% more cache than a celeron. Is much newer chip architecture. If you'd like I'd dig up some real world application benchmarks if you're friend will be looking at the site. If he want a value gaming chip then the choice between duron and celeron is easy. The duron in a few cases even bests a p3 of equal frequency. And tears on the celeron in every possible test I'm aware of. Does he need any other reason?

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Marquis Vindir of the OC Crusaders
Holding Boundaries and Breaking Barriers

Fool that I was, I foamed in my wickedness as the sea and, forsaking Thee, followed the rushing of my own tide, and burst out of all Thy bounds. The madness of lust held full sway in me. - Aurelius Augustine
03-08-2001, 12:02 AM
Darth

Quote:

Originally posted by Vindir:
To start the Duron is the same core as the thunderbird. It has 33% more cache than a celeron. Is much newer chip architecture. If you'd like I'd dig up some real world application benchmarks if you're friend will be looking at the site. If he want a value gaming chip then the choice between duron and celeron is easy. The duron in a few cases even bests a p3 of equal frequency. And tears on the celeron in every possible test I'm aware of. Does he need any other reason?

thanks for the replies guys, If I were to try and talk him into spending a drop more, would you say the hard drive, I'm sure it would create a bottleneck, I think its like an old samsung 6 gig, 5400 rpm or his vid card, I think its a matrox mystique 8 mb agp...

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~OC CRUSADERS~
My Rig and screenshots

[This message has been edited by Darth (edited March 07, 2001).]
03-08-2001, 12:19 AM
kred

Quote:

Originally posted by Darth:
thanks for the replies guys, If I were to try and talk him into spending a drop more, would you say the hard drive, I'm sure it would create a bottleneck, I think its like an old samsung 6 gig, 5400 rpm or his vid card, I think its a matrox mystique 8 mb agp...

If he's not interested in games then I would definately go for the hard drive. I mean, how much of an increase are you going to see when running word with a gef2 ultra over the old matrox? And there really hasn't been that much improvement in 2d graphics over the last few years. Go with the hard drive. Get something more reliable and faster, it'll do him much better in the long run.

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My specs on the infamous MrWhite's PC Place
03-08-2001, 07:07 PM
Darth

good advice on the hard drive... I picked him up a maxtor 15gb 7200 ata100, was just alittle over the budget but it was a good idea.. anyone else want to give more feedback on the duron please feel free.. I want him to see how many people agree https://www.sharkyforums.com/images/.../2005/06/5.gif

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~OC CRUSADERS~
My Rig and screenshots
03-08-2001, 07:21 PM
Roberts3000

I would have to agree with everyone else definitely go with the Duron over that Intel Celeron. There's only several hundred Web sites that agree with this.
I don't know anything about the A7V motherboard but I would just make sure you have motherboard with the KT133A chipset on it to give him a better upgrade path later on.

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Duron 850
Abit kt7a-raid
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SB Live! Value
03-08-2001, 07:25 PM
sgentry6

I just built my mom a duron system. She had the exact same uses for the CPU. She kept the old hard drive though, I didn't have enough money to get her a new one. That is the only thing holding that system back. From what I have heard they are quite capable of office work, and if I remember right the benches for the office applications on sharky showed them beating the celerons handily.
03-08-2001, 08:17 PM
Tyler

Well for the money the duron is a excellent CPU. It will be able to last him a while before he upgrades.
I would highly suggest he stay away from the celeron. It has less cache and has a crappy 66Mhz bus all for more money than a duron

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Now my mobo and video card hate each other so I got to get a different mobo.

800 MHz Athlon thunderbird
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03-08-2001, 08:47 PM
Vindir

Quote:

Originally posted by Darth:
good advice on the hard drive... I picked him up a maxtor 15gb 7200 ata100, was just alittle over the budget but it was a good idea.. anyone else want to give more feedback on the duron please feel free.. I want him to see how many people agree https://www.sharkyforums.com/images/.../2005/06/5.gif

I couldn't possibly agree more on the harddrive issue. With a fast computer a slow hard drive is an unbearable bottleneck. I'm running an old Bigfoot 13 gig 5400rpm ata/33 in this comp right now on the 1st ide channel and it has at least quadrupled the time it takes my computer to boot. That's from 15 seconds to ready and going to a full minute or so.

made=main=1st
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Marquis Vindir of the OC Crusaders
Holding Boundaries and Breaking Barriers

Yes Ken, there is a hardware heaven.

[This message has been edited by Vindir (edited March 08, 2001).]
03-08-2001, 09:26 PM
marv

Quote:

Originally posted by Tyler:
...I would highly suggest he stay away from the celeron. It has less cache and has a crappy 66Mhz bus all for more money than a duron..

The duron and MB is a better upgrade, UNLESS, he has a MB that can support a "crappy" cel. 600 OCed to 900-1000 for a very cheap upgrade (Retail w/ HSF $80).

My "crappy" cel. 600@928 is in a old BX6R2 and posts cpu 2508/1244 cpumm 5035/6137 mem 320/350 in sandra and is totally stable.

Not completely stable at @1008 cpu 2690/1323 cpumm 5355/6622 mem 346/376.

Not bad for a "crappy" CPU https://www.sharkyforums.com/images/.../2005/08/2.gif

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cel.600@928
03-08-2001, 09:57 PM
Darth

Quote:

Originally posted by marv:

My "crappy" cel. 600@928 is in a old BX6R2 and posts cpu 2508/1244 cpumm 5035/6137 mem 320/350 in sandra and is totally stable.

Not completely stable at @1008 cpu 2690/1323 cpumm 5355/6622 mem 346/376.

Not bad for a "crappy" CPU https://www.sharkyforums.com/images/.../2005/08/2.gif

[/B]

damn marv I don't know how you deal with that "crappy" cpu..hehe
I don't want anyone to misunderstand me, I wasn't looking to put down the celeron or intel altogether, I just felt the duron was the best for the price and wanted my friend to see it for himself...

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~OC CRUSADERS~
My Rig and screenshots

[This message has been edited by Darth (edited March 08, 2001).]
03-08-2001, 10:15 PM
marv

Quote:

Originally posted by Darth:
..I just felt the duron was the best for the price and wanted my friend to see it for himself...

If replacing the MB and CPU, I totally agree with what you are planning. If the MB supports a new cel. then that COULD be considered.

My point was simply, many people are looking for a short term-cheap upgrade until the the P-4 socket path will allow future upgrades or until AMD DDR motherboards are provin' to be better than the current KT-133a boards and AMD also to have a upgrade path.

Thanks and good luck in your upgrade.

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cel.600@928