Prioritize your needs

The first thing to ask yourself is "why do I want another CPU?" Quite simply, the market isn't simple anymore. It's no longer a question of 386 vs. 486, 100MHz vs. 150 MHz. Nowadays, it's all about Pentium, Pentium II, Celeron, Xeon, K6, K6-2, K6-3, so on and so forth. Doubtless you'll hear conflicting reports on who's got the fastest and the cheapest, and who's next around the block with a brand new design slated to wipe any aspiring competition off the face of the Earth.

Market flooding aside, processor performance varies greatly depending on what applications they're going to be used for. Needing an extra push for standard business applications doesn't necessarily require a state-of-the-art Pentium II, but it's also important not to make the mistake of underestimating the growth of the market - get something that barely satisfies your needs, and you'll be feeling the pinch a lot sooner.

The latest killer app in the CPU industry has got to be the 3D action game genre. When was the last time CPU designers rushed out to complement their chips with brand new instructions sets? Before MMX, the last major change to an Intel CPU core was the 386. Now, the "big I" is scrambling to push out KNI, the Katmai New Instructions being packaged with their newest CPU. AMD caught the 3D bug long before Intel, already having "3D Now!" instructions included with their current top-of-the-line K6-2. The K6-2, by itself a mediocre performer compared to Intel's offerings, surges into competitiveness with games and drivers written to support its 3D Now! technology.

Traditionally, 3D shooters, especially those centered around the Quake and Quake II engine, have leaned heavily on strong floating point support for their performance. Likewise, heavy duty scientific and CAD applications, which require high degrees of precision and accuracy, also require processors with powerful floating point capabilities. As such, Intel's Pentium and Pentium II line will continue to be strong contenders in this line. Conversely, business applications rely on fast integer calculations, also no problem for Intel's chipsets. Although previously lagging behind, AMD's latest offerings are much more suited to compete in these areas, which should make the CPU industry quite interesting.