Wrap

The AMD side of things have slowed down in recent months. While bunny hopping up 60-70MHz for a new product might seem like a good idea to AMD, it’s not going to sit well as Intel jumps by 200MHz each time they put out a new product. No matter how efficient the AMD processor is, brute speed will work in the end. The 2100+ tooth and nails it when going toe to toe with the 2.4GHz P4, but price ultimately dictates where your money will flow. If you can have nearly all the performance for about half the price, the conclusion is a no brainer.

When factoring in overclocking the tables tend to shift around. The AMD CPUs have been losing that overclocking luster that they once had. Combining this with a much more difficult process for unlocking XP CPUs, only FSB changes are guaranteed to take you somewhere – even if that somewhere isn’t very far. Now that Intel has given us two exceedingly early Christmas presents, we should do our duty and open them up. The 1.6A and 1.8A P4s leave us breathless. With overclocks in the 500-700MHz range, we haven’t seen anything quite like this since the 300A. At default speed these processors aren’t much to speak about, but when paired with a decent heatsink and fan, they rival the best that both AMD and Intel have released. If you’ve held out this long for an upgrade you might consider waiting a bit longer. The 533MHz i850 boards should be coming out fairly soon now. Pairing that with a 1.6A is going to lead to computing nirvana.