also, AMD has a 256kb L2 cache, and P4 has a 512k L2 cache. performance doesn't take a hit by this, though.
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Antec/Cheiftec cases are nice for ventilation
oh yeah DDR RAM all the way. 333/2700 or better
actually, it really depends on what you're doing with your case. Antec/Chieftec/Chenming/whatever - that style case - it provides a lot of ventilation through the front grill (lots of breathing room), but quite honestly, you can do fine without it, especially if you aren't doing anything intensive.
DDR RAM all the way? it depends on what the FSB on the proc is. running your ram in synchronous mode is better, so if you're not overclocking, then you'll need maybe DDR266 (effectively running at 133mhz FSB) (in other words, PC2100) for your proc. DDR333 is 166FSB, and few procs run at that speed natively.
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]ATI 9500 or better for video
it provides about the same performance as a Geforce4 Ti 4600, just remember that. a little better, actually. the 9500 is pretty close to the high end market.
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]For hard drive I'd recommend WesternDigital with 8mb cache. Speed and 3 year warranty
the only important thing there is the 8mb cache. any 7200rpm HDD will do. getting an EIDE hard drive is preferable, especially since whatever mobo you get will probably come with at least 1 EIDE cable anyways.
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Pentium 4 = Really fast water pump, really big tube to pump water through.
Athlon XP = Slightly faster water pump, much smaller tube to pump it through.
nah. the difference is in their pipelines - Athlon has a 10-stage pipeline, and P4 has a 20-stage pipeline. now, look at it this way (I shamelessly ripped this example off another sire, btw)
if you have a sandwich machine, you can have an assembly line, where 1 sandwich gets made at a time. one arm puts the bread, the meat, the toppings, and the second slice of bread on. this is a one-stage pipeline.
now, if you have a longer pipeline, then you have one arm only doing bread, one arm only doing meat, one arm only doing toppings (lets assume 1), and one arm only doing the top piece of bread. this, in our example, is effectively a 4-stage pipeline.
now, we can have that original 4-stage pipeline, (this will be our "Athlon"). now, on this side, we have the "P4", with the 8-stage pipeline. it takes longer, and can go faster, but there is a delay from when the order for, say, 100 sandwiches goes through and when the first sandwich comes out. the "Athlon' has 4-stages, and thus the sandwiches start coming out sooner (this delay is in the nanosecond range, so it doesnt matter, really.)
also, an error in the process happens quite freuently. so when the machine screws up, it throws away the sandwich, and starts all over. when the P4 screws up, say, at the 7th stage, then it has to star t all over and make up 7 stages. when the Athlon screws up, it only has to make up a maximum of four.
however, the P4's singular "arms" at each stage are faster.
do you sorta get it now? this is a very rough explanation.
.
