April 2004 High-end Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 2

Intel CPU: Pentium 4 3.4C GHz (800 MHz) Retail

Current Cost: $418
Months on list: 3
Price Change: -$2

Despite the recent introduction of the Pentium 4-3.4E GHz Prescott, we still prefer to recommend the Northwood core version, the Pentium 4 3.4C. Performance wise it's a toss up between the two CPUs, but it was really the lower price (and cooler running temperature) that sealed the deal for us. In the future, Intel will be moving all of its Pentium 4 line of processors to the new Prescott core, so Northwood Pentium 4 models will become increasingly difficult to find. Prescott does have its advantages, and due to Intel widening the pipeline from 20 stages to a whopping 31, it was clearly designed to scale much higher than the Northwood processors. The doubling of the internal cache levels (Prescott now has 16K L1 and 1MB L2), and SSE3 instruction set will also come in very handy down the road, but for the time being the Northwood is the better value.

The Northwood Pentium 4 3.4 GHz is currently Intel's best effort to compete with AMD's Athlon 64 3400+. In a head to head battle with the Athlon 64, the Pentium 4 3.4 GHz can hold its own, and unlike the jump from an Athlon XP to an Athlon 64, you don't need to upgrade your motherboard. The Pentium 4 Northwood at 3.4 GHz still features the same 8K L1/512K L2 cache, while offering performance gains similar to any other 200 MHz speed jump on the Pentium 4 highway. The Pentium 4-3.4 GHz is still compatible with most Intel motherboards, but there is a possibility that a BIOS update will be needed to correctly identify the CPU.

AMD CPU: Athlon 64 3400+ OEM

Current Cost: $399
Months on list: 3
Price Change: -$24

So far, AMD has had great success with their Athlon 64 line of processors. The latest Athlon 64 3400+ model is able to outperform the equivalent Intel Pentium 4 3.4 GHz model in most tests, and has certainly not deviated from AMD's aggressive pricing structure. The Athlon 64 3400+ is clocked at 2.2GHz, and includes a large 1MB L2 cache and an integrated single-channel, 64-bit memory controller. Until Intel starts aggressively ramping up the Pentium 4's clock speeds again, it looks like AMD will present a real challenge in this area.

Unlike the evolutionary step that is the Intel Pentium 4 Prescott, AMD's Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX chips include native support for both 32-bit and 64-bit software. 64-bit software support will become very important when developers start to utilize 64-bit instructions, and especially when the release version of Windows XP 64-bit finally becomes a reality. However, until that time the Athlon 64's awesome 32-bit processing architecture translates into top-notch performance from the operating system and software you already have, and Microsoft has released a beta AMD64 version of Windows XP 64-bit.

Pentium 4 Heatsink-Fan: Retail

Current Cost: $0
Months on list: 7
Price Change: N/A

Since we are again utilizing the cooler-running Pentium 4 Northwood, Intel's retail heatsink is more than enough to keep things running smoothly. Lately, Intel's coolers have been very good, so good that we haven't needed to look for a 3rd-party heatsink for quite some time. Intel's retail heatsink is now copper-core based, and can keep up with many of the third party units, even when overclocking. Therefore, purchasing an expensive third-party unit on top of the pricey Pentium 4-3.4C GHz simply would not be in our best interest, especially when maximizing the price-performance of our Intel system.

AMD Heatsink-Fan: Thermalright SLK-948U w/Vantec Stealth 92mm

Current Cost: $45
Months on list: New
Price Change: N/A

3rd-party Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX coolers have finally reached the mass market stage, and we felt it was time that we include one of the top models in this guide. The Thermalright SLK-948U is an all-copper unit that can support a fan of up to 92mm in size, offering a perfect balance between ambient noise and cooling capability. Because we aren't overclocking our processors in this guide, we opted for the quieter Vantec Stealth 92mm fan. This unit can push 28 CFM of air at only 20db, making this a very efficient yet quiet fan. However, if you have your sights set on overclocking, the Delta FFB6912EHE 92mm fan might be a better high performance (albeit very loud) alternative.

The Thermalright SLK-948U is actually compatible with Pentium 4, Athlon 64, and Athlon 64 FX processors, but due to the slightly higher cost of our Intel system this month we chose to stay with the retail HSF for our Pentium 4 configuration.