i wonder whether anyone has had any experience with this processor and any Linux systems? i have a Pentium IV motherboard. can i get an AMD processor for it or do i have to buy a specific mainboard?

Hi John Sorry to say but an intel procesor mother borad can not runand AMD procesor. You must buy a amd specific Mother Board. Regards Janos

John, you're much better off going Intel anyway for 3 reasons: Speed, Stability, and the fact that Intel wont fry your Motherboard and RAM when they literally burn due to high temperatures.

I run AMD Athlon Thunderbirds 950 Mhz (640 Meg RAM) and 1100 Mhz (512 Meg) and have no problems running Linux (dual boot Mandrake 6.1 and 8.2 on the 950 and Redhat 8 on the 1100). I WAS using an Athlon XP 1600+ (1.4 Ghz) instead of the Athlon T-bird 1100, but the heat sink/fan popped off (Volcano 5, I think) and the CPU fried. Therefore, I agree with Mick on that point. Although, even if you have to buy a couple of the AMD chips, it's still usually cheaper than 1 P4 chip. I switched over to a Cooler Master heat sink/fan, by the way (same model as the one I had on the 950), and no problems since. Good luck.

Most often, it is not the price that matters the most. When loss of business or data out weight a lower price processor. If you use your computer for games only, stay with AMD. If you must use it for business, I'd stayed with Intel. It is always nice to have options/choices. I believe there are more AMD owners than Intel.

thanks all i really think i'll stay with intel for now.

hm, I strongly dissagree... First of all: All processors should be installed by people that know something about installing them. If installed correctly, an AMD CPU shouldn't get fried. Second, most of the motherboards for amd do offer a thermal protection in case it would overheat. Note that APM should be enabled in the bios (that's quite logical, but most inexperienced users will probably forget this). Third: the price. It does matters. Why should you pay almost double for your cpu? Note that intel cpu's ARE faster then amd and the faster you choose your cpu, the smaller the gap gets... But in all cases AMD IS CHEAPER! Fourth: I don't like the attitude of the intel corp. Perhaps because they work on a program called TCPA or because for years they let us believe that it is the FPU that counts, not the megaherzes, but when amd took the lead on the megaherz battle (athlon 1 Ghz) ànd crushed intels equivalent on their own terretory (FPU), intel tried to ignore amd existance and suddenly reversed their theory on the efficiency (FPU) and Mhz's of cpu's... Plus intel is an American company and... I'm proud to be European. I don't trust American companies anymore from the day G.W. Bush became president... How can they've been so stupid or is the system already this corrupt, in either case, one shouldn't have a lot of faith in American stuff anymore... And finally, the fifth reason: AMD has the most efficiant processors. It's a fact; they can accomplish a lot more in one clock cycle than intel cpu's can. Which determines (by my believe) the complexity, stability and overall quality of the processor. And Real Cool: too bad, but amd still doesn't have more than a lousy 14% of the market share while intel has more than 80%. intel does perform better in video editing, that's a fact... That and a high Mhz rate are the only things they're better at.