I must say this I was and still am a fan of the AMD processors but they no longer can compete with the P4 800Mhz bus at 3.0 Ghz I am sorry but I will now start going with intel because they offer better performance and cost about the same as the Amd cpu's. Plus they are much much easier to overclock

Good choice. I've been using intel since the 8088.

I'm proud of you.

That's interesting, I've also been an amd fan since the amd 486, but after doing pricing for an intel based comp vs. the amd based comp and seeing there was only a $30 price difference, the intel based one won out. :( Poor amd, shouldn't have delayed the athlon64.

I hope when (actually if) the Athlon64 comes out it can run in the 3 ghz range cheaply. I like AMD but a 1 GHZ speed deficit! come on no core or cache enhances are going to save you look at the apple it has to use two processors just to stay competative.

P.S to all the mac folk that was not a slam just my observation

you're right, if you're not overclocking the 3.06ghz p4 has the edge over the amd 3200+ at 2.20ghz, at almost the same cost. But let's ignore this blunder of PR rating by amd for a moment.

Let's compare the typical oc results.

p4 800mhz 2.4C typical oc on air - 3.3ghz

reference link
http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/poll.php?s=&action=showresults&pollid=195

1700+ dlt3c tbred b typical oc on air - 2.5ghz

reference link
http://www.amdforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=230287

so its 3.3g for the p4 vs 2.5g for the xp.

The benchmark results for the 3200+ vs the 3.06g p4 are: (choosing one gaming bench and one non-gaming bench - depending on which among the 20 benches you choose you could make either cpu look superior but I think its fair to do a 50/50 split of gaming/non-gaming)

ut2k3: p4 wins by 3%
sysmark: p4 wins by 9%
average 6%

reference link
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030513/athlon_xp-11.html

from this we conclude that the 3.06g p4 is 6% faster than the 2.2g barton, or that they would be equal if their mhz ratio was:

3.06/2.2/1.06 = 1.31

Taking the above numbers of 2.5g for the xp oc and 3.3g for the p4 oc, that's a ratio of:

3.3/2.5 = 1.32.

Which makes it about a tie between an oc'd P4 and an oc'd xp. Maybe that's why the fans of each think they're faster.

Cost of p4 to get to 3.3g oc: $180 for p4 2.4C
Cost of xp to get to 2.5g oc: $60 for 1700+ dlt3c

So we end up where we've been for the last several years, with amd and intel having roughly the same performance, with a price advantage going to amd. Don't think that price advantage has ever been 3:1 though.

Is your math taking into account that the fsb bus speed between the 3200+ and the 2.5ghz OC'ed athlon is pretty much the same, but the fsb of a 2.4c at 3300 is more than twice as fast as the 3.06ghz p4's bus?

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030521/index.html

Based on that the 2.4c ghz on 800 mhz fsb seems to be roughly even with the 3200+, with the 3200+ ahead by a hair.

The new 800 FSB sure is a step forward,gives the processor n mainboard plenty of B/W.
AMD however is way too aggressive with their branding of processors, and claim to have the "World's fastest CPU" on their website. Whereas the truth is in no configuration (except maybe one tailored by AMD ppl) of AMD processors could AMD beat the p4 3 Gz or even the older 3.06 with a 533 bus. Check the benchmarks for urself at tomshardware.com

"Is your math taking into account that the fsb bus speed between the 3200+ and the 2.5ghz OC'ed athlon is pretty much the same, but the fsb of a 2.4c at 3300 is more than twice as fast as the 3.06ghz p4's bus?"

Actually in the above comparison I used the p4 3.00g at a mobo system bus of 200mhz, not the 3.06g at 133mhz as stated. So Intel should get 2% for the 3.06/3.00 error.

But regarding fsb, since the stock fsb of each was 200mhz, (so 800 for intel and 400 for amd), twice as fast is already built into the stock numbers. For the oc'd fsb, you've got 270mhz for the intel and 225 for amd, so you're right there is a difference there, although it is due to the motherboard, not the cpu. An amd cpu can run 270mhz fsb as easily as a p4, its just that their mobo chipsets usually cannot. And that's why the intel oc'rs have to spend much more on the their mobo and memory than the amd guys.

I won't argue that if you spend an unlimited amount of money you're going to get a faster oc'd intel rig than you are an amd rig. But if you spend an equal amount of money on the two, the oc'd intel has no prayer against amd.

AMD pricing will and always has been below Intel. Whether they make money enough to get into chipset development or not is another story. Intel holds it own Chipset development from the beginning.

I agree that for processor "pricing" only AMD is a better deal. However, in comparing with total system cost, the difference is not much. If we think AMD retail pricing is attractive, think of the pricing for OEM's like Compaq and Dell. I like to see AMD pricing to go near Intel so that the Company remains profitable to compete.

I believe that it comes to personal preference when rating these top performing processors. I am a fan of both and will always read who is on top again...leap-froggin like the battle between ATI and Nvidia. One will always trumph another.