The one that I prevously owned was a TBird. 1.33 GHz. Was nice for the time being. I dont think it got along with Windows XP.
I think I have made up my mind and deciding to go with a P4. Reason being this...
Intel has its own system boards(motherboards) and having a Intel CPU and Intel motherboard would be ideal. Iam looking to get the Intel D850EMV2LR - because of its system bus speed.
Intel has this thing called Intel Hub Architecture. Increased I/O bus bandwidth allows better concurrency for media-rich applications and multitasking.
Now a days the avrage joe either gets RIMM(rambus inline memory module) memory or DDR. Another reason iam going with the Intel is because they invented DDR. Be nice to have everything as one. DDR 2600 type of speed. RIMMs are just to costly.
The Intel 850E chipset was designed to optimize performance of the Intel Pentium 4 processor with Intel NetBurst microarchitecture. Featuring a now faster 533MHz system bus, dual RDRAM memory channels and an enhanced I/O Controller Hub (ICH2), the 850E chipset makes a direct connection from the graphics and memory for faster access to peripherals and higher system level functionality. The 850E chipset also provides dual RDRAM memory channels and an enhanced I/O Controller Hub (ICH2Dual USB controllers double the bandwidth to 24Mbps across four ports, providing a significant increase over previous port technology).
A 533MHz system bus provides significant bandwidth over previous technologies and, combined with longer pipelines, eliminates bottlenecks and enables higher performance than ever before. The Intel Pentium 4 processor also provides advanced dynamic execution to more accurately predict branch utilization, and an execution trace cache stores decoded instructions, eliminating the decoder from the main instruction loop.
The Intel 850E chipset features dual RDRAM memory channels that provide 3.2 GB/s memory bandwidth to extract full performance from the Intel Pentium 4 processor. In addition, the 4.2 GB/s bandwidth of the 533 MHz system bus in the Pentium 4 processor, makes it the ideal choice for the increased demands of memory-intensive applications.
Utilizing Intel? Hub Architecture design, the Intel 850E chipset features a high bandwidth (266MB/sec) interface and wider pipelines that allow the chipset to deal effectively with isochronous data without the bottlenecks associated with PCI protocols in north bridge/south bridge chipset design. The 850E chipset also enables multiple streams of I/O, PCI and local accelerators to run concurrently.
The integrated architecture in the Intel 850E chipset features a direct pipeline for audio and video data. The 850E chipset also supports up to six channels of AC97 audio for better sound quality overall, and full surround sound capability for live broadcast and other Digital Dashboard programming. Robust and responsive, the Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP4X) on the Intel 850E chipset doubles the graphics bandwidth over AGP2X, better enabling photo-realistic 3D and seamless multi-media applications.
Intel's comprehensive approach to platform development, validation, manufacturing and support ensures the Intel 850E chipset maximizes your investment and extends the life span of your system overall.
The Intel 850E chipset has dual USB controllers that provide 24Mbps bandwidth across four ports. The 850E chipset also includes dual Ultra ATA/100 controllers and a LAN Connect Interface. The LAN Connect interface provides flexible network solutions for home phone line, 10/100Mbps Ethernet and 10/100Mbps Ethernet with LAN manageability, utilizing Intel? SingleDriver? technology.
Costs
Motherboard - $151 Intel D850EMV2LR P4(478) 400&533 RIMM A&L USB2.0 ATX MB from 4pcworld.com
CPU - $203 Intel Pentium 4 2.26GHz 533MHz 478Pin 512K from 4pcworld.com
Power - probably looking at $120 for a 650 watt PS. dual fans
P4s need a special power supply...so will need one of those.
