Athlon or Intel?

[richs]

I am looking to purchase a new machine for the office which will do some rendering for us. I have heard that for drafting Intel is the way to go, however I have heard that Athlon is better for rendering. In reading some of the other posts, I notice almost everyone mentions a P4 processor. Has anyone heard this or what do you recommend?

Also for Video cards Nvidia or ATI. Is there a preference or difference?

[PeterJ]

I wasn't aware of a difference in drafting performance between the big two chip manufacturers.

As to rendering there is a thread on benchmarking in here and a number of others regarding performance issues in rendering, which may ultimately make more difference than just the chip decision.

[beegee]

Most of the benchmarktests between Athlon and Intel note that the AMD chips perform better for rendering, while Intel performs better for other CAD tasks. The result is that both chips even out in a normal office CAD environment.

If you're looking at a new machine and going Intel, I'd be looking at Xeon rather than P4. 64 bit will take off sooner rather than later.

Nvidia cards are very good, however an ATI FireGL2 64Mb AGP 4x is currently is the star of Accustudios AR3GLmark .

[FK]

<Personal opinion>

I stopped building computers once I started this job, but back then I used to favor the small(er) guy, AMD. I think Athlon still gives better price/performance.

As far as I know, Revit has no particular preferences about CPUs, so the more performance you get, the better.

Regarding 64 bit CPUs, I'd buy one either if it did not cost a significant premium, or could be utilized by any program I use. I think neither is true right now.

[beegee]

Sure AMD is cheaper and performs well. I had two in our office until recently and I'm still keeping one of them.

Re the Intel price/performance difference, I can't speak for the US, but in Australia the difference between a P4 3.4Ghz 478 pin 800 Mhz bus 512 L2 cache and a Xeon 3.0Ghz 604 pin 512 Kb cache 522 Mhz bus is only $A 77. But, the Xeon will be running the 64 bit programmes in a year or so, while the P4 will be looking to be upgraded, ( I expect ).

Course, you could also consider Opteron.

[Steve_Stafford]

I've assembled my last 3 pc's and used AMD chips in each. I am very satisfied with them.

Akin to audiophiles who might spend $10k on a tuner or power amplifier yet many folks aren't sensitive or care enough to tell the difference between those and a $100 Samsung 3in1 shelf stereo.

I probably couldn't perceive a measureable "difference" between a P4 and AMD Athlon of comparable specs...but since I paid less it sure "feels" faster