Recomended requirements for a game on PC is 3Ghz Pentium4 or equivelant. What is the AMD equivelant? Or, any?

Question

other cheaper chips? I only use my PC for games, but it is getting old. I don't want to spend $4,000 on a new PC. Can someone help me differintiate between the different chip sets?

Answer 1

On AMD (and Intel's new core 2 duo) chips, their design makes them MUCH more efficient than Intel's Pentium line, so they get much more work done at the same clockspeed.

Imagine the old Pentium-4 being a spoon that moves very rapidly, while the new chips are shovels moving a little more slowly. Since they move much more data per trip, the clockspeed isn't the story. 10 swipes of a shovel per minute moves a lot more data than 30 swipes of a spoon.

For AMD Athlons, you look at the number preceding the plus sign, so if a game requires a 3.0Ghz Pentium's performance, that means an Athlon 3000+ or faster. The Athlon 64 X2 4200+ performs like a 4.2Ghz Pentium-D. A 5000+ is like 5Ghz and so on..

Any of Intel's new Core 2 Duo line (even the entry level E4300 which has an actual clockspeed of 1.86Ghz) will be much faster than a 3Ghz Pentium 4.

For gaming rigs, the video card is the most important component- even moreso than the CPU. Many people overspend on the CPU then get a cheap video card which can't keep pace, resulting in a performance bottleneck. If your GeForce 7600GS can't keep up with your Core 2 duo E6400, then getting an even faster E6600 won't improve performance at all.

While $100 might mean a small boost in CPU speed, it could mean a huge difference in terms of graphics adapters- sometimes jumping into a new tier of cards entirely.

You just need a good video card like a Radeon X1950 Pro (about $200) or better, like a Geforce 8800 GTS 320mb for $260. You could build a system with a Nice AMD X2 or Core 2 duo processor for around $1000 easily.

Yes, people do combine multiple $500+ cards via Crossfire or SLI paired with the most expensive CPUs- that's how you get $4000 systems. But you don't need to spend anywhere near that much.

Here are some comparisons:

Answer 2

The AMD XP chips are more equivelent to celeron chips. For instance an XP 3000+ chips are equivelent to a Celeron 3.0GHZ. For Athlon 64s, in regard to gaming, an Athlon 64 3000+ is equivelent to about a 3.0GHZ P4.

Athlon 64 chips aren't being sold much any more. You'd have to get an X2 (unless you're aiming for a $400 to $500 computer). But it would be better to go with a low end Core 2 Duo chip.

Answer 3

An AMD Athlon XP 3000+ is supposed to be comprable to a P4 @ 3.0ghz. Most of the newer chips are all dual core and the stock speeds on them are around 1.8-2.5ghz. These aren't slower than the single core at 3.0 though because you have 2 cores operating.

Also it wouldn't cost you nearly $4,000 to build a new computer to game on. You could get a decent one built for $500 that would play everything really nice. If you wanted to step up the graphics card a little bit more you could have a top of the line machine for about $600. Doing this you wouldn't have to buy a new monitor either.

Answer 4

amd is using the + sign nowadays to show what the cpu speed is.so a amd 3000+ is the same as a pent 3.0.the amd runs with less heat out put and in most instances is better then the pent.i got a 3800+ cpu for$100.00..you can buy a mother board and cpu with fan and heatsink,and new memory for $300.00 or less.get one that has on board video . that way you wont have to buy a video card.most computers have at least 256 video.which is what games require nowadays..just take out your old board in your computer case and put the new one . here is a example of a board/cpu combo.

http://www.ditcorp.com/customkititems.asp?CartId={FAD1253A-6437-4CAE-B61D-17059EVERESTF6971CC}&kc=BUNDLE06&eq=

have someone who knows computers to install the board if you dont feel comfortable doing it.
some more motherboard/cpu combos.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/category_tlc.asp?CatId=14

IE: you mightl have to reformat your hard drive. if your planning on using it..or buy a new one you can get those for $50.00 for 100-250 gig no prob

Answer 5

If you shop online, you could either piece together or buy a whole system for less then a $1,000. I build them myself, so I know what I am getting.
I believe the AMD 3000+ is the equivelant.