Which is better?

[DesertFolk]

I have a few hardware questions.

1 - What is the difference between an Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840 Smithfield (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116214) and an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Toledo (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103544)?
The Pentium has 2 execution cores, 2 logical processors (hyperthreading) and 800MHz FSB. The AMD has 2 execution cores with hypertransport (no logical processors) resulting in 2000MHz FSB.
I know there is a big difference in architecture and other technical categories, but I want to know which one will outperform the other.

2 - Do AMD-compatible motherboards support memory faster than DDR400?
I have only found Intel-compatible motherboards that support higher than DDR400. Also, is DDR2 Intel-compatible only?

3 - GeForce and Radeon seem to be the top 2 in video cards. I have used Radeon products for some time now, but I have heard good things about GeForce. Both have manufacturers have models with 256-bit memory interface, GDDR3 and loads of other features. Is there a reason to buy one and not the other, or just buy the one with the features you're looking for? How important is core clock speed?

[PS2pcGAMER]

Originally posted by DesertFolk
I have a few hardware questions.

1 - What is the difference between an Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840 Smithfield (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116214) and an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Toledo (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103544)?
The Pentium has 2 execution cores, 2 logical processors (hyperthreading) and 800MHz FSB. The AMD has 2 execution cores with hypertransport (no logical processors) resulting in 2000MHz FSB.
I know there is a big difference in architecture and other technical categories, but I want to know which one will outperform the other.

2 - Do AMD-compatible motherboards support memory faster than DDR400?
I have only found Intel-compatible motherboards that support higher than DDR400. Also, is DDR2 Intel-compatible only?

3 - GeForce and Radeon seem to be the top 2 in video cards. I have used Radeon products for some time now, but I have heard good things about GeForce. Both have manufacturers have models with 256-bit memory interface, GDDR3 and loads of other features. Is there a reason to buy one and not the other, or just buy the one with the features you're looking for? How important is core clock speed?

1. It basically depends on what applications you are running. Generally because of architectural differences, AMD's will perform much better in gaming whereas Intel's perform better in encoding.

Anandtech (http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2410) has a review comparing the two processors. Overall, I think AMD has the better performing CPU.

2. AMD motherboards currently only officially support DDR-400 from what I have seen. When overclocking, you can take advantage of higher speed memory. There is one exception that I have seen, the newly released FX-57 (http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2456) seems to support faster memory. Intel's chipsets currently support both DDR and DDR-II. I think the Extreme Edition that you linked to will only work on the higher end motherboards which are DDR-II only...but I am not positive of this. One thing to consider is that prices for DDR2, in comparison to DDR-I, are noticeably higher and there is only a negligible performance increase.

3. Again, I'd read Anandtech (http://www.anandtech.com) and compare the graphics cards in the price range you are looking at. nVidia just released a new generation of video cards that are currently the top of the line, but ATi has some good cards too.

[Thor]

I agree with PS2pcGAMER, just a few additions:

AMD64 cpus are usually easier to cool. Although the RAM is slower on the paper, the AMD64 can use two indepent links to the RAM, while the two Intel cores have to share one...so speed should be pretty even...

VidCard:
I you have some time to wait, ATI is supposed to present their new chip in july. So todays top chips will become cheaper. Up to now, the ATI cards won't support the shader version 3.0 as Nvidia does, but I guess the new chip will change that..


Greets Thor