a64 3200+ or p4 3.2 for overclocking?

[soccrstar]

hello,

i'm in the market for a new cpu (now). as my brother needs a pc and i'm jus gon give him wifes computer (athlon XP 1500+) and wife gon take mine (p4 2.66@3ghz).

should i get a p4 3.2ghz with abit IC7 Max3 or whatever cpu is best for overclocking

or

abit K8V-Max3 with athlon XP 3200+?

i hear people talk about the gigabyte K8NPRO but no1 talks bout the abit Max3. is it a bad board? does it allow you to change multiplier on the athlon64 cpu?

will i be able to hit high FSB.
i saw several people on gigabyte board hit over 320mhz FSB by dropping the multiplier.

does abit offer samething?
or only gigabyte?

i want to overclock alot. and will be watercooling which ever platform. that you gurus think is best.

[edit]
btw i do have OCZ PC-4000 (ddr500) gold edition, on the way due next week

 

[Angry_Games]

personally (a huge AMD fan), I would go with the p4 for overclocking for these reasons:

1. every single P4 2.4C - 2.8C I have gotten my hands on has overclocked to 3.2Ghz (most easily hit this and get up as high as 3.6-3.8)

2. Intel chipsets (865PE and 875P are best) have matured and are less prone to buggy behavior and design problems than the new A64 chipsets. My rule is to always wait until 2nd or 3rd generation chipsets are out before spending good money on something. I've had too many first-gen boards/chipsets with too many problems, then have to spend all that money all over again to get a 2nd gen (rev2 or such) that fixes all the problems of the first!

3. there's not much difference in performance between the p4 and A64 with a 32-bit OS. Once Win64 is stable and working and true 64-bit software is made for it, then that becomes a more viable option. Maybe by Xmas 2004 it will all be falling into place? Again why spend a little more for the A64 and about the same for A64 boards (compared to current P4's and boards), when there is no OS to take advantage of the 64bit functions? (unless you are Linux user I suppose, we cannot forget those guys hehe). And again you deal with first-generation chipset/design issues.

dont get me wrong, I'm all for this 64bit goodness...but like any new technology or improvement, the first run of these things tend to be crappy (not always but usually), and expensive. Maybe when AMD gets their 64 production up to speed (heh), then the price of the chips will drop. As of right now, I think they are still having a bit of trouble producing enough chips in a timely manner at a decent cost.

ok well thats just my opinion.

 

[neoreturns]

The P4 will definetly overclock higher, but what does that really mean? I mean with the overclocked 3200+ (less mhz) it will still outperform the overclocked P4 (assuming you got a good overclock, and nothing outrageous).