Athlon rev. C or Morgan? - Tech Support Forums

Etruscan · August 30th, 2002, 05:30 PM

I have a choice of two processors at a low price to put on an economy board. An Athlon rev. C @ 1263 or a Morgan @ 1100 or 1200. The Morgan Duron has the SSE instruction set like the XP; the Athlon does not. Which CPU should I go for? Does the SSE instruction set make a big difference with apps. like flight sims for instance?

Also, the Athlon is kind of power hungry. I have 365 watt SH power supply to use with it. The SH is equivalent to an Antec or Enermax in many of its features: 5 volt and 3.3 volt rails are over 25 amps. Should this be enough for the Athlon?

Redwolf · August 30th, 2002, 08:29 PM

As far as I know, SSE really doesn't make a diffrence. Video cards have much, MUCH more effects than processor extras. Remember MMX? Don't? It was something Intel designed to speed up 3D aplications. By the time MMX came out graphics card had grown by tremendous leaps and bounds to where games and 3D programs running on MMX really didn't have much of a diffrence form those not running it.

I say get the Atholon.

And yes, your PS is more than enough to handle the Atholon proc. It's really the Xps you have to worry about,

Etruscan · August 30th, 2002, 09:45 PM

Yeah, I remember MMX. You could get a pentium 166 with or without it; then the 200, 233 etc. Yeah, I remember Redwolf. The thing is: all CPUs have it now and all CPUs have SSE. They say the P4 is speeding past the XP partly because of SSE2. Because I'm thinking of current and future apps, that's why I asked the question. It is really a question of money for me. I know I should get an XP. But the T-bird and Morgan are sitting there in the store - marked down. I'm really siding more towards the Morgan, even though it has less cash and a lower speed, because the SSE on the XP is one of the reasons AMD went to PR ratings on its processors. Anyway, thanks for the input.

I never tried a T-bird or SSE on MS sims. I just have a Spitfire Duron and a Geforce 2. There are still a couple rough spots in the sims where they jerk a bit @ 1024x768 once in a while in instant replay; they are good but not perfect. I just put it down to MS programming, my slow SDRAM or what ever. However, maybe SSE or more onboard cash on the T-bird would smooth out the wrinkles entirely.

VERT · August 30th, 2002, 10:28 PM

depending on what you do you will get a boost from SSE, for example encoding to Divx

RamonGTP · August 31st, 2002, 05:36 AM

Well its kind of a touch choice... In programs that are SSE optomized, the duron might be the better choice... But in every other application, the extra cache on the athlon will allow it to perform better... Maybe you could go for a lower model XP processor and get the best of both worlds? As far as your PSU, it should be able to handle whatever processor you throw at it, be it Duron, tbird, or XP.

-Ramon

September 1st, 2002, 01:01 AM

AFAIK, the thunderbird 1.4ghz was the mist power hungry processor that AMD made, to date.

Etruscan · September 4th, 2002, 06:48 PM

I ordered the Morgan; I guess I'll find out all about SSE. I'll have to wait for a T-bird or an XP. Thanks all.

Redwolf · September 4th, 2002, 08:46 PM

Hmmm...thought you said SSE2. Oh well...

Yeah, Divx uses SSE and you can recompile Linux for SSE. But the dern thing is so fast anyways, I doubt you'd notice a diffrence.

Etruscan · September 10th, 2002, 01:08 AM

Got the Morgan 1200 working, a $41 bargain. There is absolutely no difference with any apps. I can see from a Spitfire - everything works as well or better. I have noticed a little, maybe(totally subjective), improvment in steaming sound quality of internet broadcasts. The sims seem exactly the same. Windows works better, or slightly differently, with the the expanded instruction set from what I have seen so far.

I couldn't believe the size and weight of the Volcano 6 Cu I got to cool it. Man, is that heavy; 39 degrees C in an ambiant of 70 F. without much load.