Should I buy Athlon or Pentium?

Hi!
I work with Architectural/Video Editing software: AutoCAD, Photoshop, Premier, FreeHand, FormZ/3DStudioMAx, maybe Maya in the future, and such rendering software…)

the question: Concerning the above programs, and OpenGL technology in general, would you buy an Athlon XP chip (1800+ or 1900+) or a Pentium4 chip (2ghz). More specifically, I think my question asks: which ram works better with Graphics, the RDRAM for the Pentium, or the DDR SDRAM for the Athlon? I am not sure if I am asking the right question, as in if either makes a difference, or if it is so miniscule that I shouldn’t bother asking the question.

If anyone can suggest a good system to buy that caters to my needs, I would appreciate any advice. I also have questions as to what Graphic/Video cards to get.

Thanks
Steck

Hi,
Personally, my experience with Cad and 3d rendering has gone better with Intel’s chipset. I think it can handle more than the athlon. As long as you have a fast chip and a good graphics card youll be alright. Athlon chips are the inexpensive alternative, I recomend AMD for gaming and moderate use and Intel for workstations, there is a difference in how much the chips can handle. For CAD, and rendering buy a pentium 4…

definately a pentium

OH YEA, Athlon is NOT even a choice, pick the Intel/Pentium/Celeron cards, oh yea, those would suit ya well…

Goto www.anandtech.com and check some of the athlonXP reviews. Btw, I think all of you should.

As a OpenGL/C++ programmer, I would definately recommend an AthlonXP/Geforce3 combination. Perhabs you should take a look at more professional cards than gforce3, but I think it will do just fine even for quite advanced scenes.

[This message has been edited by dbugger (edited 01-14-2002).]

I absolutely agree! Those nuts who claim that pentium possible ever would do better results in 3D must be extremely uninformed or just generally slow.

Thanks thus far for everyone’s reply. Since I first posted my question I have done a lot of research. All of my research has led me to the Athlon XP. I agree with Dbugger and poleMaetus. At least the reviews on the web agree that the Athlon is the way to go for 3D rendering (and a lot of other applications). It seems to be the better chip for my needs. Just to let anyone else know that is in my situation, I went turned to PCMag.com, Anandtech.com, Cadenceweb.com, and a few others. Articles on About.com proved priceless. I am currently focusing on an Xi system (xicomputer.com). They can put together an amazing system for a relatively low cost. And they seem to specialize in CAD systems. I am just not sure if the system will be good for my video editing needs, and thus my delay in purchasing the system.

If anyone has any experience with Xi, such as with their technical service, etc…, or can suggest another company that they might think is better, please let me know!

Thanks again for your general posts.
Roberto

Perhabs I should answer your first question as well. I think the rdram will provide a little more bandwidth, but the improvement won’t be significant, probably not even noticeble.