"ICee" wrote in message
...
Papa Lazarou wrote:
Hi y'all. It's time for my trusty KT7A & 1.4ghz Athlon to hang up its
boots and I need some advice on my new system.

I've decided on either an AMD based 2800xp with Abit NFS-7 mb, or a
more expensive 2.8ghz P4 on an Abit AI7. Neither will be overclocked
as I am going for as quiet a system as possible so radical cooling is
out of the question. Is there any noise difference between the two
systems with stock heatsink/fans? The heavy duty activities the
machine will be used for are gaming and Mpeg 2 encoding (using
Tmpgenc).

At first I was all set to take the AMD route without even considering
the P4, but then it occurred to me that mpeg encoding is basically a
pure number-crunching operation and that for this purpose the 2.1ghz
2800xp will be obviously inferior to the sheer power of a 2.8ghz P4.
Am I correct in thinking this, as I don't mind springing the extra
bucks for the P4 system if it gives me this 33% boost on my encodes?
Any advice appreciated.

Get a XP2500+, which will easily overclock (using a 200 MHz+ FSB) to at
least a 3200+.


Can that be done with the retail fan and heatsink? I have an NF7-S and a
2500+ on its way. Wondering if I need an aftermarket sink and fan to get it
to 200 Mhz FSB).

Jon