Pentium D Computer or AMD Athalon Computer

I need to buy a new computer and had heard AMD Athalon's are good with playing games but other programs might not work right. Does anyone use an AMD Athalon? And does it have any problems running programs like Microsoft 2003 Word or drafting software?
My other choice would be a Pentium D or a Pentium 4 and I have been using a Pentium 4 so I know those work.
Any help would be appreciated!

Neither. Look for an Intel Core 2 Duo.

I have an athlon 64 3400+ and have no problems with any office 2003 programs. As a general rule, an amd processor will almost always be better for gaming then an intel chip of the same price... unless you buy one of those new fangled core 2 duo thingys.

Definitely, if you can get the Core2Duo from Intel, get that. It is currently faster than the AMD-equivalent processors and also runs less hot than any other processor family, which is awesome.

There is no truth to the fact that AMD processors have problems running programs aside from games. If "problems" means "slightly slower than if it was Intel" then I guess that's a "problem". AMD runs faster in most games, and Intel runs faster for certain games and in certain areas such as compression and encoding, either way it depends on which applications you are going to be using. Check the CPU section at www.tomshardware.com and read the articles about the processors you are interested in and see which one is best at the programs you use. If you aren't trying to save money and just want to the buy the current best type of processor, get the Core2Duo.

I'm AMD all the way. Right now, dual core AMD processors are much less expensive than the Intel Duos. Also, AMD's bus speed on their processors and supporting motherboards are much better when it comes down to price to performance ratio. Yes, Intel has faster boards and processors, but you're going to be paying a very large sum of money for them too.

So far, I'm able to run anything I can get on my computer and my comp isn't really all that great anymore (AMD 64 3400+ with a gig of dual channel DDR400 and a 6800GT AGP graphics card). And I can run HL2 and BF2 on pretty much full settings (maybe AA down from 1 below max) without the frame rate dipping below a good performance level.

If you want to be able to have great system at a somewhat budget price, go with AMD. I have nothing but good things to say about them. I just finished helping someone out with building a really sweet system for under $1,000 and it would easily contend with the XPS systems from DELL and the other high performance systems from other manufacturers (Although it didn't have a monitor, mouse, keyboard, or speakers). And it's an AMD machine and not Intel like all the major brands use.

Duos and other Intel processors with similar bus speeds to AMD's are running for $350 to $900+. I won't lie to you though. There are Intel processors out there (even dual cores) for less than $100. But their bus speeds, which I can't seem to stress enough on how important that is, are only like 533 MHz which is about 1/3 of even a budget AMD processor. Hell, a $50 AMD 2800+ has an effective bus speed of 1,600 MHz with most having 2,000MHz.

You can't just look at the number of it's operating frequency, like 3.4 GHz, and say it's superior to another chip with a speed of, say, 2.4 GHZ. You have to look at the overall chip and motherboard speed (among other things). A chip could have a potential of running at 5GHz, but it doesn't mean jack if the bus of the chip and motherboard can't handle that kind of traffic.

As it stands right now, there aren't many programs out there right now that will harness a dual core processor's potential. It will mostly be grinding away with one. I'm not saying that you shouldn't get one, but unless you're going to be doing higher-end, prcessor intensive work, like watching a DVD while redering stuff in 3D, you won't really need it.

I may have more later.

- Riplox

Core 2 Duo E6300 = $183, which is pretty comparable to the Athlon X2 4200+ at the same price. Problem? availability and motherboard prices.

Pentium D's only interesting if you can't shell out $183 for an X2 or C2D. But they're not bad chips by any means.

Core 2 Duo > Athlon 64 X2 > Pentium D. Remember that equation, and buy the best you can afford.

I use an AMD Athlon64 FX55, no problems with it running any software, and its an SLI rig.

Intel predicted price for Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (second-best in the series): $316.

Newegg price for AMD Athlon 4000+, which was blown away by the Core 2 Duo in tests: $399.

AMD had to make some absolutely MASSIVE price cuts to remain competitive with the Core 2 Duo coming out, as it blew away all of their chips and was much less expensive. I haven't had time to check that Athlon since the release of the Core 2 Duo, though I've had a friend of mine check and he said the price was $399. That was about five days ago so it may or may not have changed.

Needless to say the Core 2 Duo is the best value, though other processors will work perfectly fine. If you're not gonna get a Core 2 Duo though, I recommend an AMD chip as they should be getting cheaper along with the price cuts, and were ideal for games before the Core 2 Duo came out.

I don't recommend a Pentium 4 though. Go dual-core for sure, but whether you get a Pentium D or AMD Athlon is up to you.

I'm having a really hard time finding that model. It's not on newegg or tigerdirect and those are major carriers. Where can you get one? Or is it an exclusive model to companies like Dell, Gateway, etc? And uh, AMD still has Intel beat on price.
Newegg Prices -
Lowest Priced X2: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester 2000MHz HT 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket 939 Dual Core Processor
Lowest Priced Duo: Intel Core Duo T2300 Yonah 667MHz FSB 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket 478 Processor
And the Athlon is still better.

Tiger Direct has the Core 2 Duo available, that I am sure of. Newegg will be getting it tomorrow.

Notice that I was talking about Intel's predicted price for the C2D, the market price could inflate it by up to $100, though my wager is that it will be around $360 on Newegg.