Athlon XP 1900+(1.6GHz)

I don't think Toms Hardware are Intel lovers. They've been pretty harsh towards Intel in the past couple of years (mainly about their dealings with RAMBUS). And Anandtech was more harsh towards AMD's new model system than Dr. Tom:
Tom's Hardware: AMD hasn't got an alternative right now and so I respect the new system and accept it, even though I might not like it too much. I suggest that we all give it a chance.
Anandtech: Alongside the new processor AMD is reaching deep into their bag of mistakes from the past and is bringing back the dreaded performance rating nomenclature

It seems Intel is taking their sweet time with the Northwood but then again AMD also took quite a while to respond to the Pentium 4 2 Ghz. Still, if the Northwood core is anything like the hype then it should perform pretty well against the Athlon XP processors. It was only a 66 Mhz increase from the 1800+ so it's nothing to worry about.

Originally posted by Phuzzi
Uhuh, sure. And yet this important trend is so frequent, an athlon clocked 400Mhz lower than their flagship still whips it hard. Their line here just reads like an Intel press release.

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True, but I think their CPUs are getting better. A year before the Athlon was able to beat the P4 in virtually everything, but now the P4 does excel in some programs and games. I assume support for the P4 will increase with its popularity, which is quickly rising (count the number of P4 ads in major computer papers)

Originally posted by Phuzzi
'Might not lie' in the cpu? Of course it isn't. There are solid AMD mobo's, and there are solid Intel mobo's. Just as there are unstable ones for both cpu's. It's sad to see a site like THG breeding the myth that AMD chips themselves are not stable. What happened Tom? As for the line saying that the cheap prices may mean less quality.. exactly how much are Intel financing your site? Is current SDRAM shit because it's cheap?

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He's just saying that all their P4 mobos have been stable while some Athlon mobos weren't but it doesn't say anything about AMD or Intel. Pentium 3s were hardly more stable than the Athlons. My P3 machine sometimes fails in 3DMarks 2K. As for the price comment, he's dead on. For the vast majority of the public, low price = low quality. When the average consumer looks at a CPU priced significantly lower than a similar CPU they automatically assumes something is wrong with the cheaper one. A price difference of 10-20% is acceptable, but with their current pricing AMD looks like the value variant of the Intel CPUs (which is one, among many reasons why they're now resorting to model numbers).

Originally posted by 404
what i like form AMD:

AMD don't have that much of computer/TV/newspaper ads promoting 'How Good and How Fast our Processors are'.

But they let hardware sites, PC magazines, IT experts, and normal home/network users to test and experienced their processors and witness the true 'AMD inside' of AMD's K7 line of family.

this is where P4 failed from the first time of it's birth. they only rely on Intel's Big name as the King of Processors but they forgot what make them to be a King.

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Yeah, but remember that the vast majority of computers are sold to the average, ignorant consumer who don't go to hardware sites. All they see are megahertz, and big brand names like IBM, HP, Intel, etc. Marketing is very crucial to success and AMD doesn't seem to be doing any of it. They let their CPUs do the talking but there's only a small handful of audiences to hear it. I mean, why do you think Microsoft is investing so much money into promoting Windows XP? It's to create consumer awareness. Also, companies like SNK made good, solid games but their poor business strategies resulted in them getting bankrupt.

Congratulations on your new system, chp, you just bought the fastest CPU available on the market. May your Athlon bring you computing happiness for years to come. And you won't have to worry about instabilities, the K7 core is much improved over the K6 core.

Hmm, the Athlon 1900+ should be much faster than a P4 1700, especially with the VIA KT266A chipset. Maybe it just needs a little optimizing . The Athlon processors run much hotter than the P4 but more heat is not necessarily better. In fact, you should try to keep your CPU as cool as possible.