Building a low-budget system - Intel or AMD?
 

Hi all,
I'm screwing together a low-bugdet system and wondering whether to buy an AMD or Intel CPU. My options would be

Intel Celeron D 320 (2,4 GHz)
on a VIA PT880-chipset mainboard (http://www.asrock.com/product/product_p4v88.htm)
or
AMD Sempron 2400+
on VIA KT880-chipset (http://www.asrock.com/product/product_k7upgrade880.htm)

The mainboards cost each about 35 € and both offer DualDDR. Since many benchmarks in the web force their tests on 3D-performace they don't deliver me the info I need to decide which one to choose for linux - stability and compatibility would speek for Intel I guess. And the Intel-platform can be upgraded up to Pentium 3,2GHz (Sock. 478) - which I suppose performs better than anything on Socket A - Am I right?

Would be great if you post here what speaks for/against the one/other decision.

The sempron is the better buy of the two especially in terms of Linux support. Though I highly recommend non low end cpu/mobo choices. The consumer level amd64 boxes are not that much more expensive. I just got a decent mobo/proc/gpu/ram for $300 for a new workstation I'm building.

Just found this thread which covers the same quiestion:

Which Processor on Linux- AMD or Intel?

AMD is FAR more stable than any intel ever

i have a 2100+ over clocked and it has never froze, ever
even playing games like doom3

my freind has a dual p4 3.2ghz
and his freezes and clocse apps at random all the time

intel is far less atable than amd

About AMD 64-Bit:
Isn't it too early to swich, I mean many things still need to be finished to reach full 64Bit performence in linux. How far is it? Mplayer for example, would it work on a 64 Bit CPU?

About the switching itself - I wanted just to plug my old harddrive with my current system on it and boot - maybe build a new kernel.
But with amd64 I would have to recompile every application - or reinstall linux with a 64Bit-distro.

I'm still openminded about 64bit,
either getting amd64 - but than it would be the latest socket and a gigabyte mainboard - which will be more costy
or
waiting another year or so before going amd64 and buying a low-budget system

64 bit procs support running 32 bit binaries at full speed. The Windows crowd does it with their entire operating system. ;)

I'm also thinking of getting an AMD64 Laptop. I understand the 64 can run 32 stuff. What I'm not sure of is if I use Fedora 3 (64bit) can I use basically any program that works on the 32 Fedora without changes if they don't have a 64 version out yet. I know there may be some exceptions, but will most of the 32 bit stuff, say 90% work off the shelf. I don't want to get in over my head, with modifications to make 32 stuff work on the AMD64 chip.

You can run 32 bit programs fine in a 64 bit OS.

Thanks, sounds great. 32 O.K. on 64.