question regarding AMD Athlon XP

hey, i have a question regarding the AMD processors hopefully you guys can gimme some recommendations. recently ive decided to get a new PC around the house just to have since the current one im using is a celeron and ive had it for a while. i came across a eMachines AMD computer with the following for around $480

AMD Athlon™ XP 2800+ Processor Desktop
• 512MB DDR-DRAM memory
• 80GB UltraDMA hard drive
• CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive
• 64MB NVIDIA® GeForce4™ MX graphics
• 17" Flat Screen

im new to AMD processors, do you think i should purchase an AMD computer or should i just stick with Pentium 4? i read somewhere that an AMD XP 2800+ is like a p4 2.66 is that true? any advice and tips please, just wondering if i should try out an AMD hopefully it'll last for a while like the current one im using. btw know any pros and cons about AMD? also the new pc is going to be used for mostly programming work using JBuilder and internet etc..

AMD's are good cpus, especially given their price advantage over the pentiums. The performance rating isn't quite equivalent to P4 (the 2800+ being equal to a 2.6 P4 sounds about right, but it depends on what the use is, some tasks run faster on P4, some on AMD). For programming work and such that computer looks good, but if you ever plan to play games on it, you'll really want a better graphics card. More RAM would be nice, but isn't necessary at all.
Overall, it looks good, and at a great price.

hey karsh,thanks for your reply, one more question regarding the RAM, the 512MB DDR-DRAM memory that the computer comes with, originally i thought 512 was more then enough but since you said it would be nice to have more, how much more should i add onto it after i purchase the comp if i decide to upgrade, and as for the video card i dont think im going to be playing any games that require a good video card, maybe some that doesnt require the graphics to be nice but probably no counterstrike or anything lol.

and also none of my friends including me never used an AMD XP cpu before, so i actually dont know how it'll run, how fast it is etc... would you say you wouldnt even notice the difference between a p4 give or take at 2.66? just wanna get more opinions and learn more about AMD before i actually buy it, just hoping that its similar to a p4 but not a huge difference. but then again anything is better then the celeron im using right? lol

For what you are doing, 512 is probably more than enough. If its coming as a single stick, I would add another 512 if you can run in dual mode (and if you felt like it, again, 512 is plenty, but its sort of a truism that you can never have too much ram )
Video card is something else you could upgrade later if you wanted to, so no worries there.
Performance wise, it will be more than adequate for any developing needs you may have. The performance depends on the application. http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/200...u-guide-14.html has lots of cpus compared on lots of applications, so you can see what each are good at. HTH

as usually, karsh is good person to follow - go with amd. forget about all the stories about it's temperature problems you may heard because time is different... intels burn more these days if you have enough cash and you don't want to buy high-fi graphic card, high-speed hard disc like Raptor, or more RAM, you can always purchuase best processor around -athlon64

My first 3 builds were with Celeron chips. My latest build was AMD. I'm happy with it. It runs hotter than my Celerons but I got a better case for it and it runs cooler now. I'm sure eMachines has it all figured out and it will run fine. Whether it runs as fast as a Pentium 2.5 or a 3.0 isn't all that important as if it runs fast enough for your applications. The weak link these days seems to be the video cards.