pros and cons - please list them

I know that AMD's overheat quicker
Pentium is more stable

what else?

AMD's perform better, a 1.83 ghz Athlon will perform as well as a 2.00 ghz Pentium chip will.

AMD's will also perform high-end mathematical calculations faster than Pentium chips (calculations such as 9^1500, iterations of Pi and so forth). In fact, they are much faster than their corresponding Pentium chips, an Athlon XP 2200 (about 2ghz)will beat a Pentium 2.53ghz processor quite easily in these types of tests. This is according to the charts I've seen anyway.

The new 64 bit AMD Hammer chips should blow the P4 away, once they're out anyway.

Personally I'd rather go with AMD's. They won't overheat if you supply them with enough cooling (AMD's homepage has a list of cooling that they recommend for each processor).

This is a rather complex and broad issue.

For example, whether you wish to talk about only current technology, or processors that might be released a month from now or later in the future (which really, samples chips have already been tested but nothing has been released to consumers yet). If you put aside processors, AMD CPUs cannot be used in Intel motherboards. So there are many different issues.

If you had specific questions you can ask them.

As of now AMD processors perform much better overall then Intel processors; and they do so at lower clock speeds. They are also cheaper in general.

AMD is not as sturdy of a company and they do not offer warranties on their processors as good as Intel's

It is not accurate to state that AMD processors overheat more easily. Heating varies on many factors, the micron process used, whether you overclock your CPU, etc.... Until recently Intel had the advantage that it's processors would shut down when they overheated, while AMD on the otherhand, your computer would keep running until it fried itself (i.e. the metal and plastic parts became damaged beyond use). However this has been fixed with BIOS updates, ASUS and Sol Tek added the ABS CPU protection to their line of KT333 motherboards, so Intel really no longer has this advantage.

Same thing with stability, there are always going to be compatibility problems and what not with computers, it is just a fact. I wouldn't say AMD is any worse than Intel, however the motherboards AMD CPUs use may be more prone to this.

When I bought my current computer, an AMD K6 200, it was the top of the line. It had 8.5 million transistors. The equivalent Pentium had 4 million. What does that mean? It means the AMD chips had more dedicated pathways for certain tasks, which means it's faster. I haven't had a look at what each company is doing with their chips these days, but if it's the same now as well, AMD must be faster at equivalent clock speeds.

I haven't had a look at what each company is doing with their chips these days, but if it's the same now as well, AMD must be faster at equivalent clock speeds.

It is, they even based the processor names on this. A 1.73ghz Athlon will give the same performance that a 2.1ghz Pentium chip will. ;)

AMD's Athlon is currently the most efficient processor on the market, with 9 operations per second versus the Pentium 4's 5 ops. Naturally, this lets Athlon do more per clock-cycle and of course, push around as much data as a higher clocked Pentium 4.

To be honest, I have lost respect for Intel... rather than try to compete with the Athlon by working on a new chip design, they actually downgraded their CPU's so they could be clocked faster. It is common knowledge that the Pentium III 1.4Ghz can soundly defeat the Pentium 4 1.8Ghz on a variety of diciplines. Intel's reliance on clockspeeds to carry itself is both a marketing strategy and a cheap fix. People think "Wow! 3,000 megahertz! This thing must beat the Athlon!"

Between Intel's willingness to take advantage of people's nievity for profit, and there incompetent CPU technology, I see no respect
for them as a company.

As a consumer, they are trying to screw you over a bit.

But they're just trying to get filthy rich...................oh! and give jobs to people who need them.

my decision 2 go with pentium over amd for the new computer im building is based on pass experience.
iv never had problems with my pentium nor hav any of my frens.
but i do hav a few frens that hav amds that caused mor probs.
not sur y.

i jus wish pentium would chill out with their near billion dollar marketing and devote these resources to building better goods.
in fact the big marketing expense works against them because people would start wondering y u would hav 2 spend so much on marketing if ur products r so good.

my question is this:
wich well known computer companies (game developers, graphic designers, programers, studio techs, web designers, network admins, etc.) prefer amd and wich prefer pentium and y?

I'll buy AMD because of lower cost

I've built CAD and graphic design machines before... every person I build for wants AMD for it's raw processing power. Intel's chips require optimization in order to compete with AMD's FPU, but not all programs are optimized for the Pentium 4. But, the majority of the programmers I know are lazy... they don't care to optimize because it's just more work they have to do and that leaves their programs purely reliant on the raw power of the CPU. In that arena, the AMD slams Intel around hands-down.

Dependence on optimization is the reason Intel is as big as they are with P4. If the P4 had to rely purely on the power of the Pentium 4 and not it's SSE / SSE2 support, the P4 would fall on it's face.

As far as overheating goes, you should know that P4's get just as hot, and go unstable just as much. The only reason AMD has developed a reputation for instability and heat issues is because lots of people don't properly install their heatsink / fan to the CPU. You would be surprised how many Athlon's cook just because people don't cool them properly.

I haven't had much experience with heatsinks - you can imagine that I haven't worried too much about heat with my PII 333

what is an incorrect setup?

corrected a terrible grammar mistake

Avatar, take a look at www.amd.com and click on AMD Athlon Configuration>AMD Athlon XP Configuration Information>AMD Athlon XP Thermal Solutions Heatsinks (would have posted a URL, but for some reason it doesn't work)

This is a list of all heating solutions recommended by AMD for each of their processors. Basically you want adequate airflow through your box, where air is being pulled in on the bottom and sucked out at the top if possible. Also make sure you have all the cable bundled up and out of the way so as not to impede the airflow too much.

When connecting your heatsink to the processor, I would recommend using the Arctic Silver 3 thermal compound, it drops processor temperature by at least 4 degrees C and as much as 10 degrees C in some cases. Read more about it here

http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/00068.html

Basically what you're looking for is good, unobstructed airflow through the case and a good heatsink/fan on the cpu. Here is a good place to start looking for CPU coolers:

http://www.dynatron-corp.com/products/cpucooler/cpucooler_result.asp

but keep referencing to the AMD page when picking out a cooling setup as they will have recommended ones listed. Good luck

thanx
that's just what I need