AMD
AMD has in fact been here as long as Intel. However, they weren’t really into making their own processors from the start. They were actually helping Intel develop some of their earlier generation of processors. In their later years, they branched off, and started their own manufacturing of processors, and now are on the cutting edge of performance and computing power. Their newest product, the Athlon 64 processor is leading the way in 32 bit and 64 bit computing. Even Intel was forced to follow suit in creating their own X86-64 processor. AMD has come a long way from being an Intel developer and has made their mark on the computing industry.
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The AMD system will be using a 3400+ Athlon 64 processor. You can check out our review on this processor here. However, this processor won’t be the top contender for long as the 3700+ is slated to be released in April. The price for a 3400+ is roughly $416 at current. You can check out the latest prices of this processor here.
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For a motherboard, we will be using an nForce3-150 motherboard from Gigabyte. Again this chipset is not going to be the top offering from nVidia as the nForce3-250 is being released this month. Detailed specifications of the motherboard can be found here. Price for the motherboard is roughly $209. Latest prices can be found here. The nForce3 is the third generation chipset offered by nVidia. There is only one limitation to this chipset however: it doesn't support the Cool'n'Quiet on Athlon 64 processors. Personally I'd like to have that feature available to me. The nForce-3 250 will have support for the Cool'n'Quiet though, as well as a faster interlink, and better ethernet.
