For our High-End Business PC Buyer's Guide's processors, we are recommending both Intel and AMD options.
Current Cost: $330
For the Intel option, right now we see the best business choice being the Pentium 4 1.4GHz. This is the first time we've recommended the Pentium 4 in this guide. This is possible due to some gracious price cuts in that department during the last month where the price of the CPU itself has fallen significantly. IT decision makers will see value in the extensibility of the Pentium 4 even though it starts at one hundred dollars more than its Pentium 3 little-brother. In comparison to a Pentium 3 based system, you'll spend about $240 more when adding memory and motherboard, but that is a price that, as a former system administrator, I'd be willing to take for a power-user within my organization. Preemptive multi-tasking and memory bandwidth performance in the Pentium 4 continue to skirt past its Pentium 3 counterpart.
For a more value-oriented Intel option, the best business choice may be the Pentium III 1GHz. The price of the CPU itself has fallen in the last month from $330 to an even more affordable $230. High end Pentium III systems have never been so cheap to build if you're looking to buy in bulk and outfit an office. SDRAM prices are also at an all time low making the entire platform quite attractive and adequate for all your office needs. However, due to this being the High-End Business PC Buyer's Guide, the Pentium 3 has been bumped to second place behind the Pentium 4.
Another option for Intel business buyers is to get a dual-processor system. This is a good option if you know for a fact that the primary applications the machine will be used for are multi-threaded. If you do not know that the applications are multi-threaded, buying a dual-processor system can be an expensive mistake. If you are going to go data processing and the target applications are multi-threaded, you can get two less expensive CPUs and get more performance than a single more expensive CPU.
Read our Pentium 4 1.4GHz review here.
Read our Pentium III 1GHz review here.
or...
(133MHz FrontSideBus)
Current Cost: $224
For the AMD option, we suggest you choose an AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.2GHz. It sports 256K of full-speed L2 cache as well as 128k of L1 cache, all on the Athlon's die. This cache keeps the CPU well fed and gives the Athlon Thunderbird excellent performance almost comparable to an equivalently clocked Pentium III.
At this time, dual processor Athlons are not an option. AMD plans on bringing out dual-processor Athlon systems later in 2001.
Read our Athlon 1GHz Thunderbird 1.2 GHz review here.
Read our Athlon 1GHz Thunderbird 1.1 GHz review here.
Read our Athlon 1GHz Thunderbird review here.