Battle at 500MHz: Athlon vs P3 vs Celeron

If you're buying a computer today and don't want to be kicking yourself for months to come strongly consider not going all out and, instead, picking up a decent Celeron 500 system with a TNT2 or a Voodoo3 (2000). This isn't an "Intel-biased" recommendation but, rather, rather a cost effective recommendation. Why? By the end of October you'll be wanting the latest and greatest from either of the two manufacturers, and a $160 investment in a Celeron right now is much easier to leave behind than a $240+ investment in either the Athlon or the Pentium III.

The reason to stay away from the Athlon if you're on a budget now is that the current state of Athlon motherboards is quite disappointing. If you absolutely must have an Athlon today, go after the FIC SD11 Motherboard because it is the only one that is available in decent quantities and after a couple of weeks of testing it does seem like the most reliable solution out there right now. Be sure that if you do buy an Athlon + FIC SD11 combo from anyone that you get the vendor to sell you a power supply (or a case + power supply) that they have verified works with the combo. There have been a number of problems related to Athlon motherboards and power supplies so make sure that your vendor takes the responsibility if your system doesn't work because they used a cheap power supply. The AMD recommended power supply list includes the following:

• Turbo-Cool 300ATX
• American Media CWT-300ATX
• Emacs AP2-5300F-RV2
• Astec SA302-3515-980
• Enlight HPC-250G2, A0-01
• Sparkle FSP250-61GN
• Enhance ATX-1125B
• FSF Group Inc FSP 250-61GN
• Delta Electronics Inc 200PB-103A
• Powerman FSP300-60GT

Although not a part of that list, from the personal experiences in the AnandTech lab, the Seventeam ST301-HR power supplies seem to be on of the best solutions (picture upper right). They are difficult to find but, if it makes the search any easier, they are the same power supplies used in the Kryotech systems (Kryotech knows their power supplies) and they seem to work quite well with the Athlon setups I've tested so far. That's just a small recommendation.

The reason to stay away from the Pentium III is because of the imminent release of the Pentium III B as well as the upcoming Coppermine processors in the course of the next 4 - 6 weeks. The basic laws of marketing state that whenever a new product is released, the prices of older products are pushed down, so you'll be kicking yourself if you spend money on a Pentium III 500 now and it drops another 20% in price because of new product releases. Since the Celeron isn't competing directly with the upcoming CPUs, don't expect Celeron prices to be affected too dramatically by the new processor introductions. Also with the onslaught of new chipset introductions for the Slot-1/Socket-370 platforms this quarter, a motherboard purchase now may leave you desiring something else in just a few weeks time.

The most intelligent decision now would be in favor of the Celeron.  While it may not be the fastest, the thing to keep in mind here is cost efficiency. If you don't care about cost, then the Athlon is the next best pick because it is just about the same price as the Pentium III 500 but delivers performance on-par with or greater than a Pentium III 600 in most cases.