Hi all,

I've got two old computers sitting in front of me, and one must go.
They use the same memory, can use the same cards, the same drives, neither have an OS installed, and I can change the case if I wish... The only deciding factor is the CPU as far as I can see...

One has an AMD Duron, with BIOS reporting it running at 908MHz, according to Wikipedia, that makes it either a high end Spitfire, or a low end Morgan...
The other has an AMD Athlon, BIOS reports it running at 800MHz, according to Wikipedia, I think it might be a Thunderbird, but not on a cartridge if that's possible?

Which would give me better performance? If they ever do anything again, it'll be running a hardware firewall, or ICS, or something similar to that...

Cheers for any input,
Ben

I would say the Athlon personally, but I have absolutely ZERO experience with AMD CPUs though..Lol.

I'd go for the Duron personally, apparently if it is a Morgan core it runs rings around the older Athlons.

EDIT: Hm, on the other hand the Athlon seems likely to have more L2 cache (256K as opposed to 64K on the Duron). Tight race, I'm changing my mind and saying go Athlon.

Cheers for the replies

Is there any way I can find out if it's a morgan or not?

One thing to note, the Duron machine seems to nab a bit of RAM according to the BIOS, it used to report 112MB, and now it's got a 512MB stick, it reports a little under that...

CPU-Z? It may help, if not, Everest may..

Take the CPU cooler off.

If its like a brown chip, its a Morgan. If its a green PCB/black ceramic, its the latter, IIRC.

Athlons were the same PCB. If its a TBird, it'll easy touch 1.2-1.4 depending on what board/RAM you have.

Why don't you benchmark them and see which is faster?

The 0v3rcl0ck3r5 should be able to help.

Because I don't have time to mainly, I've found the Duron machine has XP on it's hard drive, but the Athlon has nothing, and they only have one CD drive between them...

I'll take a look under the heatsinks a little later, I need to look at them before Dad goes down the tip later, as that's where the rejected one will be going.

I'd probably keep the one with the nicest case and PSU, then quickly strip the other for spares.

A spare motherboard takes up a lot less room than a whole tower, and you can play with them when you've more time.

Technically dumping computers at landfill is illegal.
Strip it & ebay it (or send me the mobo & CPU)

For tip read recycling centre............

The tip is what we call the local community household waste and recycling centre...But that's a bit of a mouthful They have a section for computers.
Actually, are there any places which are only a tip? The three I've been to (home, Aber and Camberley) have all been large recycling centres...

I missed Dad going down, so I'll be looking at the two machines a little later...
Sas, I don't have any boxes or anything, if you can suggest the best way to post the system board and CPU, and PM me your address, I'll try to post the reject to you next weekend

So does ours, but it's ridiculously small!

There are the usual skip sized skips for wood, garden waste, soil, rubble and 20 other different catagories... and then there's a small chest for all electrical items. You could fit about 2 CRTs in there, and needless to say it's always full.

I have about 10 CRTs I need to recycle. They're all working but naff, mostly 14" 1024x768 interlaced. Stupid thing is, I rescued them all from skips years ago thinking they were too good to throw out

The one here seems to have gone crazy with providing several chests to put TV's and monitors, separate areas for white goods and another area for other electrical goods...

Make a crazy video tree art installation. Like something you'd expect to see in a 90s cyberpunk movie.