How much does a P4 do per clock?

[Iamghey]

I heard that the P4 does less work per clock compared to an XP, how much does a P4 do?

[Flu!d]

It does less than my Tualatin!:)

[Lt. Max]

im not sure tho somebody said somethign about .75 intel and amd 1. tho i dont kno and dont wanna say anything.


intel4ever

[The Coolest]

I heard that it does about 70% out of the work that a XP can do

[Escuchamezz]

ten times more than an AMD does in its lifetime :D , ok maybe not

[donny_paycheck]

Originally posted by The Coolest
I heard that it does about 70% out of the work that a XP can do

Same here. The benchmarks that I've seen would tend to agree.

[funnyperson1]

thought the Northwoods are closer to 85%.......its about 70% AthlonXP and 72%PIII for a Williamette

[batboy]

Well there is a lot of misinformation and debate on this subject. Most of which relates to comparing the AMD XP to the older Willamette version of the P-4. The Willy was a castrated P-4 that was introduced by Intel because the "real" P-4 (the Northwood) was not ready and AMD was beating up Intel in the MHz race.

Well, it turns out that when comparing AMD vs. P-4 at comparable clock speeds that AMD did indeed beat the P-4 in most (not all) of the common benchmarks. In fact, an AMD 1.3 to 1.4 gig CPU often could match or exceed a P-4 running at a default 1.7 to 1.8 gig. Of course this caused much glee among AMD fans and caused much disappointment among Intel supporters.

Well, times have changed and Intel has released the Northwood P-4 which has much greater memory bandwidth potential, plus contains lots of sophisicated and technical advancements that most software producers have yet to fully utilize. The P-4 Northwood's potential is great, but most reviewers are still using older benchmarking programs which still favor AMD.

First off, AMD has nothing close to the brute MHz speed of the Northwoods. So, the new P-4's are now winning the benchmark war purely on muscle if nothing else. When you consider how overclockable the Northwoods are, then the performance difference is even greater. True, AMD is only being beaten by a small margin in several of the benchmarks, most noteably business scores. But the P-4 is really beginning to widen the gap in several other benchmarks, most noteably gaming performance scores.

So, if you want a good system for a low budget price, then AMD (especially their XP series) is the logical choice. However, currently the main downfall to an AMD system (in my humble opinion) is the lack of high quality chipsets available.

However, if you can afford to spend a little extra cash and want the absolute best quality and best performance, then get a fast Northwood P-4 and motherboard that uses the Intel 850 chipset and then overclock the snot out of it. Can you say, "AMD killer?"

[Lt. Max]

yes northwoods do better and more work because their smaller and can move things around faster.

[Goku008]

less then any athlon:D

[SP]

The fact of the matter is there's no real answer to this question or perhaps the proper answer would be "It depends.". You hear alot recently about IPC or instructions per clock cycle and people are quick to throw around loose numbers, but the fact is that the number of instructions per clock cycles a CPU executes varies considerably depending on the instructions it's currently executing, the ordering of those instructions, dependencies between instructions, and accuracy of branch predicition as well as other factors. We could take a sequence of code and reorder it slightly and often times we could get a much difference number of instructions per clock cycle simply by doing that. Also, sometimes a slightly different sequence of code can do the same thing and result in a very different IPC. This is why you see some benchmarks where an Athlon is faster and you see others where a P4 is faster. Many of the older compilers generate code that does flow through the P4s pipeline very well because of the odering of the instructions and things like dependencies that cause stalls in the pipeline and missed branch predictions. The newer Intel compilers generate much more efficent code that flows through the P4s pipeline much smoother resulting in a much lower IPC for the P4. Interestingly enough the same code actually flows through the Athlon smoother as well. So, even the Athlon benefits from much better code optimisation as well. This is no surprise since all modern CPUs are pipelined. The P4 gets a much more substantial boost form such optimisation because it suffers the most from poorly optimised code because of it's longer pipeline. So, when you see a benchmark where the P4 does poorly and some says something about the P4s IPC being significantly lower that tells you that particular code is causing alot of stalls in the P4s longer pipeline and this is why the IPC is lower. With the right code the P4 can have a high IPC as well.

Also you mention the word "work". If we're talking about "work" per clock cycle again the issue becomes less clear. What do we mean when we say "work"? What kind of "work" are we wanting the processor to do. Different instructions do different amounts of work. If for example we talk about SSE2, which the P4 has and the athlon doesn't, then the P4 could do alot more "work" with SSE2 instructions than the athlon could do with a sequence of legacy X87 Instruction that performed the eqivalent operation.

[diehrd]

Can I offer some help here.AMD clearly out perform Intell in clock cycly per clock cycle.

Here is proof AMD 1.63 XP Benches neck and neck with Intells 2.2

Here is the simlpe math that showes clock cycles do matter

1630x30%=2119

Boy that seams to real to be true.1.63 gigs times 30 percent and the total equails Intells new chip ???

Keep talking in Intell codes,Pipelines,bla bla bla.Facts are in the standard benchmarks that even Intell submits to.

I keep reading about code and optimizing it LMAO .Aint the processors supposed to run the programs currently on the market
or should these programs be recalled to allow Intells chips to run faster.Come on guys dont be down on AMD.The little kid on the block has fought GOLITH and the little guy is Winning.

By the way see sig ,Board 2 XP's and the RAM cost 650.00 .yOUR PROCESSOR COST 535.00 FOR A 2.2 AND i DARE ANY OWNER OF 1 TO RUN AGAINST THIS BOX CYCLE FOR CYCLE.Glad I stoped by in error i feel better

[jazztrumpet216]

The little 30% thingy you multiplied out doesn't mean anything. Sadly enough some programs are optimized for Intel, the current business standard, for that reason exactly.

As far as your "Intel Codes", you cannot understand why the P4 is outperformed by a similarly clocked Athlon XP if you do not understand pipelines.

I agree, AMD has done admirably fighting against the Goliath of the computer industry. but I wouldn't exactly say AMD is winning if you look at marketshare. The only people who REALLY like AMDs for their full potential are DIYers, and you know how few & far between we are. Most corporations use Intel, servers and desktops alike. Not all, but most.

I don't think a SINGLE Northwood 2.2 versus your duallie there would be a fair race. 2 processors against one??? The Northwood doesn't stand a chance!!! If you went one processor on one processor, I'd take you on if I had a 2.2.

Now, to conclude this post, I'm gonna say that this thread WAS NOT about AMD outperforming Intel clock-for-clock, that is an established fact. The thread was about HOW MUCH it was, and it wasn't about the equivalent speeds or anything like that. That 30% of yours is an approximate figure, not a realistic one based on any one application.

[BigRed]

Originally posted by diehrd
Can I offer some help here.AMD clearly out perform Intell in clock cycly per clock cycle.

Here is proof AMD 1.63 XP Benches neck and neck with Intells 2.2

Here is the simlpe math that showes clock cycles do matter

1630x30%=2119

Boy that seams to real to be true.1.63 gigs times 30 percent and the total equails Intells new chip ???

Keep talking in Intell codes,Pipelines,bla bla bla.Facts are in the standard benchmarks that even Intell submits to.

I keep reading about code and optimizing it LMAO .Aint the processors supposed to run the programs currently on the market
or should these programs be recalled to allow Intells chips to run faster.Come on guys dont be down on AMD.The little kid on the block has fought GOLITH and the little guy is Winning.

By the way see sig ,Board 2 XP's and the RAM cost 650.00 .yOUR PROCESSOR COST 535.00 FOR A 2.2 AND i DARE ANY OWNER OF 1 TO RUN AGAINST THIS BOX CYCLE FOR CYCLE.Glad I stoped by in error i feel better
give me a dual board and 2 p3-s 1.4ghz 512k processors and i can bet you that ill make your machine my bitch :D
intels processors only really suck now cuz the code isnt written with the p4 in mind, wait and people will start writing code for intels longer pipeline on their processors and amd will once again be eating intels dust. and that will happen because intel has more money and can pay programers to write p4 optomised code :p

[diehrd]

I only offered the challange in fun.But wanted to stress how much more raw power is available to anyone for less money.

I agree Market share is with intell,BUT Chrysler Just Moved to AMD,and many other companys are starting to look that was as well.

I have liked AMD because it was the Underdog and even as such It always did me good.Now I can Encode videos and play any game on the marlet at the same time and peek at my Email in between kills and not notice any slow downs.

To me this is priceless the power to play and work productivly.

After seeing My investment even a Diehard Intell guy has to pause when he sees his 2.2 gig chip on a shelf !!Thats all I wanted to stress here.

And I am also lifted that the Intell guys even consider us AMD diehards in the race, after all 2 years ago we where just here to be laughed at so dont get upset if a few of us take our shots while the shooting is good... stop buy the AMD forums you guys and keep an eye on us cause it may happen that we pass ya by without a warrning !!!!!!!