AMD... you better come up with something quick.

The time I go back to Intel CPUs.. is when they UNLOCK the multiplier. But I had read that Intel MIGHT do it too... but rumors are rumors.

Overclocking was about buying cheap stuff and getting it to run at higher speeds. It was like an artform. I think that the artform has been lost nowadays because we just want the fastest stuff and OC it even faster! But even wealthy men go broke from time to time. I have to pay bills, eat, and wear clothing at times too, you know!

Well... Untill DOOM 3 arrrives!

i must concur with JungleMan
who cares what the best chip is from either company........ becaues i'm not going to buy it anyway

200 is more than i want to pay for any cpu

if i could do my own tests against a 2.4C/Canterwood system right now, using the applications i use, then i could make an informed decision. everytime i've done that in the past, i've walked away proud of my cheap AMD based performance box.

i'm not buying the hype, unless i see it firsthand.

and i don't remeber eating worms out of the sand box.
but worms at the bottom of a tequila bottle are a different story

Gautam said:

Don't forget that the Athlon 64 will have an 800mhz front side bus, and that Intel isn't planning on having anything higher either.

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the xp3200+ is already a 200fsb processor. it didn't make any difference. if the athlon 64 actually does do quad pumping like current intel chips it would get interesting.

my point of this thread is not to compare the two top end chips. but that the xp3200 is having a hard time even competing with the 2.6c and 2.8c not to mention the 3.0c which it's PR number is actually higher than. the athlon xp line needs some renaming. xp3200 should be xp2800 and it should be top of the line for amd. i would have no problem with that. altering their numbering scheme to try to look like they are ahead shows signs of worry amongst their ranks.

also note: this thread is not meant to be a flame war. just a discussion of amd's future. the first instant i see flaming its going down.

Your point is well made - but as I said and hopefully if you read the link I posted earlier you will realise that Toms benching is not the be all and end all. If all the relevant reviewers come up with similar results to Tom's then I would agree with you the PR rating is overestimated. However you cannot base your theory on one set of benchmarks alone.

Maxvla said:

the xp3200+ is already a 200fsb processor. it didn't make any difference. if the athlon 64 actually does do quad pumping like current intel chips it would get interesting.

my point of this thread is not to compare the two top end chips. but that the xp3200 is having a hard time even competing with the 2.6c and 2.8c not to mention the 3.0c which it's PR number is actually higher than. the athlon xp line needs some renaming. xp3200 should be xp2800 and it should be top of the line for amd. i would have no problem with that. altering their numbering scheme to try to look like they are ahead shows signs of worry amongst their ranks.

also note: this thread is not meant to be a flame war. just a discussion of amd's future. the first instant i see flaming its going down.

Click to expand...

What really needs to happen is that AMD needs to start cranking their clock speeds. If we had 2.6Ghz Bartons that could do 3.0Ghz on air, AMD would have a nice lead indeed, and might actually be beating the Intel chips.

AMD clockspeeds have gone nowhere in the past 6 months. They've added cache ,and FSB, but they keep beating around the clockspeed bush.

Get on some better steppings AMD!

JungleMan said:

What really needs to happen is that AMD needs to start cranking their clock speeds. If we had 2.6Ghz Bartons that could do 3.0Ghz on air, AMD would have a nice lead indeed.

AMD clockspeeds have gone nowhere in the past 6 months. They've added cache ,and FSB, but they keep beating around the clockspeed bush.

Get on some better steppings AMD!

Click to expand...

But has the Athlon run out of headroom to run faster? You can only push a core so far before it needs a complete redesign. In all, the Athlon is on it's last legs. Time for the Hammer.

I think that the xp3200 would deserve it's name if it had another 66-100mhz or so, as it stands the performance isn't quite there.

To some degree AMD is raising the PR too much without adding the performance (ie. increasing FSB and L2 cache and reducing clockspeed), I mean the xp2800 can beat out the 3200 in more then a few benches . But don't forget that Intel uses MHz so when the AMD 2000+ PR rating was compared to a 2.0GHz willy it worked out quite well, it even tilted in AMD's favor. Now Intel has increased the L2 and upped the FSB a couple of times but we are still comparing the same old PR rating to a much faster intel CPU, Intel doesn't raise the MHz 'rating' when they up the FSB.

To use Ed's analogy the Intel dollar is gaining value against the AMD dollar... The AMD dollar is staying the same (assuming the 'suite of benchmarks' used to give the PR rating has stayed the same). If we were comparing a 3.0GHz willy to the xp3200 I bet the XP would win.

An interesting flip side to the arguement here maybe?
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003May/bch20030521020089.htm

I only chose AMD because I realized that having a 2ghz $60 processor is pretty nice.

Face it guys... AMD is just trying to stretch, squeeze and beat all they can out of a dead horse named Barton. We road the Palominos, the Thoroughbreds A and B, and Barton is a long dead legendary race horse. It's the end of the line w/ the Tbreds and 32bit. It was all in the plan and the plan all along. They're just biding time till the A64 is ready.

Well, just when we thought the Athlon XP ran out of steam at 1.9 (when the disappointing 2200A came out), AMD pulled a fast one and surprised us all with those mad-OCing T-Bred B's.

So, who knows...

I sure hope the Athlon64 is a night in shining armor for AMD, IBM are swarming like a pack of vultures. From what I have seen of the Opteron, they are not comming out swinging....

Maxvla said:

the xp3200+ is already a 200fsb processor. it didn't make any difference. if the athlon 64 actually does do quad pumping like current intel chips it would get interesting.

Click to expand...

If you're able to swing the price of the ultimate system when they first come out, my hats off to you.

I have the equivalent of that XP3200 when I have adequate cooling. I got my cpu for $70. How much does the Intel equivelant to an XP3200 cost?

I'm with AMD because they are the bang for the buck champs right now. If Intel would sell their second tier chips at the same prices as AMD, I could have gone either way. My very first system is an Intel Pentium Pro 200 dual processor computer I spent over $3k for. At that time I wanted the best that could be bought. I got my current setup for $800 and It's over ten times faster.

Intel, like a major software company I know, are way too cocky and need to come down a peg or two. For the sake of both camps, I hope AMD stays competitive for the same reasons Maxvla stated.

Maxvla said:

the xp3200+ is already a 200fsb processor. it didn't make any difference. if the athlon 64 actually does do quad pumping like current intel chips it would get interesting.

Click to expand...

what is quad pumping? does the athlon 64 have it? what fsb will the athlon 64 be? anyone know? why dosent Amd crank up the clock speed a little? if a 1700 can run 2.5+, they ought to get their best up to at least 2.4. the current 2.2 if kinda pitiful.

The Intel P4s have four memory clock cycles to AMDs two so it has a much higher memory bandwidth potential. However that's not all there is to consider factoring total system performance. AMDs are more efficiant and do more calculations for a given core frequency.

Audioaficionado said:

The Intel P4s have four memory clock cycles to AMDs two so it has a much higher memory bandwidth potential. However that's not all there is to consider factoring total system performance. AMDs are more efficiant and do more calculations for a given core frequency.

Click to expand...

which means if they get the quad pumping and another 300-500mhz more clockspeed they would easily be in the lead and i would be back to AMD land. but we all know that isn't going to happen anytime soon.

I don't know why AMD doesn't use quad-pumping, however 800mhz DDR will theoretically provide identical bandwidth to QDR 800. In the real world, DDR will probably come out on top because of it having double the external clock. Since this thread is about speculating AMD's future, and very few seem to actually have done so thus far, here's a run down:

Q3 2003: AMD's Athlon 64 will be released. AMD users will rejoice, but their happiness will be short lived. Expect these chips to have very low clock speeds (1.6ghz-2.0 MAX,) but very high, and falsely so PR ratings. They may come out with some mysterious 3 digit rating also. Also expect very overclockable Bartons, which will probably not be able to hold their own too well because...

Q4 2003: Intel will release the Prescott. This processor will deal a heavy blow to AMD. It will be fabricated under a .09 micron process, so expect very low voltage draw, very low temps, and thus incredible overclocking potential. Not to mention 1 MB of cache, and just maybe a 1066mhz quad-pumped front side bus.

From hereon, Intel will clearly hold the upper hand until:

Q2 2004: AMD will release the San Diego. .09 micron and 1 mb cache. Expect 1000mhz or higher DDR fsb. DDR II support is iffy. AMD and Intel will be very equal at this point in overclockability and performance. Sure, flame wars will continue, but they'll just be splitting hairs. However, the 64 bit bus will provide much potential for AMD, breaking the 4GB memory barrier that Intel will have to live with. The 64-bit PCI bus will allow for far greater performance in graphics processing, among other things.

This is about all I know. In Q4 2004, Intel will release the Tejas, supposedly with 2MB cache and built around a 775 pin socket package. AMD will continue using the San Diego core.

In the short term, I'd advise all AMD fans to buy now. The Prescott will overshadow both the Bartons and Clawhammer. The Clawhammer will very likely be outperformed by the Barton itself in 32-bit apps, and as we know how well the Thoroughbred does against a Barton, the Thoroughbred may surpass all Clawhammers. The Prescott's .09 um archictecture will be all it will need to completely surpass AMD from an overclockers point of view. The Prescott, however, will most likely be outdone a few months later by the San Diego. Which side of the fence you want to jump is up to, but you'd probably be happy with both. I haven't seen one person ever whose been disappointed over a choice between AMD and Intel; but I've seen the formation of numerous fanboys. Basically, it's all good; no matter what you choose, you'll be happy.

Here's another comparo at Ace's Hardware:
http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=55000278

AZN said:

Y is it when intel is winning in benchmarks it no longer matters but when AMD is winning in benchmarks it gets posted all over the place and matters?

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Because Intel is the 800 pound proverbial gorilla while amd is just the under dog.So when amd accomplishes something that beats intel it can be a impressive feat to most since they are no were near intels size.

Wow - i wanna know how to predict the future too!

Right now AMD is keeping up pretty nicely with Intel and they do have the higher-rated chip out. Currently the fastest on the market (but it is no longer the same clear-cut case as when they did the 1Ghz magik).

Intel is very nervous right now, hence the insane spending on R&D. I bet they're very sure that AMD will pull out another rabbit out of their mystery hat. And as far as i can tell, AMD is depending pretty heavily on the Athlon 64. Seeing as how yields are with the Opteron (1.8Ghz easy), i think they can easily do 2.0Ghz, especially with the partnership with IBM for the SOI technology.

AMD is the better technology, and the K8 is going to rock. Did you all miss the pwning of the top-end P4s when the Opteron came out?

The PR rating is not a mystery. AMD has documented it very well. Now if newbies can't understand it, that is to their detriment.

The 3-digit rating by AMD is also not a mystery. It is also well documented and explained all over the web, often at the same place the reviews are.

I believe the Athlon 64s will be killer, and with the glueless SMP, AMD owners will enjoy SMP much more easily than with Intel.