Well first of all Etomac needs to review this post:
http://forums.overclockers.ws/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35503
I own all of the previously mentioned pieces of hardware. The thunderbird core cannot make it close to 2GHz being supercooled with a Vapochill - I know, I own both and I have tried. Anandtech recently reviewed the fastest available Athlon and that was 1.8GHz being supercooled below zero with a Vapochill. So the thunderbird core is probably never going to see anything beyond 1.7GHz air cooled, and almost certainly never 2GHz under any circumstances short of liquid nitrogen.
Now at 1.8GHz the thunderbird core performs about as well as a P4 clocked at 2.1GHz. I have tested both using a vapochill. As has been mentioned all over the net, the current P4 requires about a 300-350MHz lead in order to stay on par with the thunderbird core.
The Palomino core is a different story. Intel needs about a 450MHz lead to stay on par with this chip. As stated before I know because I have both - just look at my signature. The Palomino core, at least presently, doesn't overclock worth a crap. I can barely get mine past 1400 with air-cooling. I was able to overclock mine to 1600 with a vapochill, and that was giving my 2GHz P4 some trouble. They're talking about getting this up to 1.7 and 1.8GHz air-cooled - I think they've got some work to do.
AMD runs DDR - that means double data rate as in 2X. P4 runs QDR - that means quadruple data rate as in 4X. Somehow I get the feeling 4X is faster. And finally we have DDR ram - last time I checked DDR doesn't even come close to PC800 rdram on the i850 platform. But DDR folks can still say "Yeah but what about all that latency, huh?" That was an issue when rdram was paired with the P3 on the i820 platform, not the i850 platform (speed on i850 more than makes up for latency). Oh lets not forget that price issue. Rdram is so overpriced - $30 for 128MB of BRAND NAME rdram is just astronomical don't you think! My God, who can afford that?
It's amazing how people can become so obtuse when they get swept up in the brand war. And if you wish to call me an Intel fan, well just look at my sig - not all Intel by any means. I don’t blindly put my faith in one brand – I test the hell out of whatever I can get and I use what works the best for me. So if you’re super glued to the AMD brand, do us a favor and do a little homework before you come to this forum and post some nonsense just because you don’t like Intel.
I'll leave you with a handy little comparison from Sisoft - certainly not a tell all benchmark, but a quick reference. Pax.
