Thread: Althon v. Pentium iv (not again)

  1. #1
    junior member mix0matt's Avatar
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    Athlon v. Pentium iv (not again)

    maybe some of you would be interested in this:

    http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?.../11/12/0247212
    Last edited by mix0matt; 11-14-2001 at 11:38 PM.

  2. #2
    Registered User alex6852's Avatar
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    For most of the time Althon will be faster than Pentium IV until they will use "old" testing software. BUT if they do same thing with SSE 2 opptimisation, P IV will be far ahead Althon.

    Here's one example. I have Pentium IV 1.5 Ghz and GeForce II 32 VRAM video card. Avrything was fine until I heard that there is new driver for my video card with SSE 2 support. I installed it and saw that ALL my graphical programs (not only games) run up to 3 times faster AND smoother !

    So, if you whant to see full potencial of your P IV you shoul look for SSE2 optimizes software.
    C++ rulez!!!

  3. #3
    train spotter
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    I have used and built all my systems with Intel CPU's since the Pentium started. I have run my own hardware support/sales for many years.

    I just bought my first AMD chip, the Ath 1600XP. Put it on an Epox mb with 512Mb DDR. Tested with Sandra -> off the scale!

    Faster and cheaper than the P4. It will take a lot to make me go back to Intel.
    "Man alone suffers so excruciatingly in the world that he was compelled to invent laughter."
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  4. #4
    Registered User VirtualAce's Avatar
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    I've been an Intel customer since their 8088. My first AMD was a mistake. We had the computer built and the guy put in an AMD 40 instead of 80486 DX50. Big difference. Because of this difference I stayed with Intel.

    Recently, though, I bought an AMD Athlon 1.33. At the time it was the fastest they had. I could never in all my years buy Intel's fastest chip - too expensive. So my upgrade only cost me about $750 (P3 500 to 1.33 Athlon) and I had their best chip. The Athlon has been awesome. Although some games like USAF do not allow me full detail cuz I don't have the P3 anymore, all other games allow full detail levels. I will say that the P3 did seem a bit more stable, or maybe it just handled errors better. My Athlon was probably the hardest machine to configure and test, but it has impressed me from the word go.

    From now on I will probably by AMDs, even with all of the hype about this new P4 and the bus speed and instructions that claim to be so fast. My father and I used to be Mr. and Jr. anti-AMD people. Now we both own Athlons and probably will never go back to Intel - too expensive for performance gains that just won't be noticeable (in the near future).

    Most people buying P4's are putting 133MHz memory in them (according to a friend who owns a shop). The RDRAM is just too expensive. I did not think you could do this, but evidently you can on some boards. All that does is slow the entire system down and defeats their purpose for even buying the P4.

    Bottom line: Intel is just too expensive. But their free literature is very nice for programmers. Perhaps AMD has a similar literature policy in effect.

  5. #5
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    Pentium III would really be great

    The Pentium III Tualatin has beaten the Thunderbird Athlon in some benchmarks. I would really prefer the Thualatin-Pentium if it wouldn´t be so expensive. Although the 13micro-meters core is great. But if you look at cost/power the Athlon XP is the best processor.

    klausi
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  6. #6
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    What about working with 3D CAD? Modelling with surfaces and solids?

    I've read everywhere that AMD processors are better than Intel ones, but when I've found an article comparing dual AMD and dual Intel, they say that just for working with big scens, the dual PIV is better.

    Anyone has tried similar Intel vs AMD processors usign CAD software (I mean powerful software, big files in fact)? I mean for example computers with "similar" prices, like 1000 $ for example.

    And do you know if there is a huge different using one or other type of memory with CAD?

  7. #7
    Registered User Camilo's Avatar
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    yes, athlon is cheaper and you get more from your money, and wait the Hammer, it will really rock!

    http://www.x86-64.org/


    Camilo
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  8. #8
    Sayeh
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    Athlon is Dead

    Look, this competition between the Pentium IV and the Athlon or Athion is stupid. It's like comparing Apple's to Oranges.

    The Athlon is essentially an overclocked dead-end technology. They have maxed out their capability on that design-- both with the way RAM is designed and the processor.

    Athlon only has like 12 pipelines.

    --

    the PIV, uses an entirely NEW design. it has 20 pipelines, it runs cooler, it has much faster RAM (RIMMs).

    ---

    You CANNOT rely on existing benchmarks because they are all written with Athlon technology in mind (pre PIV). Nobody has written any software you that will benchmark a PIV by using its extra horsepower. If they did, it would walk away from an Athlon, hands down.

    ---

    Now, if you think I'm biased, think again. I bought a system with a PIV in it and then saw Sandra tests and other tests rating the AMD chip. I thought--did I make a mistake?

    I did heavy research for 2 weeks learning all about how each chip and its bus and its memory was designed so that I could _for sure_ know which would be better.

    PIV hands down.

    After 24 hours of constant running using Sandra stress testing (just to keep the chip busy), I could put my hand on my PIV without even feeling any heat! It was a 1.5GHz CPU.

    I know for a fact that the 1.5GHz chip can be overclocked to 2.0GHz... even though they now have go an honest 2.0GHz CPU.

    Intel-- the _only_ way to go.

  9. #9
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    I ran a benchmark on my pIII 500 with 288Mb RAM, against an athlon 900MHz with 256Mb RAM and the athlon beat mine, mine got 5430 CPU marks and the athlon got 5912 CPU marks, that's only 482 CPU marks!, I thought that it would beat me by about 4 thousand!, that convinced me that athlons really suck, big time

    Oskilian

  10. #10
    train spotter
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    >> Nobody has written any software you that will benchmark a PIV by using its extra horsepower. If they did, it would walk away from an Athlon, hands down.

    If they are yet to write the benchmarking software to harness the P4 extra power, when will the app's be ready to use that power?

    I need a computer for now. In a year I will have a new one. Maybe I will go back but for now it is AMD.

    I write code for processing digital video images and my AMD handles it no problem.

    I am very cautious about comparing different systems since I tested two mainboards and found one got 350MB/sec plus and the other under 130Mb/sec. (With all the rest of the hardware the same!) Imagine the effect on the rest of the benchmarks.
    "Man alone suffers so excruciatingly in the world that he was compelled to invent laughter."
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    "I spent a lot of my money on booze, birds and fast cars......the rest I squandered."
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    "If you are going through hell....keep going."
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  11. #11
    In The Light
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    Howdy,
    i am in the CAD business using AutoCAD 2002, my files average 2mb and without question my AMD athlon 750 beats up on the intel stuff. i have tested regens, renders, loading and if you really want to see how fast it is try this. make a selection of more than 100 objects then select one object to be removed from the selection set.
    I'll buy another AMD as soon as they get to 2GHZ.
    M.R.

  12. #12
    geek SilentStrike's Avatar
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    What's wrong with buying for today Sayeh? Let's face it, benchmarking on applications that you actually use is worthless, but hey, at least the P4 rips up the Sandra memory bandwidth benches.

    Sure, a 2.0 ghz P4 will probably outperform an Athlon XP 1800 in applications written 4 years from now, but by then both will be old technology.

    Price/performance is all that I care about, and the athlon has been leader in that category for more than 2 years now.
    Prove you can code in C++ or C# at TopCoder, referrer rrenaud
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  13. #13
    geek SilentStrike's Avatar
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    I don't know what you are talking about, AMDs are supported by DirectX 8+
    Prove you can code in C++ or C# at TopCoder, referrer rrenaud
    Read my livejournal

  14. #14
    A Banana Yoshi's Avatar
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    >The Athlon is essentially an overclocked dead-end technology. >They have maxed out their capability on that design-- both with >the way RAM is designed and the processor.

    This is how you make them into monopoly. Keep them on and they will have to close Intel for monopoly, or do something nasty to it.
    Yoshi

  15. #15
    Registered User Gades_GD's Avatar
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    itld

    I'm a CAD user as well, and I have to upgrade my system (Celeron 333). I don't have too much to spend (actually I won't have, because now I have no cash to spend ). So I was thinking about a Duron processor, do you know if there's a big difference between the Athlon and the Duron? Keeping in mind that I only worry about CAD speed.

    Thanks
    Gades Yacht Design

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