Pentium III 1.13: Tops For Speed, 'F' For Price? 106
fjordboy writes: "CPUscorecard has some multiple reviews and benchmarks of recent CPUs. Somewhat surprisingly, the Pentium III 1.13 GHz processor tops the list, but only for speed. CPU Scorecard also gave the Pentium III an "F" when it came to pricing. Is the high price tag worth it for the top-notch speed? Click here to see how the Pentium III stacked up to the other CPU's."
"Magic formula" conversions... (Score:2)
Actually, as far as I can make out, they only used the iCOMP tests for Intel's processors. All other processors were converted from the manufactures benchmark to iCOMP compatible numbers using a "magic formula". The quote from their site is:
Sounds like a recipe for biased, unreliable, PHB numbers to me. I'll make a note to avoid this site in the future.
This isn't surprising (Score:1)
"You'll die up there son, just like I did!" - Abe Simpson
*Not* the fastest (Score:1)
CPU Scorecard doesn't include Alpha or "other high-end SMP-capable processors" [cpuscorecard.com], so I wouldn't pay too much attention to whatever they happen to rank at the top of their little list.
this does not make sense (Score:1)
interesting site (Score:1)
seems much more than that but thats probably the windoze effect
Re:Gosh, what a site. (Score:1)
Re:as always (Score:2)
ALG
Re:shouldn't they work on... (Score:1)
Re:Ummm, I hate to say this, but... (Score:1)
Re:as always (cheerfully offtopic.) (Score:1)
This is the biggest problem I see with the moderating system here at the ol' Casa slashdot. people have been moderating stuff they don't agree with as flamebait.
Folks, flamebait isn't something you disagree with. Things you disagree with are what drives a good discussion. Flamebait is something along the lines of "Apple/Linux/microsoft/ect. Sucks!" In this case, the poster had an opinion, expressed it, and was moderated accordingly.
And just so I can actually have an opinon here thats actually germane to the main discussion, out of the last few systems I built, I have been happy to go with the less than cutting edge CPU. Until DDR chipsets get out, IMHO anything faster than a 900 is just chrome. nobody except freak gamers (And I count myself as one of those) and people doing multimedia production will need that kind of power. Just how fast do you need that kernel to compile anyway?
Intel is really F- on price... (Score:1)
Re:interesting site (Score:2)
What an enormous suprise (Score:1)
G4 all the way up there... (Score:1)
Re:CPU speed is all that matters? (Score:2)
All you memory bus freaks get off of it.
These procs aren't made for servers. If you put these procs in a server you are wasting your time (put slower procs and more memory and/or SMP) Otherwise, for games, 3D rendering, video editing, and 70% of the things that these procs are used for, CPU speed is still king. Example: QuakeIII uses about 200MB/sec of bus bandwidth. That's less than half the sustained (not theoretical) bandwidth of PC100 SDRAM. All the tests between PC100 and PC133 (or even PC66) show very little performance difference compared to bumping up the CPU speed a 100MHz or so. (Check www.sharkyextreme.com the Celeron vs. Duron tests)
And why? (Score:2)
So Why? why are they busting their butts to get these processors to market? Does George Lucas need more processing power for the Star Wars episodes's rendering?? Maybe NASA is trying to do some astrominical trajectory calculations? weather modeling? a 250000 user SQL server? (only a moron would make one server do that.. use a farm)
I'm betting that every one of you out there would have to really stretch to come up with a use that would require anything faster than a PIII 400 in your company/personal use. (AVID users dont count!)
someone tell me - what the hell does 95% of the computer buyers need it for?
Re:Intel only CPUs (Score:1)
You also play down the FP performance, where the Alpha as is still kills the projected values for the (non-available) 1.5GHz P4. Intel's vaporware isn't even in the same league.
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Re:When was Intel's top CPU ever worth the price? (Score:2)
Fixing any of these problems is almost certain to cost much more than a really fast processor. OTOH, a really fast processor only gives you a tiny edge performance-wise over a pretty fast processor.
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wow (Score:1)
Whoa...check out that G4 performance (Score:3)
Biggest piece of Crap (Score:2)
Re:shouldn't they work on... (Score:1)
Is the PIII-1.13GHz actually OUT yet? (Score:1)
I _really_ wouldn't bother with it anyway, it's
nothing but an overclocked PIII 1GHz.
Sure overclocking is actually how the *zillas often reach their speedratings, but the 1.13GHz P3, seems to be pushing it a bit too far.
If it isn't out, I find it highly suspect, that anyone would include it in a review.
My grammar was flawless. (Score:1)
There's nothing wrong with my sentence. I'l rewrite it for you, slightly changed:
"It" is an anaphoric pronoun which refers back to "a very important goodWho looks like an idiot, now?
Re:if intel, as you say, is such an established br (Score:1)
Because you need to inform the customer about your company. If you slip out of his consciousness, you're screwed.
marketting hypes != quality of the product remember RDRAM?
Yes. They didn't market it well. Whoever was responsible for that fiasco at the marketing dept. should be fired.
Re:shouldn't they work on... (Score:2)
That's debateable. For the longest time people bought IBM computers because of the brand, and the thought that they were the best around. Then people realized that they could get the same thing for much less by going with an 'off-brand' like Dell or Gateway.
Of course, now Dell and Gateway are two of the major brands, and they put together the overpriced systems.
b) that the company that sold your processor will be around for many years,
An assumption, and given the tech field of the last couple of years, not necessarily a good one. Given the speed of the 'game' out there, it's possible for Intel to make a couple of bad decisions and be belly-up by this time next year. Now, do I think that this is likely? No. But it is possible.
Of course, it's also possible for an AC to make a calm, rational post. Haven't seen one of those either...
c) that your processor will be the standard (if the AMD offerings behave differently due to a design error, AMD is the one in the wrong, not the other way around!), that you can get the latest technology that everybody will cloning the earliest, and many such advantages.
I've been using an AMD chip for over a year. The only times I've had any issues with my machine have been because Windows didn't like something.
(Ok, I never really did understand why MM:VII wouldn't run from my C drive, but did run from my D drive...)
Now, I realize that this isn't necessarily indicitive of AMD performance in general, but they do put out a comparative product at a more competitive price.
The higher price also pays for the incredibly talented marketing crew that informs you of all these factors that g**k websites such as the one linked in this story neglect, so you have a chance of not getting screwed over in your choice by unreliable or incomplete data such as the cited in the linked article.
I'd rather pay for tech people that marketing wankers any day... After all, anyone can do marketing.... All you need is a smoke machine, some mirrors, a pair of hip waders, and a shovel.
Slashdot g**ks, however, seem to be massively oblivious to these factors, due to their ideological commitments, aversion to the science of marketing and irrational sympathy for the underdog.
Hmmm... I can't tell if this is sarcasm, or you just being bitter about something.
*shrug*
NecroPuppy
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Godot called. He said he'd be late.
Re:Gosh, what a site. (Score:1)
Re:Intel only CPUs (Score:1)
The problem is that you are starting to compare systems, not just CPUs. Of course this is what you ultimately want to do, but unfortunately this is a little harder. There are many more variables to consider.
Some old numbers are in the classic Unix-vs-NT [unix-vs-nt.org] article at unix-vs-nt.org [unix-vs-nt.org] where you have ByteMarks on I*86 and Sparc platforms using Linux and Solaris (about half way down the article).
I don't know of any more recent benchmarks -- I guess there should be some web server statistics out there somewhere.
Re:Real price loser looks like PowerMac G4, $3500? (Score:1)
And how is his comment flamebait??? (Score:1)
So, just what made you think his comment was flamebait? I didn't see a disparaging remark against any persons in his post.
Re:Who buys the latest processors anyway? (Score:2)
Re:Price vs Performance Odd-ness (Score:2)
Tbird still better performance. (Score:2)
- Tbird's (and Duron's) 200DDR bus *does* help memory access.
- Tbird's FPU *is* much more powerful.
- What Linux application actually uses SSE? (Which is the only reason any P3 vs Tbird benchmark *ever* shows a decisive victory for the P3.)
More generic x86 and FPU power, a larger cache memory, and faster bus, are all things which to geeks (at least this one) totally outweigh a 1 or 2% performance margin on SSE-enhanced MS Windows applications, not to mention the hideous price differential. And finally, is the P3 1.13 even selling again, after having been recalled??? If it's selling again, can you actually FIND one on the street, or will it be another 3 months like it was with the 1.0G?? I mean wtf is the deal with writing this article??????AMD K6-2 450 for US $530? (Score:1)
Re:Intel only CPUs (Score:3)
that P3 1.13 Ghz is the fastest CPU in the industry.
In fact, both Alpha and U-Sparc-III are TWICE faster.
Well, no. By far the most credible cross-platform CPU benchmark is SPEC; if you had bothered to check the SPEC CPU2000 scores [spec.org] you would find that a 1GHz P3 is precisely as fast as a 900MHz US-III on SPECint2000_base (438) and only 30% slower in SPECfp2000_base (327 vs. 427). Assuming linear scaling (not generally a great idea but close enough in this case), a 1.13GHz P3 will be 13% faster than the USIII-900 in SPECint, and 16% slower in SPECfp. In other words, they will be essentially equal.
Now, the Alpha actually is quite a bit faster than the P3, with SPECint/fp scores of 514/591 for an 833MHz chip. That makes it 17%/80% faster than our 1GHz P3, and an estimated 4%/60% faster than a 1.13GHz P3.
Now, on the other hand, both the Alpha and the US-III systems tested cost many times more than the i840 1GHz P3 system; not only do the chips cost a good deal more, but they get the benefit of much faster (and more expensive) buses to memory, etc. This makes quite a difference even in the SPEC CPU tests, and if the chips could somehow be placed on equivalent platforms, the P3 would easily win SPECint outright, and might be rather competitive even on SPECfp. (In case you were wondering, the reason the P3 sucks at SPECfp is because it is saddled with the register-starved x87 floating-point implementation for backwards compatability reasons; the P4 will go quite a ways towards solving this problem--at least as far as newly compiled code goes--with its SSE2 instructions.)
On the third hand, as has been pointed out, the 1.13 GHz P3 does not exist, and never did. (Intel "launched" what amounted to several engineering samples which turned out not to work properly anyways. Other than a couple dozen sent off to review sites and OEMs for validation, no 1.13 GHz P3's ever left the company.)
On the fourth hand, a chip which does currently exist in much higher quantities, the 1.5 GHz P4, looks like it will quite forcefully take the SPECint crown away from Alpha, and depending on Intel's progress in optimizing their compilers for SSE2, might even take the SPECfp crown as well. We'll get to find out when it is officially released in about a month or so.
On the fifth and final hand, though, the real advantage of the Alpha and US-III is their platforms, which give them much greater i/o throughput--often more important than CPU power for server applications anyways--and allow them to scale to configurations of 32 and 64 CPUs and beyond; Intel has a long way to go to compete on these measures.
Re:Real price loser looks like PowerMac G4, $3500? (Score:1)
Ma'at
Re:shouldn't they work on... (Score:1)
By your own "admission", eh? Sorry, you've revealed otherwise elsewhere in this thread.
You assume I have some reason to lie to you. I don't. You aren't worth the effort.
I also hated it. That's why I went back to programming and am now making less that I was before. But at least I'm doing something I like.
You like it because of the feeling of superiority it brings you. "Anybody can do marketing, but nearly nobody can do programming, so I'm better than that."
No... I never said anything about why I liked it. You're assuming again. It was just that I wasn't happy in marketing. I didn't have anything in common with my coworkers, I didn't like my boss, and the office had this ugly peach wallpaper. (Though that last was hardly the breaking point.)
Not anybody can do marketing, period.
Then please explain why business is where all the washouts from 'technical' majors end up? Most of them in marketing??
Your characterization of the noble science of marketing as "90% basic math and bullshit skills" just shows you unability to grasp it.
Ok, maybe not the standard defination of basic math, but my defination. I've taken high level Statistics courses, Numerical Linear Algebra, four semesters of Calculus (including Vector Calc), and Differential Equations. Anything below Diff. Eq. is basic math to me.
And as far as marketing being a noble science, let us take that apart, shall we?
'Noble' - can't say I usually consider any profession to be noble, with the possible exception of medical professionals or social workers.
'Science' - Hmmm... Wait, let me check... Nope, none of the Business Majors on the local campus give a BS for their degrees, just BAs. That would be Bachelor of Arts, in case you missed it.
Your preference for a programming job, and your dismissal of marketing as "trivial" just proves you have the Slashdot Syndrome (also known as the "IANAL but I can program, so here's some advice" syndrome).
No... My preferance for a programming job over a marketing job merely shows that I prefer programming over marketing. My prefered job, Deep Space Explorer, doesn't exist yet.
And I never refered to marketing as 'trivial', which your quotations would seem to indicate. This all started because I say I would rather have a tech person than a marketing person. And as you seem to be a marketing person, I now have another reason why.
NecroPuppy -- Just another example of Slashdot Arrogance.
Re:Gosh, what a site. (Score:1)
shopper.com 0wnz j00!
Simply referencing Microsoft is NOT flamebait (Score:1)
Maybe we live on separate planets, but from where I come from simply referencing a company's product and stating that it's good doesn't make for flamebait. He seems to like NT; that's his choice and it should be respected.
But if you have a single CPU intensive process that can not be multi-threaded, then you are probably better off with the faster CPU.
Yes. I made a similar point when I wrote:
[...]"it really doesn't make sense to buy top of the line, unless you're performing computationally intensive calculations which are memory bound."
So, we're on the same planet with regard to this issue. However, I've yet to find many desktop users (except in the scientific community) who need raw CPU horsepower and high memory bandwidth. Most users need multi-tasking stability and smooth responce under the load of many applications. SMP is perfect in this environment.
Al Gore Sucks Ass (Score:1)
CS101/ECON315: Laws of computer buying (Score:4)
When buying new hardware you need to look at two price points and choose in the middle. There is the point when the price takes off to catch those who will pay through the nose to get the 'best' (only to realize in two months that something better came out), and the other price point is where they catch those who try to be cheap (yea, it's the cheapest, but for $5 more you can get something twice as big/fast). Those who go the cheap way get disappointed and lose money on upgrades.
When I buy a new machine I mentally graph out cost vs. performance. Usually you will see a slow rise in price and performance takes off. Then it will level out somewhere in the middle and then about 2 generations from the top the price will skyrocket while the performance just creeps along. I buy at the point just before where the price takes off. This way I get very good hardware that only a little behind the best, and it doesn't cost much more then the junk I would get if I was cheap. I can then use the money on peripherals (a good monitor is better than a 50 MHz jump any day).
I have a second rule of computer buying: When you own a computer you need to put $XXX into it every year. The more you put into it the closer to cutting edge it will be. If you put $1000 into you machine every year you will have the best machine on the block. If you only put $50 or less into the machine you will be facing obsolesce. Custom PC's don't become obsolete, they only become obsolete through neglect. They are more like a car than a VCR.
Yes, I know my two rules sound obvious to any geek, but there is wisdom in there. This is the same spiel I give to anybody who comes to me for advice in buying a computer.
Re:And why? (Score:1)
Re:Intel only CPUs (Score:1)
False.
Someone reported a slew of leaked benchmarks on a preproduction 1.4 GHz P4. While many of them were disappointing (more on this later), the SPEC scores reported were rather impressive. In particular, the SPECfp2000 score was 517 IIRC. That would put a 1.5 GHz P4 somewhere in the neighborhood of 550--not quite the 599 that Alpha can pull off, but certainly "in the same league", and certainly not "killed".
But there's more. The actual SPECfp score of the P4 will be much higher, for two reasons:
1) That preproduction 1.4 GHz P4 was almost certainly crippled in some way--i.e. one section of cache may be set to bypass, or several associativity ways turned off, or branch prediction could be turned off, or instruction paths could be routed very conservatively in microcode, or any number of dozens of things. This is almost always true of prerelease benchmarks of a new core; it happened before the Athlon release last year, and before the PPro release so long ago. Furthermore, there is good reason for prerelease chips to be crippled in this way--this is how engineers test finished cores to make sure they're ready for release. Essentially it's a lot like how coders test their code--turn something off and make sure everything works in the degenerate case; that way you not only know it will work in real operation, but if there is a bug you're much closer to isolating it. These settings are set in microcode and not changable by whichever two-bit employee at an OEM decides to leak benchmarks off a preproduction CPU sent there for validation (or whoever leaked the scores). Indeed, preventing accurate leaks is a reason to leave prerelease chips partially disabled like this.
In particular, the resulting slew of benchmarks which came from this particular preproduction P4 showed several very odd results almost certain not to represent the true performance of the fully functioning chip. It's not that the chip did poorly across the board, but rather that a couple particular benchmarks which stress particular aspects of the chip happened to be stupendously bad, and other benchmarks were mainly impressive. Paul DeMone, an EE who writes some excellent technical articles at realworldtech.com and posts often in places like Ace's Hardware, says that in his opinion these particular scores come from a P4 which has had its L1 associativity-way-prediction turned off, thus effectively increasing the latency of the L1 from 2 to 5 or so cycles. (Of course, there's no proof that the P4 even does way-prediction; the idea that it does is simply Paul's conjecture to explain how Intel got an L1 to run with 2-cycle latency at 1.5 GHz (and greater) on a
2) As I said in my original post (your accusation of "playing down fp performance" notwithstanding), the P4's SSE2 instruction set includes double-precision fp instructions for the first time. Thus we have an x86 chip which can finally run the double-precision operations necessary for SPECfp without relying on the horribly antiquated 8 register stack-based x87 fp implementation. While the 2-cycle latency L1 data cache will help the P4 run x87 code much faster, the reason all the major RISC chips have always creamed x86 chips in SPECfp is because they have sensible floating point implementations while the x86 chips are stuck with x87 for compatability reasons. But now that the P4 can use SSE2 instead of x87 instructions, it may have a real chance to compete or even win in SPECfp. We've already seen how the SPECfp performance of the leaked chip was remarkably better than that of a 1GHz P3 (517 vs. 327). What we don't know is if those numbers were made using a compiler which was fully optimized for SSE2. Indeed, it's likely that the SPECfp numbers which accompany the P4's release will later be improved upon by better SSE2 compilers.
Furthermore, classification of the P4 as "vaporware" is utterly uncalled for. This is a chip that's remained remarkably on schedule, with the only official delay being one month for a chipset (not CPU) issue. Believe it or not, Willamette is a chip that wasn't supposed to even exist, because by now the P3 was supposed to be replaced by a 2nd-generation, consumer oriented IA-64 chip. (Now *that's* slipping on your schedule!) Plus, Intel has been intentionally downplaying the performance of the P4, which is the exact opposite of what one does with vaporware. While some (who are not knowledgeable enough to study the actual P4 design) have taken this to mean that the P4 will be a disappointing performer, it in fact suggests just the opposite. Intel is not afraid to exaggerate (lie about) the performance of its upcoming processors in order to scare off competition--witness Merced/Itanium. Likewise, Intel is known to downplay the performance of upcoming MPUs in order to surprise the market when the chip finally debuts--they did this, very effectively, with the PPro, which surprised everyone in taking the SPECint lead away from Alpha when it was introduced. Intel leaked that the PPro core was supposed to be a dog; instead it's been perhaps the most impressive core design in history.
In any case, we may not have long to wait. While I'd bet we won't see any final SPEC numbers until the P4 release next month, Intel's presentation on the P4 at this week's MicroProcessor Forum is tomorrow. Will we see SPEC numbers? Who knows? But if we don't, it's likely only because Intel has a big surprise ready on Nov. 20.
Re:CS101/ECON315: Laws of computer buying - wrong (Score:1)
Buy the best motherboard you can afford. The motherboard is your lifeline, if you get a great quality mobo, it will outperform the crap easily, and be upgraded in 4 months when the max speed processor it can take becomes the fodder.
Buy the best video card you can afford. the bottle neck in computers are the video and hard drive. - with ultra66 as standard today (and you cant buy an non 66 hdd anymore) this is a non-issue. But buy a danmed fast video card, but not the best.
Get a minimum of 128meg of sdram. windows is a resource hog, plain and simple... maybe someday someone will write an OS that isn't bloated into stupidity.
finally, spend very little on the processor. The processor is the least important of the bunch, if your mobo can handle a 1Ghz get a 550mhz for dirt... BUT: get something with good FPU.
I have at home a PII-233 that will kick the arse off of everyone I know's PIII-500-650Mhz machine. and I makes my brothers P-III 850 Coppermine look like a joke. My secret? Good video, good mobo(no integrated anything but the basics) a Real Creative labs Sounblaster (not a live! a awe64) etc..
I can run Quake-III at 800x600 at great framerates, while the gateway cant even get close!
cheap out on the processor - it's a piece of fodder anyways, and you can slap the next one in there for about $130.00
The above way you can get a cheapo computer that will kick the butt off of anyone's supposed "power" machine. and upgrade at your liesure for peanuts.
Re:Whoa...check out that G4 performance (Score:1)
And where's the alphas and the sparcs?
Re:Whoa...check out that G4 performance (Score:1)
When was Intel's top CPU ever worth the price? (Score:4)
It would only seem to be of value in those rare situations where the marginal gain in processing is so profitable or desirable that it outweighs the marginal costs -- but places like that probably already buy bigger machines than Intel boxes.
The thing is, its always been this way. I remember buying a P150 when P200 was out and the price difference was astronomical. To this day, when I use my P150 (running @ 166) I still don't feel the performance difference is substantial over a P200.
Re:how boring... (Score:1)
Ummm, I hate to say this, but... (Score:2)
... Duh!
I'm also going to say something I swore I wouldn't: WTF is this doing on /. ????
Cutting edge processors are always going to be far more money than their relative speed indicates - it's the premium you pay for getting the complete best-of-the-best. Given the CPU turnover these days, only those with more $$ than common sense would buy a top-speed chip (or, those with a hard performance-is-absolutely-priority-one requirement (though they should probably be looking at an Alpha or PowerPC chip instead of an x86 one)).
Like I said before, this article doesn't add anything, so I'm reduced to complaining.
Slow news Monday, eh folks? Hemos, go back to bed, and we'll wake you up if we need anything.
-Erik
Re:Ummm, I hate to say this, but... (Score:1)
Re:shouldn't they work on... (Score:1)
Yep. That is, if they want to retain market share.
Of course, this does make the 1-GHz and sub 1-GHz processors more affordable... In another couple of months, I may be able to afford one.
NecroPuppy
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Godot called. He said he'd be late.
Re:CS101/ECON315: Laws of computer buying (Score:1)
as always (Score:2)
I for one, as a large corp IT purchaser, would rather have a dual-proc box:much cheaper, more power/price performance. When everything in the corporate market place must be carefully budgeted to provide bang for the buck, these CPU's just don't cut it.
In a similar, take a look at these guys [microsoft.com], their SMP scaling is fantastic.
'F' for reliability too (Score:4)
Since the Pentium !!! 1.13GHz has been withdrawn [slashdot.org], its price seems pretty irrelevant.
The pricing of the Pentium 4 is much more interesting [theregister.co.uk]...
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This comment was brought to you by And Clover.
Not News (Score:1)
Most people knew this trend when speeds were 1/10th of what they are now, but aparently /. considers it news now?
Re:Look who wrote the speed tester (Score:1)
And it wouldn't matter. Since the price is so far out of reason, any user with a bit of intelligence would do a bit more research than one site. 30Mhz (1.13Ghz - 1.1Ghz) isn't a huge difference.
Right now, actual processing speed's value is decreasing. Only FSB speed, L1 and L2 cache size and speed are making huge differences.
Note: Sadly, none of this matters to me, since I'm 16 and running an OLD PII 233Mhz with (GASP) ATI Rage Pro. Oh, and I have no money to upgrade. My best bet at better performance is PeoplePC. Sad, ain't it?
The point of that rant was to NOT WORRY ABOUT 30Mhz, buy the best value (probably Athlon 1.1GHz, but don't take my word for it), and be glad you can!
Re:shouldn't they work on... (Score:1)
Yet another case of Slashdot Arrogance, the belief that because one is good at computer, one is automatically smart enough to do anything else. You are obviously no good for marketing, or for law, for that matter.
Who buys the latest processors anyway? (Score:1)
The idea of paying $1000+ for a processor that is only marginally better than one $500 cheaper seems silly to me, despite cutting edge needs. Seriously: would you really gain that much more performance in buying a 1.13 ghz than an 866 or 933?
Re:shouldn't they work on... (Score:1)
Yet another case of Eladio arrogance. Or is that ignorance? With you it's so hard to tell.
I've done marketing. I was rather good at it. I also hated it. That's why I went back to programming and am now making less that I was before. But at least I'm doing something I like. And I don't have an incipient ulcer anymore.
90% of marketing is basic math skills and a good ability to bullshit. I have both. (As can be seen by my current karma rating.)
And as for law, I never said I was good at law. I just happen to know some, know where to look up the rest, and have five or six people readily at hand to give actual professional opinions on it.
NecroPuppy
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Godot called. He said he'd be late.
Re:I don't understand. (Score:1)
It's ridiculous that this article is posted at all (Score:2)
Re:"Magic formula" conversions... (Score:1)
Re:And how is his comment flamebait??? (Score:2)
before a million other people waste bandwidth by asking the same question:
The last line of his post was a flamebait.
I responded seriously to the remainder of the post.
Now can we get back on-topic?
Your comments I can say that without a doubt SMP is the best price/performance solution in contrast to the fastest uni-proc on the market is BS. It really depends on the application. Honest. For general purpose use, e.g. running a workstation at home, you are absolutely right: SMP is an excellent solution, usually very cost-effective (by allowing you to use less than state-of-the-art processors) and is in fact what I use at home.
But if you have a single CPU intensive process that can not be multi-threaded, then you are probably better off with the faster CPU.
And even in a more generic situatuion, if the newer CPU has a bigger cache, you may -- again for some applications -- be better off with the single CPU and the bigger cache (basically if the bulk of your problem fits in the bigger cache but cannot be split in two parts that would fit in a two-way SMP's cache -- two CPUs are no competition against memory latency).
Why mod down to redundant? (Score:1)
Why was this moderated down to redundant? I don't see a similar question being posted previously. Also, my comments were only slightly off-topic but was on-topic to its parent which was a valid post.
So far, 5 AMD posts (Score:1)
Why would /. be posting this??? (Score:1)
Nisi
mayhem [mindlessmayhem.com]
Re:Intel only CPUs (Score:1)
>Alpha, and depending on Intel's progress in
>optimizing their compilers for SSE2, might even
>take the SPECfp crown as well.
Look at your history. Any time in the past 8 years that x86 has come close to Alpha, something happens where Alpha again leapfrogs in speed. That's not about to change. Not to mention that thru history, Alpha's available today are always compare with vaporware of tomorrow.
I'd like to see a P4 using LESS power, as small a power supply, and in the form factors that Alpha can get in today. Not to mention price. It'll be interesting to see all the same people who bitch about Alpha not having this or or that or being too expensive when they see P4 systems at $4000 using non-standard power supplies and cases.
The FUD is so thick, you can cut it with a knife.
Mhz means nothing in comparisons (Score:3)
Re:Price vs Performance Odd-ness (Score:1)
It would seem, using the criteria they are using, that the Mac would be the worse price/performance, not the PIII.
If in fact they are using the "price per chip" (as opposed to price per system) in the analysis, why not list the chip prices?
that much? (Score:2)
Bonehead Benchmarks (Score:2)
People who post benchmarks without explanation of their particular yardstick ought to be flailed.
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Chief Frog Inspector
Re:Ummm, I hate to say this, but... (Score:1)
I myself am getting a little tired of people whining about how useless, overpriced, and power hungry the new Intel cpus are, and everyone should just ditch the crappy x86 architecture, and Alpha is just oh-so-cool and fast and efficient.
OK, but does it run Windows? Can I play Diablo in my spare time? Run exchange? There are some practical reasons for the dominance and price point of x86 architecture.
You can't separate need-extreme-speed people from have-lots-of-cash people. If you don't have the money there's no fast cpus for you I guess. Alpha or x86. And if you don't have lots of money what are you doing with all that data to analyze (oil&gas maybe)? And if you have lots of data (your research is not well funded?) maybe a (relatively) cheap off-the-shelf x86 is just the right fit for you.
Re:Price vs Performance Odd-ness (Score:2)
Re:And why? (Score:1)
They don't. At least not yet. And the chip is not marketed to them anyways. People who are comparing a Celeron to a Duron and looking into an inegrated video/sound motherboard aren't even going to give this a secong look. They're irrelevant as far as this chip is concerned.
Now, as even faster cpus come out and the price is pushed down there won't be an excuse for buying a And software makers will just assume everyone's running at least a P3 of some sort and that's what they will code for. CPUs just come preprogrammed for a 3-5 year obsolescence cycle.
Re:And why? (Score:1)
someone tell me - what the hell does 95% of the computer buyers need it for?
They don't. At least not yet. And the chip is not marketed to them anyways. People who are comparing a Celeron to a Duron and looking into an inegrated video/sound motherboard aren't even going to give this a second look. They're irrelevant as far as this chip is concerned.
Now, as even faster cpus come out and the price is pushed down there won't be an excuse for buying a <1000GHz cpu. And, here's the kicker, you won't be able to find one. Why are people not running on P200s, even though that's all they need? You can't buy one! If you could (second hand) they won't be in quantity (so no corporate purchasers), the chipset will be way outdated and you won't be able to use any new expansion cards.
And software makers will just assume everyone's running at least a P3 of some sort and that's what they will code for. CPUs just come preprogrammed for a 3-5 year obsolescence cycle.
text (Score:1)
Look who wrote the speed tester (Score:3)
Re:Ummm, I hate to say this, but... (Score:1)
Re:And why? (Score:1)
Surprise, surprise (Score:2)
Unless you're so rich that throwing away $1000 matters nothing, don't buy the fastest CPU available for your desktop box. Spend your money on a better-quality digital video camera (if you're a video junkie), or a surround-sound speaker system (if you're a game junkie), or a 21-inch monitor. Better still, spend the money taking your partner on a holiday. Much more fun than 2 extra fps in Quake III :)
Yeah, but... (Score:1)
Gosh, what a site. (Score:1)
Sharky's extreem never looked better. Ars Technica, you are beautiful. Pricewatch, we love you.
Poster recomends ignoring this link.
Apprently my 1 year old system is junk... (Score:1)
Re:Look who wrote the speed tester (Score:1)
Re:shouldn't they work on... (Score:1)
By your own "admission", eh? Sorry, you've revealed otherwise elsewhere in this thread.
I also hated it. That's why I went back to programming and am now making less that I was before. But at least I'm doing something I like.
You like it because of the feeling of superiority it brings you. "Anybody can do marketing, but nearly nobody can do programming, so I'm better than that."
Not anybody can do marketing, period. Your characterization of the noble science of marketing as "90% basic math and bullshit skills" just shows you unability to grasp it. Your preference for a programming job, and your dismissal of marketing as "trivial" just proves you have the Slashdot Syndrome (also known as the "IANAL but I can program, so here's some advice" syndrome).
Pentium III (Score:3)
It's always nice to see the chip at the top of the list doesn't work.
CPU speed is all that matters? (Score:1)
This field also shows similarities with the gaming field. More and more eye-candy but less playability/thinking/fun. It's boooooring.
I'm stiking with Nethack on my good old p188
Is it me or it seems that all this is happenig in order to bring the masses to the IT industry's products? But the good old feeling of using/coding that little 386s had gone.
Something is wrong with the world...
Re:When was Intel's top CPU ever worth the price? (Score:3)
However, I run Win2k on a Tyan Tiger 100 with Dual 650e CPUs -- there is an added smoothness missing in single-CPU versions of this as the operating system is SMP enabled and multithreaded, so that "other" stuff running on your machine gets a chance to run, too -- a single runaway process doesn't freeze out the UI for instance.
SMP's value grows with multithreaded or forking apps (like Apache) and as your process table grows -- you're able to keep more processes in an executing state than you could on a single CPU machine.
Have to mock you, sorry. (Score:2)
Intel's technology is so very good that they had to recall the 1.13GHz PIII, because it quite simply didn't work.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/12
AMD on the other hand are shipping 1.1GHz Athlons in quantity, and 1.2 GHz Real Soon Now.
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Re:as always (Score:1)
How this post got moderated up as "interesting" as opposed to "flamebait" is beyond me... But back on-topic:
There is more to computing than CPU performance, but, conversely, it is a factor. It would be better, in a sense, to do benchmarks of the type: this configuration is better for playing Doom, this one for being a web server, this one for running Microsoft Office, etc.
The problems are two-fold. First it is very hard to agree on an intersting application to benchmark against (and even if you do then to define it unambigously -- think of the IIS vs. Apache "benchmarks" out there). Second, there are just too many possible combinations in building and configuring a complete system. You would never get a comprehensive benchmark.
So for the moment we only have component benchmarks. Yes, they are difficult: you actually have to apply some intelligence and knowledge to use them in a "real world" situation. That's why we get paid big bucks. The alternative is to find a vendor you trus and buy whatever they recommend.
Re:Intel only CPUs (Score:1)
that P3 1.13 Ghz is the fastest CPU in the industry.
In fact, both Alpha and U-Sparc-III are TWICE faster.
Answer to the unasked ?: Declining returns (Score:2)
There's nothing really to complain about, just pick what works for you and get off the fence.
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Chief Frog Inspector
Re:Intel only CPUs (Score:3)
Look at your history. x86 actually did briefly leapfrog the Alpha in SPECint95 when the PPro was first released; Alpha took the crown back with the EV6. In any case, the PPro was Intel's only new core introduction of the past 8 years! Thus, judging from our exactly and precisely 1 datapoint, we can conclusively predict that the P4 will indeed take the SPEC crown away from Alpha for a short while.
I mean, come on--this is engineering, not history. You're not going to get anywhere with a teleological theory of CPU performance over the last 8 years--that's just ridiculous. We don't need to guess or play "history" here; there is plenty of solid evidence about both Intel and Compaq's upcoming designs, how they will perform, and when and at what speeds they will be released. It is a known fact that the P4 is going to be released on November 20 at speeds of 1.4 and 1.5 GHz. It is also a known fact that the Alpha looks like it is stuck at 833 MHz until the release of the EV68 die shrink. It is moreover a known fact that the EV68 is behind schedule and that it will *not* be released before November 20.
Next, we can look at the again well known design specs of the P4 and EV68. The initial EV68s are essentially just a process shrink of the EV67 from
The P4, on the other hand, is a completely new core, full of some really pretty impressive design features. From the point of view of SPEC, the most important are the 3.2GB/s FSB, trace cache, 2-cycle data L1, and larger reorder buffers. In addition, the half-clock-latency ADD will be a tremendous help for much of SPECint and the double-precision SSE2 instructions may allow the P4 to be the first x86 chip to compete or even win on SPECfp. (The much maligned 20-stage pipeline is largely compensated for by the improved larger branch predictors.) In other words, it is very likely that the P4 will achieve higher IPC on SPECint than did the P3. Oh, and it runs at 1.5 GHz.
So, assuming that the P4 will have the same SPECint IPC as P3 (an assumption generous to your argument) and the EV68 the same as the EV67, Compaq would need to release a 1.066 GHz Alpha before the 1.5 GHz P4 (i.e. in a month). Assuming the more likely occurrence that the P4 achieves ~20% better IPC on SPECint, Compaq will need a 1.266 or 1.3 GHz Alpha to win. Very very doubtful. Looking ahead, it doesn't appear that the EV68 will be able to keep up with the P4 in ramping clock speeds over the next 18 months, either; while the lead will likely go back and forth, it will probably be Intel, not Compaq, with the SPECint lead the lion's share of the time. This is all up until the release of the EV8, which looks to kick some serious butt. Note that I'm not claiming the P4 is a better design than the EV6x, just that Intel has access to better fab process than Alpha.
In any case, as you see, this is something that can be analyzed with known facts, engineering principles, and informed industry predictions, not with some blind appeal to (false) generalizations made over an entire 8 year period. In other words, "Alpha always wins SPEC" is not quite on a par with "never start a land war in Russia."
I'd like to see a P4 using LESS power, as small a power supply, and in the form factors that Alpha can get in today. Not to mention price. It'll be interesting to see all the same people who bitch about Alpha not having this or or that or being too expensive when they see P4 systems at $4000 using non-standard power supplies and cases.
LOL! The P4 *does* use less power than an Alpha; around 50W vs. an astounding 100W for an 833MHz EV67. And as for form factors, I truly have no idea what the hell you're talking about. Yes, the initial implementation of the P4 requires a somewhat ridiculous heatsink compared to the typical x86. That's alright, because the initial implementation of the P4 is being positioned essentially like the original PPro was. The P4 won't become Intel's mainstream chip until around 9 months from now, with the Northwood revision and die-shrink. Northwood, being made on a
You think the Alpha can beat the P4 in form factor?? Uh...which do you think is going to come out first, an EV68-based laptop or a P4-based laptop?? Or howabout this: an EV68-based tablet computer or one with a P4?? Sun can make a stab at offering embedded CPUs, but I've never heard of anyone even considering an embedded Alpha. Why?? Well...power and form factor constraints, obviously. This is absurd.
The FUD is so thick, you can cut it with a knife.
You can say that again. Luckily, come Nov. 20 the FUD will be cleared away, for better or for worse. Now, I'm not arguing that the P4 or even Foster (the "P4 Xeon") will be able to replace Alpha for most of its markets. But it looks as if after years of failing to take advantage of their one clear selling point--unambiguous SPEC superiority--the Alpha is going to lose even that. Here's hoping Compaq finally decides to pour the resources necessary into making this excellent architecture prosper as it deserves. But let's not pretend that Intel is standing still just because the Alpha has been.
Intel madness (Score:1)
Re:G4 all the way up there... (Score:1)
The Cube is built on the same motherboard as every other Mac currently shipping. It uses the same video, sound, USB, firewire, etc. circutry, so Linux should work fine on it.
It is true that the PowerBook w/ FireWire didn't boot Linux when it first came out, but that was (as far as I could tell by trying to install it on one) due to the trackpad not behaving like a generic mouse, and it was before the new motherboards were well supported.
Fsck this hard drive! Although it probably won't work...
foo = bar/*myPtr;
Complex benchmarks. (Score:1)
Benchmarks are like complex numbers: they have a real part and an imaginary part.
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+_2_ *Informative*???? (Score:1)
No offense, but this should be -1 offtopic -1 misinformative. The article compares several processors at various speeds using an Intel benchmark, and it's apparent that they perform differently. That's the point of this article. And the point of this post is?
This post couldn't possibly be informative because the sole nugget of information is already prerequisite to understanding the article it's posted to in the first place.
Not only that, but once the author Informed us that MHz mean nothing (which it doesn't), he laments that "they" won't know the real performance of various chips until they start looking at the "real" simple quantitative properties of processors (at least as he seems to be seeing it), the "mips and flops". I have news for you, Anaxagoras. There is no way to place a general performance score on any processor. How many FLOPS a processor can do makes no difference if you're using a word processor. The maximum number of instructions per second it can do can't be compared across processors that don't run the same ISA. And what's the representative program that says what instructions will determine the MIPS of the processor? Hence the science of benchmarking... but the author of the article used a benchmark!
And what's more, this post is *not* in response to anything. I went and reloaded the thread at -1 and this remained, totally unsolicited.
I'm sorry, I don't normally beat up on people like this. But it irks me when I see a comment with the length and value of a pedagogical sig get more moderation points than so many other people (e.g. moi) get for hard research, typing, and thought.
Fsck this hard drive! Although it probably won't work...
foo = bar/*myPtr;
Dollar amount issue? (Score:2)
Eh? The page I'm looking at says:
"Typical desktop: C$3,800 (US$2,500)"
http://www.cpuscorecard.com/top_cpus.htm#IP3-11
Not that this number really makes sense, because you can't really buy a single-processor G4/500 machine anyway. Only the G4/400 comes in a single CPU flavor.
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
if intel, as you say, is such an established brand (Score:1)
Intel only CPUs (Score:2)
Why the suprise that Intel, the company with the most money and who designs the basic platform, can be the fastest in their own backyard. If they were to challenge the server machines then it would become interesting.