Pentium 4 2.8GHz 374
DigitaBiscuit writes "The new 2.8GHz Pentium 4 has been officially launched by Intel today.
Sporting a 533MHz System Bus, this new P4 looks to put the hurt on AMD's new Athlon XP 2600+. Benchmarks and a full review with
performance versus AMD's new chip,
can be found here." The NDAs must be expiring today, since we already have another review submitted as well.
I'm shocked. (Score:3, Funny)
Distant future (more than one week): Intel will release a processor that's faster than that one!
What if the video chipset industry was the same way? Whoa.
Who cares? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
fyi, gentoo packages are actually source based and are compilied automatically when installed to avoid rpm hell. Hmm lets upgrade to gcc31?.. this took litterally 2 days on my pIII. I was even thinking about upgrading to a dual athlonMP system but I had nothing but stability problems with AMD and VIA chipsets. I find it hard to believe a slashdoter nerd would just use his/her computer for web browsing but I could be wrong. By the way even Windows2000 or XP will be leaps and bounds faster by the upgrade. Even a p4 19.8ghz will make your system smooth for only a few hundred. Its worth it.
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Interesting)
Crickeys! You sure you are not running out of memory? I have a 500MHz AMD, (but with 384 megs RAM) and have never complained (I did when I only had 128 megs)! Of course, I used debian, and so don't have to compile from source often, but still, 2 days? Mozilla only took me a couple of hours, last time I tried it.
Hell, I would get sick of things after a day and kill the compilation -- the kernel didn't even take a day to compile on my 486 with 8 megs RAM.
I'm sure most peoples speed problems would be neutralised by them installing a decent window manager instead of the KDE or GNOME crap. I don't beleieve it takes ~30 seconds to start KDE on a top of the line workstation these days. FVWM took about 3 seconds on my 486 (and is there instantly on my ~500MHz laptop and desktop)!
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
Normal Linux distributions can make due on just about any old Pentium class CPU, as long as they have sufficient RAM... But Gentoo, needs a fast CPU, if you want it to compile before you grow old and die.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, the latest Gentoo release has ISO's for 386's right up to Athlon/P4. Still in beta, mind you, but still helpful. The part that takes the longest is the bootstrapping and the system build. These beta ISO's have all that done for you.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
BTW> That FVWM comment is crap. FVWM doesn't have 1/4 of 1/8 of 1/16 the power of KDE 3.x. Besides the eye candy (which is nice mind you) FVWM (and the traditional X applications one tends to use with it) have nowhere near the level of integration and polish as KDE desktop apps. Besides, they lack anti-aliasing, which (on my 1600x1200 LCD screen) makes them look horrid beyond comparison. It is true that GNOME and KDE are pretty bloated, but compare them instead to something like Windows 2000, which is comparable in features but lightning fast.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who cares? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
I'm a Java programmer by trade, and use JBuilder, and my old P3 450 was *painfully* slow. Now that we've finally got our new 1.9GHz machines, work is almost a pleasure again. I'm happy that so many people here are happy with their old, slow machines, but ours drove us to distraction (literally).
Cheers,
Tim
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
Yes. I do 3D Rendering.
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Re:Who cares? (Score:2, Informative)
When I hire nerds for IS/IT, I do not hire the extremely geeky, I know everything and can recode linux to run your washing machine types. I do also not hire the people with the latest greatest technical knowledge or with the longest list of capital acronyms on their resume.
I would not hire someone if I knew they had the latest greatest hardware at home, simply case and point being that the sound obsessive. Spending hard earned money constantly for maginal improvement does not sound like the kind of employee I would want working for me... and you may make the point, it's my money fuck you, but I make the point #1. obbsesives at home are obsessives at work.
#2. I have all the money, as your employer.
It's fine to spend money on technology, but here is a lesson to go along with that attitude. A healthy-systemwide RAM upgrade and the rest of the money spend on user-training would be 10x as effective as the latest greatest anything.
"If I were an employer, I'd be suspicious of hiring any computer professional (and maybe you are not one, I don't know) who was using antiquated hardware and saw no reason to upgrade. I'd be looking at that and asking myself "if this guy has so little interest in computers that he's running an ancient POS like that, how much enthusiasm can I expect from him in a technical position?""
That's like saying if my mechanic didn't drive a expensive car, I wouldn't hire him. Many many many people in management see there as a lot more to life than going home to sit in the same position you sat all day, staring at another screen. They value something called balance. Breadth. Experience. I would much rather take someone with who was not as technically savvy, but had hobbies and a diverse lifestyle over the King Overclocker ot the Universe for the simple reason you can teach someone computers, but the King Overclocker will always have an arrogant attitude. Get the point? the specifics can be taught to anyone with a good grasp of the basics, technically, but it's a lot harder to break a geek of his (arrogance/condecision/asociality/pensiveness/etc
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Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
On the other hand, my previous employer paid $180,000 in 1995 for an IBM server with dual 75MHz CPUs. We quickly outgrew it, upgraded to 4 CPUs, then were forced to move to Alpha at huge expense.
In 2002, you can get a dual Athlon or P4 Xeon box that will outrun a 1996 10-way Alpha - for around 1/100th the price. That's real value for money.
And then there's the games, of course.
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Informative)
But seriously though, I'm running a 750MHz Athlon system myself. I had to upgrade from my 233 because I just couldn't watch any videos at that speed. Now, I'm resonably happy with 750MHz, but I would like to upgrade. I'd like to get a fast processor and underclock it so my system doesn't run at 150F degrees (underclock a fast processor enough, and you wouldn't even need a fan). I'd also like a faster processor just so I can do thing like encode DivX at a reasonable speed, and compile Mozilla in under a month.
Which brings us to the biggest issue. So many people jump on the upgrade bandwagon because many programmers are using up ungodly ammounts of CPU and Memory. It's relatively few causing the problems, but for Unix, programs like Mozilla are practically required. So, even surfing the web brings my 750 to it's knees. Hopefully the Dillo project will add the handful of needed features to their browser soon, and I'll be able to trash Mozilla, and be happy with my 750 again.
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Funny)
Hmmmm...a P4-based air conditioner....
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
Basically, you can compile a program, producing full load at 1.4 GHz, or full load at 2.8 GHz. Either way, the CPU will get hot. What is better: a few degrees for a shorter period of time, or a marginally lower temp for a much longer period of time? These CPUs are designed for hight temps. Unless you live in an oven, then they will operate just fine. This reminds me of the silly posts of people that claim that they need to aim fans on their open computer cases. It is just really rediculous.
It just makes little sense to lower the clock speed of your CPU, unless you have stability problems. No modern CPU gets that hot that you need to drop its clock speed. Even the standard K7 Athlon is fine at 60C-70C.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
Some people call it an oven... I prefer to use the traditional term: 'desert'. When room temperature is already 130F, then we have the PC in a room with practically no airflow, in addition to the heat the computer generates... Yes I do need a cooler CPU.
Not constant problems, just, on occasion, a lockup will occur. Before you even ask, I have traced it to the point that it can't be anything other than the CPU or MoBo chipset (the latter isn't likely).
In the short term, it can handle very high temperatures. That is a risky practice for servers, as well as generally just reducing the lifespan of the processors, and any other devices in the case.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
That wouldn't do as much good as you think. Just think, the water wouldn't be much cooler than room temp.
Actually, I have a 5"x5"x2" fan mounted to my case, aimed at the CPU. That's enough airflow to keep it just a few degrees above room temp.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
Use Galeon instead. Same power, less bloat.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
Newer Athlons are configured via BIOS. I know for a fact you can underclock them, as I have done it several times, with several different chipsets.
If your MoBo has jumpers or dip switches for multiplier, just reduce your multiplier and give it a shot. If not, check the BIOS. You should get lucky.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
Tabbed browsing is a great feature, but certainly not a requirement for me. Here's the features I think Dillo needs before it'll be useable as a primary browser (listed in order):
SSL
Select external programs to handle tasks (edit page, mail, etc)
Ability to copy text from a page
Ability to easily save an image from a page
Tables would be nice
Better Bookmark system (folders)
After that, I'd toss Moz and use Dillo. I'd like to see more features added, but just those above, would be enough for me to stop mozilla from eating memory and CPU cycles. I'd be willing to work on some of those very features, if the license changed to something less restrictive than the GPL. But for now, Mozilla gets to much on my RAM.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
My Experiences with my Athlon tell me either:
1) You run Windows
2) You don't have a broadband connection
3) You don't surf with dozens of windows open
4) You just don't mind waiting. (Some people are happy with Win XP on a 166MHz system)
Yup. That was back in the day when computers were genuinely not fast enough for the software's features. Our situation now is completely different. Mozilla uses up huge ammounts of memory and CPU power just to render HTML (a 486 with a DOS web browser could do the same job faster).
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
Note to mods (Score:5, Insightful)
These same guys will say the same thing when it's "why should I care about these 5GHz machines; my 3GHz is plenty fast enough", and probably said the same when it was "why should I care about 100MHz machines when my 33MHz is plenty fast enough". These people don't need CPU speed, and conclude that therefore nobody does, and that's not insightful.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
Given that motherboards + CPU + memory are dirt cheap nowadays, you can get a motherboard that supports the Athlon XP CPU with 512 MB of DDR-SDRAM at reasonable prices. With a new motherboard and a much faster CPU, you'll be surprised how much faster things go by, even with Windows 98; and when you decide to switch to the latest commercial Linux distributions or upgrade to the latest version of Windows, your machine won't be limited by the hardware.
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
I'm typing this on a homemade computer that uses an AMD K6-3/350 overclocked to 392 Mhz. For what I do (web browsing, word processing, email, simple games like Tetris and listening to streams and MP3's) it works great! Why would I want to buy one of these?
You wouldn't. So please feel free to stop reading articles about new processors, just like I don't read articles about things I don't need. That will save me from having to read lame comments like these every time a new processor is released.
THESE PROCESSORS ARE NOT TARGETTED AT CURRENT, AVERAGE PC USERS!
For what I do, I simply don't need this much power. Do you?
Yes! I do! Like many slashdotters, I am a power user. I program (faster processor == faster compiler). I run many, many, many programs at once, many of which are working when I'm not using them (faster processor == more programs running). I rip CD's and watch new kinds of media (divx), and play newer games, also. These all benefit from faster processors.
If you don't want a new processor, don't buy one. But for gawds sake stop pointing out that you don't need one. Some of us do!
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Who cares? (Score:2)
New Benchmark Test (Score:5, Funny)
Was wondering why the P4 dropped so much today... (Score:2)
GREAT! (Score:2)
Keep up the good work intel. Now if only I had linux drivers for the new raedon 9700 pro that I bought for this new rocket.
Re:GREAT! (Score:2)
Before anything is slashdotted... (Score:2)
Review [gamers.com]
HotHardware Summary:
The clock speed jump up to 2.8GHz from the legacy 2.53GHz speed, for the P4, offers performance gains around 10 - 15%, depending on the application involved. -snip- Is the new 2.8GHz Pentium 4 worth the extra dollars for a 10 - 15% performance gain?
Pentium 4 2.80 GHz 512K 533MHz $508
Pentium 4 2.66 GHz 512K 533MHz $401
Pentium 4 2.60 GHz 512K 400MHz $401
Pentium 4 2.53GHz 512K 533MHz $243
Pentium 4 2.50 GHz 512K 400MHz $243
(note: compare to Athlon XP 2600+ @ $300)
We know what you are thinking, the sweet spot here is the 2.53GHz CPU and you would be right. -snip- In closing, once again it seems as though Intel has one upped AMD in their clash for the PC processor performance superiority. The edge goes decidedly to Intel's 2.8GHz flagship, in most all areas of performance, with perhaps the rare exception of older legacy code based applications.
Gamer's Depot Summary:
Intel has no problems squeezing clock-cycles out of the P4 platform and should easily have a 3Ghz part out before the end of the year. As evident by the 2.8Ghz, AMD still has some work to do before they can hope to make claims of having the fastest Desktop CPU available. On the other hand, the Athlon does make a better value for the budget-minded computer users who still want a viable solution.
With RDRAM prices dropping on both PC800 and PC1066, the P4 solution can hardly be ignored; you can find some P4's priced well below 200 dollars on the web. This demonstrates Intel's commitment to continually providing top-performing chips at competitive prices.
Pluses:
+ Fastest Desktop CPU Available
+ Ultra-stable
+ Runs cool
+ Overclocks well
+ 2.8Ghz - Great bragging rights at your next LAN party
Minuses:
- Ties to RDRAM may scare away RAMBUS-haters
- Priced over 500 dollars.
Final Rating: 5 Drips
Re:Before anything is slashdotted... (Score:2)
5 to 6 GHz within 18 months (Score:2)
"Intel has no problems squeezing clock-cycles out of the P4 platform and should easily have a 3Ghz part out before the end of the year."
A friend of mine who designs microprocessors for Intel says 5 to 6 GHz within 18 months.
Re:Before anything is slashdotted... (Score:3, Informative)
"Intel ups the anti once again" (Score:4, Funny)
Learn your gambling terms, kids, or they'll laugh you out of Vegas.
-Kevin
Re:"Intel ups the anti once again" (Score:2)
No fluke for you!
Re:"Intel ups the anti once again" (Score:2)
Re:"Intel ups the anti once again" (Score:2)
No no, he means "Intel ups those who do not like Intel, once again".
FSB speed matters! (Score:5, Informative)
This is, IMHO, what all these benchmarks show. It is no surprise that a Pentium FSB running at 533 MHz can beat an Athlon with a FSB at 266 MHz. I'm actually more impressed that the Athlon managed to beat the Pentium on some benchmarks.
Did any other late-night owls... (Score:2, Funny)
OK, I officially need sleep now.
Sigh... I want a *cooler* processor... (Score:2)
1.4GHz+ certified fan, was still running after it died, fan still in place, no airflow blockage, but 30C outside, 40C in my room, then some in the case and running at 100% load. Sigh... back to Duron 700
Kjella
Re:Sigh... I want a *cooler* processor... (Score:2)
Wow! 10 degrees extra in your room from your computer.
I am perfectly happy with my 650 MHz laptop (I expolicity bought the slowest one I could find at the time - 1.x years ago), and occasionally investigate getting it go slower (by either cpufreq or APM or ACPI. I also used to use a key combination on the dell inspiron laptops which took the speed down to 200MHz or so on the fly, but I have forgotten it now
If I want speed (for my research), I will come into work, and use our cluster [swin.edu.au], but for a home computer, my two are perfectly happy.
I still don't understand people's facination with speed (especially the 5% or so we see in these benchmarks reported in the article), outside of the researching domain.
Games shmames.
Of course, our cluster is now (as of about 1 week ago) composed mostly of rack mounted dual p4's - 60 of those, and you can hear the whine from the fans outside the bloody server room and up the escalators! I haven't been inside yet - but I am told it was real bad before our sysadmin installed the bios update that had the fan speed control stuff in it!
Re:Sigh... I want a *cooler* processor... (Score:2)
And the sun hitting the roof & (closed) window didn't have aaaaaaanything do to with it. 60W is like a lightbulb, it's hardly a big space heater. I wish AMD could release TB rev. B at lower speeds...
Kjella
Let's all work on the REAL bottlenecks... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sorry (not), but I should NEVER have to wait for anything. Not with a P4 2.x Mirkwood. Or AMD 2xxx+ GTZ. I want instant reaction like Beos had. On my pentium 225. Click, Click. Off I go.
Hard drives are fast(?) and cheap, but still saddled with the bloat code that gets written for this new stuff.
OT, but I would like to see an office suite written by John Carmack. That would rule. Misspelled words would have 3d blood dripping out of them, and fast, fast, fast.
Ok. Time for sleem.p
Impromptu Poll (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Impromptu Poll (Score:2)
Absolute limit of 0.13 micron technology? (Score:2)
Anyone with enough data to answer?
Re:Absolute limit of 0.13 micron technology? (Score:2)
Foundries are working to combat this by combining multiple designs from different customers on a single mask. So a mask might contain 5 of product 1 from company A, 10 of product 2 from company B and so on.
Also, at 100nm the mask gives about 70% more chips for a given size than 130nm, and 3 times as many as at 180nm. For 90nm the figures are 2 times and 4 times, respectively.
Talk about adding insult to injury... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Talk about adding insult to injury... (Score:2)
Yeah, it was a sad day when I turned my dual pentium pro 200 into a print server. I couldn't even give it a new hard drive guz the BIOS wouldn't recognize a 30Gig dive. I had to stick an old 4Gig one in there that was sitting in my dresser from some other antique. (The old 6G had a dozen bad blocks, getting more each time I checked, it's disk is now a small shaving mirror.) That was a cool machine in 97.
Good benchmarks (Score:3, Informative)
What I like is how the AMD 2600+ is very close on most games either 1-2FPS behind or ahead, and the 2800+ isnt out yet. Go AMD! P4 2.8 $570 or AMD 2600+ $265
Re:Good benchmarks (Score:2)
Re:Good benchmarks (Score:2)
If it was CPU speed alone that was different, I could see why. But geez, the FSB is a lot higher on the P4. If it still doesn't flat out blow away an Athlon XP in every test, something's got to be said about the usefulness of the chip internals.
I have a long history as an Intel fan, and my Athlon XP 2GHz was a "value" choice to tide me over for a while. But I'm questioning my loyalties...
Putting the hurt on AMD? (Score:3, Interesting)
The thing that bugs me is still the stigma attached to AMD.. its similar to the old 'No one got fired for buying IBM' - it is the same with Microsoft, and the same with Intel. People still avoid AMD because they consider them to be inferior..
Re:Putting the hurt on AMD? (Score:2, Informative)
Just like AMD Themselves with their old performance issues with Floating Point Math, VIA have had some poor chipsets in the past, however, the KT333 as used on the ABit AT7 [abit.com.tw] Motherboard is exceptionally stable - I have a Linux Server with 8x80GB Maxtor IDE Disks arrayed to one 640GB disk which (aside from a driver problem for the Highpoint 374 controller, which is nothing to do with the KT333 or the AMD CPU) runs perfectly.
I'm actually quite keen to get my hands on the new A Bit KT7-MAX2 [abit.com.tw], which has the KT400 chipset, and a host of extra features not present on the original AT7
I can think of a number of other VIA / AMD motherboards which I have used, and found to be exceptionally stable, most notable of which is the ABit KT7A [abit.com.tw] and ABit KT7A-RAID [abit.com.tw].
In short, if you put aside the past of both AMD and VIA, and look again at the technical specs, and real-world performance of these CPU's and Chipsets, you will find that they are both now a viable, low-cost, alternative to the traditional Intel Only way of thinking and working.
More reviews (Score:2)
Re:More reviews (Score:2)
Considering how blindly pro-AMD Tom's Hardware is, I find it amusing that they chose to describe the battle between the Athlon and the P4 as a Ferrari(Athlon) and a Mercedes(P4) racing on the Autobahn. Why?
The top-end Mercedes are consistently faster than any Ferrari. Whoops? Looks like they should have done their research! Nothing I like more than a zealot screwing up.
Little by little... (Score:2)
But seriously: with processor speeds like these, efficient programming will be even less appreciated. Sadly.
An order of magnitude in only 4 years (Score:2)
It seems that the faster we make the chips the more we squander their power.
Too artisan an audience... (Score:3, Insightful)
Who cares that their processor is inefficient, poorly designed, and expensive? Not the ones who buy it certainly; there is a market fpor it, and they should not be penalised for serving their market - they are a business after all.
For all those arguing that these tests ar 'not fair' (memory, RAMBUS, blah, blah, blah) - you are missing the point. Boo hoo, they are using different equipment; I could equallly argue that AMD is shooting itself in the foot for not utilising the fastest memory architecture available. For most people, 700 or 800 MHz is more than necessary to do almost anything - above that only specialised areas will see any real benefit. Is it really any benefit to be able to play games at 32 bit compared to 24? Can you actually tell the difference at speed? Isn't it more to do with the graphics card anyway? Scientific applications, yes - these can be markedly improved with faster processors. But most readers here do not work in a render farm in Hollywood.
But back to the original point, we shouldn't be so aggressive towards them just because of who they are. They are serving a market, doing if very successfully, and for those people who do have $$$/£££ to spend, they represent the maximum performance. I will continue to buy AMD because I think they give more value, and my XP 1500+, although now slow compared to newer processors, is far faster than I need, even for compiling Mozilla or running KDE3, WinXP or Serious Sam 2. But that doesn't mean I should refuse to talk to people with an Intel chip in their machine.
And don't mod this down as flame/troll just because you disagree -use your points properly and mod up someone you agree with. And stop being small minded too...
Surprise Surprise - P4 Optimizations (Score:3, Interesting)
According to them, "older legacy code based applications" are applications without Pentium 4 optimizations.
Will we ever get reviewers that aren't incredibly biased... and stupid? Of course P4s do better on software with P4 optimization! And software w/o it isn't "older legacy software"... it's software that isn't written to favor a particular chip in the marketplace...
Gotta love it.
-jbn
Re:Surprise Surprise - P4 Optimizations (Score:3, Insightful)
The p4 SSE2 instructions are an OPPOURTUNITY for software companies to kick ass. A small amount of optimization on a codec can quadruple your performance. Who wouldn't do that? Who wouldn't also do it for both P4 and AMD. It's pretty simple to create CPU specific engine libraries that take advantage of various archetectures.
Video encoding and reatime editing still suffer from CPUs being AT LEAST 10x too slow. Realtime 3D has also got a LONG way to go to be able to render photorealistic billion poly scenes with 5 mile horizons in real time. 3 Ghz is NOTHING.
Course if all you do all day is web surf and iChat, then I guess none of that means anything to you...
Putting things in Perspective (Score:2)
Just think now, a 3 Ghz machine is 30,000 times faster than the first computer. Amazing how far we've come in 40 years.
Re:Putting things in Perspective (Score:2)
Intel no longer loves MS? (Score:2)
Re:that fast? (Score:2, Insightful)
an intel cpu may only represent $100-$300 difference premium over AMD...but in todays commodity priced computers....that can represent beer money, motherboard money, video card money or ram money....or all of the above!!!!
most of my friends and family would be absolutey impressed with an XP1500 system i could build them for less then US $350 (sans monitor) anyway.
Re:that fast? (Score:2)
Re:that fast? (Score:2)
Frankly, I think they should benchmark these systems on time critical processes. I can't outrun Office on my P2 350, I dunno why they think I care about benchmarks involving that. Quake FPS can be improved (to an extent) with a new video card. Us dudes using LW/Maya/Softimage/Max are the ones who REALLY need the speed/performance rating tested. Time = Money. Benchmark on those progs.
Re:that fast? (Score:2)
Re:that fast? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:that fast? (Score:2)
I always found that type of comment amusing. They don't realize that the extra horsepower goes into making the interface better.
Technically, word processing could easily be done on a >486. However, what the extra mhz gets you today is real time spell checking, graphics, and a buncha extra interface options that just weren't possible on slower machines. You can make today's software work on earlier machines, but the optimization to do that will throw away a lot of the UI stuff we take for granted.
Re:that fast? (Score:2)
This fight to have the highest clock speed is driving me nuts. It doesn't even really matter any more, does it? Do we need to to shave a few extra seconds off of compile times?
Anyways. It looks like the Athlon holds its own pretty well, considering the near 700 MHz speed difference. But it doesn't matter to me. Opteron will be my next upgrade. When that sucker comes out, it will be a battle for blood between AMD and Intel.
Re:Pentium V will be even faster ! (Score:2)
Re:P4 : DDR vs Rambus (Score:2)
I do not like rambus for ethical reasons and not technical ones but rambus memory is only like $10 more a simm then equilivant ddr2100. Your arguement is outdated.
Re:P4 : DDR vs Rambus (Score:2)
And his argument isn't outdated.
Fewer wait states, for one. (Score:3, Informative)
Processor speeds and memory speeds don't sync (that's where the bus speed comes in, effectively limiting the speed of your processor whenever it has to go out to fetch data). To compensate for the slower speed of memory accesses, whenever the processor is unable to pick something out of L1 or L2 cache it's got to essentially do nothing between a memory I/O request and the actual receipt/transfer of data. Rambus memory transacts faster than SDRAM over the bus in general and therefore the processor is less likely to sit around doing nothing as long as it will with SDRAM... at least until SDRAM catches up in performance.
Re:Benchmarks (Score:2, Informative)
that aside lets look at the facts (from most benchmarks)
1. Your statement, Jacer, looks pretty much dead wrong. How can you explain that a CPU that has a lower CPU frequency AND a freaken lower bus frequency, perform as good or better then it's competition.
because jacer, i look at each cpu release from both intel and amd, and i examine the COST, and which model is supposed to compete with each other.
for example: just a gross comparison
US $146 athlon xp2200
US $246 p4 2200/533
a quick look at ANY site with benchmarks shows that the xp2200 actually holds up VERY WELL against the p4 2200/533.
whether INTEL likes it or not, AMD targeted the p4 2200 with the XP 2200
if the P4 cpu and 533 bus is so superior.....
i'd like to see where..
show me you prick. show me where the 533 is making a dramatic difference.
if anything, the only thing i see, is that INTEL can release one step quicker on their speediest cpu.
$546 - Pentium 4 2.8GHz from pricewatch
no thanks, i'll pass on the latest $600 cpu from Intel.
i can build an ENTIRE system for that much money, and it will perform within 20% of a p4 2.8
Re:Benchmarks (Score:2)
Re:Just contributes to that mountain in China (Score:2, Funny)
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Re:Nice reply (Score:2)
I'd be quite concerned - to use your doctor analagy - if a doctor didn't have the new-fangled diagnostic equipment at his professional workplace but I wouldn't be particularly bothered if all he had in his home medicine cabinet were over-the-counter drugs.
Similarly, if a programmer had a 266MHz machine at home, it wouldn't really be of any concern to me. Just like I don't expect a professional limo driver to own their own limo for personal use, when all they need is a Ford Escort.
Re:benchmarks ??? (Score:2)
Upping the anti? (Score:2)
From the article's title:
Sheesh, you would think that such an obvious malaprop would have been seen by at least one person.Or, perhaps they were referring to the P4's lack of performance over the PIII...
--
void life();
Re:confidential? (Score:2)
Re:Why? (Score:2)
Maybe it's the fact that I'm using such a large monitor, but it really gets irritating.
Re:What is NDA? (Score:2)
Re:Another reason to forget about megahertz (Score:3, Insightful)
The P4 was designed to get the most performance out of whatever process it was fab'ed on. If you look at the results, by and large they succeeded. Sure the PIII is more efficient, but at 180 nm, they could only be clocked reliably up to about 1.1 GHz. The P4 hit 2 GHz. On 130 nm, the PIII tops out at ~1.4 GHz, the P4 is up to 2.8 Ghz, and will probably top out at 3 - 3.4 GHz. So, is a P3 running at 1.5GHz "better" than a P4 running at 3 GHz because it does more work per clock? Your argument assumes that you could run a P3 at the same clock speed as a P4 - it can't.
The funny thing is, Intel also makes one of the highest IPC (and highest performing) processors currently available, the Itanium II. For floating point code, it has the highest IPC of any processor currently avaialble. At 1 GHz it's floating point performance is just a smidge under IBM's Power4 running at 1.3 GHz. It's integer performance isn't too much under the latest P4/AthlonXP procs - and it's only running at 1 GHz!!! Does anyone on /. laud Intel for making such an efficient processor? No, they bitch and moan about how the P4 is so "inefficient" and how uber cool AMD is for releasing fast processors really cheaply.
Here's a thought, maybe they sell Athlons really cheaply because the HAVE to, not because WANT to. Companies don't lose money because they're trying to be nice to their customers. The best price/performance option in *any* industry is almost never with the market leader, because the people trying to catch up will trade profits for market share. So, I guess in the end, yay for competition (just try not to be so biased, open your mind).