AMD Processors

[hondatt]

I'm a little confused about the processor speeds on AMD chips. The company advertises AMD 2500 or AMD 2700, but that doesn't tell me what the actual speed of the chip, unlike Pentium chips which tell you the speed. How is the speed of the AMD chips determined?

[CRX-R]

you've got the 2.5Ghz and 2.7GHz there

[D'z Nutz]

Originally posted by CRX-R
you've got the 2.5Ghz and 2.7GHz there

And you've got the wrong information.

hondatt: If you're referring to the AMD Athlon XP 2500+ and 2700+, they are 1.83 gHz and 2.17gHz respectively. I won't get too hung up on the numbers though. Nowadays, comparing the number of gHz/mHz alone is a very poor way of telling how well the processor performs. You have to look into other factors as well.

[Brendan_4g63]

www.tomshardware.com
Lots to learn.
xp2700 runs at 2166mhz
but the xp2700 (in amd's opinion) runs as fast as a p4 2.7ghz

[CRX-R]

ah well, I can live with being half wrong... :D

[kevie88]

Originally posted by Brendan_4g63
www.tomshardware.com
Lots to learn.
xp2700 runs at 2166mhz
but the xp2700 (in amd's opinion) runs as fast as a p4 2.7ghz

Yeah you're right. My dad called me the other day all upset because the 1700xp I built for him said it was running at 1466mhz (which it should be.. haha). He figured he had been hacked..lol
It reminded me of that "0h n0s- My M3gahurtz hAve been StolED" sig that someone had way back. :rofl: :rofl:

[hampstor]

AMD uses their stupid PR rating system that they used back in the day. They want you to believe that an Athlon XP 2400+ is equivilant to a P4 2.4 while it runs at just over 2 GHz. while in some cases it is true, other cases it is not.

It has misled a lot of people and we do get quite a few calls from people saying that we ripped them off by selling them a 2GHz athlon instead of a 2400!

[GTS Jeff]

Originally posted by hampstor
AMD uses their stupid PR rating system that they used back in the day. They want you to believe that an Athlon XP 2400+ is equivilant to a P4 2.4 while it runs at just over 2 GHz. while in some cases it is true, other cases it is not.

It has misled a lot of people and we do get quite a few calls from people saying that we ripped them off by selling them a 2GHz athlon instead of a 2400! if i were to own you, u would cry uncontrollably and never come back to the internet. man, u owned yourself, u work at memex and u dont know the diff between an athlon and a p4? processor speed is nofing! NOFING!

[eur0]

Originally posted by GTS Jeff
if i were to own you, u would cry uncontrollably and never come back to the internet. man, u owned yourself, u work at memex and u dont know the diff between an athlon and a p4? processor speed is nofing! NOFING!

Where did he show that he doesnt know the difference between an AMD and P4 chip? The topics on processor speeds...

[hampstor]

Originally posted by GTS Jeff
if i were to own you, u would cry uncontrollably and never come back to the internet. man, u owned yourself, u work at memex and u dont know the diff between an athlon and a p4? processor speed is nofing! NOFING!

uh ?

I could go on and on about the differences between the chips from the various revisions of the northwood core and palamino/t-bred/barton cores...

Processor speed is important. It's called the brute force method - if you cant make your cpu more efficient, then you just ramp up the clock speeds until you have a faster cpu. if you are refering to how 'superior' AMD is by matching intel performance (in some cases) w/ lower core speeds then you have forgotten the winner between the northwood vs barton core processors.

If you want to compare 2 cpu's from the same generation then you will find that the P4 EEs and Northwood Cs outperform the Athlon XP barton and t-bred cores. In this case the P4's simply overpower the AthlonXP with clock speed, L3 cache and HT.

If you want to compare the Athlon 64 to the P4 northwood/EE, then in most cases the Athlon 64 will outperform the intel. The HyperTransport advantage of the Athlon64s give it immense memory bandwidth over HyperThreading found in the intels (Hyper Transport refers to the internalization of the memory controller on the processor, Hyper Threading is the ability for the cpu to processor 2 threads - in effect 2 logical processors).

Does clock speed matter? Yes. Is it the deciding factor? not always. By saying that clock speed is nothing completely ignores the fact that a P4 3.2GHz will outperform an AMD Athlon XP cpu.

[hampstor]

i honestly have no idea where you got the idea that i do not know the diff between an intel and and amd processor. If i'm completely wrong then the sales reps have to stop asking me questions ... which may not be a bad thing ! :D :D :D


edit: fixed crazy spelling mistakes

[Dj_Stylz]

What would AMD Athlon XP 2600+ be running at that what i got.

[GTS Jeff]

ok ok, i was pretty drunk making my last post. in fact im not sure what im really talking about. but basically, im saying that processor speed isnt the way to gauge performance, for the reasons uve outlined. also,

-yes, athlon has a "stupid pr rating" which in many cases still underrates their processors. an xp 2400+ put up against a p4 2.4ghz would be faster in almost all day to day normal uses, cept for "content creation" or some stupid intel bullshit where the p4 is marginally faster. (back in the day when it first came out they were even more ridiculously conservative)

-the price to performance ratio of amd still eats intel alive, and there is absolutely zero reason to go intel, unless u are making cute little web pages or some content creation shit.

-a 2.2ghz athlon newcastle rapes the 3.2ghz p4ee.

[GTS Jeff]

Originally posted by Dj_Stylz
What would AMD Athlon XP 2600+ be running at that what i got. start -> ctrl panel -> system

[hampstor]

Yes, newcastle overall defeats the Northwood core Intel's (i did say the athlon64's beat the p4's!)

If Athlon XP 2400+ Vs a P4 2.4C, you'll find the P4 2.4C IS FASTER. The Athlon XP vs Intel Pentium 4 battle is over with the P4 winning. The Athlon 64 vs Pentium4 has just begun :D

The biggest reason to go intel (in the past before the Athlon64 came around) was bandwidth. The Intel cpu's have a phennominal amount. If you do 3d rendering, the bandwidth offered (and sometimes Intel optimization in the software) by the Intel systems dominates over the AthlonXP AND Athlon 64's:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1941&p=10

If you are a video encoder, again bandwidth is your friend - go intel.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1941&p=9

If you want to talk about Price/Performance Ratio:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1941&p=12

Also, i can tell you about the biggest problem with the AMD Platform: The motherboard. Unlike Intel, AMD does not produce a home consumer level northbridge on their motherboard. They rely on: VIA, SiS, nVidia. The issue here becomes relying on these manufacturers to verify their northbridges are compatible with a wide range of video cards, memory and other hardware. I can think of many cases where a certain piece of HW would not work on an nVidia (ie: nForce3), or a VIA or SiS board. Yes AMD boards are overall a lot cheaper then an Intel board, but you have to find a board that is going to be rock solid which (from what I have seen) has been a struggle for the first while when a new product comes out.

Now I'm not saying an Intel CPU is more reliable because AMD CPUs are just as reliable. I'm saying Intel based motherboards are going to be more reliable. Ask anyone who works in the industry in the service dept to see what kind of systems come in more for motherboard problems. They are going to say AMD.

With that said, if you are building a low budget machine AMD is still going to be your friend. Just make sure you do not cheap out on a motherboard :)

AMD northbridges you will want to consider:
- nVidia nForce2 (Ultra 400) (its fairly picky when it comes to memory) ** DOES NOT WORK WITH WIN9X **
- VIA KT400/KT600/KM400 series
- Avoid SiS all together

[hampstor]

Originally posted by Dj_Stylz
What would AMD Athlon XP 2600+ be running at that what i got.

You can also download wincpuid :

http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002374/src/download.html

it can tell you everything about your cpu :D

[frostyda9]

The AMD clock speed rating is misunderstood by a lot of people. Basically, static clock speed is a part of microprocessor performance...and the most widely measured one. AMD focuses more on other facets of the chip architecture which gives you similar performance to Intel at a lower clock speed. Intel and AMD have chosen different paths to performance, and the number rating system used by AMD is a bit of a cover to disguise this fact. As an example...the 2200+ operates at 1.8GHz, and the 2500+ operates at 1.83 GHz, but utilizes a 512K L2 cache which boosts performance and thus moves it higher on the scale when comparing to Intel performance.

[googe]

the stupid pr rating really isnt stupid at all. think of the people that ARE phoning and complaining. if they knew from the start, what the ghz was, they wouldnt have bought it then of course. they would never have even considered it over the "faster" one. amd would be dirt poor, and it wouldnt be because they suck, but just cause people dont understand.

[GTS Jeff]

hampstor, this aint no intel vs. amd debate (i dont know enuff to argue that haha), im just saying that theres a lot more to performance than the gigahertz.

[hampstor]

Originally posted by GTS Jeff
hampstor, this aint no intel vs. amd debate (i dont know enuff to argue that haha), im just saying that theres a lot more to performance than the gigahertz.

lol sorry didnt mean to do that. i was also a bit drunk and didnt like the idea of someone telling me i didnt know anything :D

i agree with you that there's more to performance then GHz. We should start measuring cpu power in FLOPS :D

[scenic121]

hampstor - You have explained correctly the differences between AMD and P4. Cheers. :angel:

[403Gemini]

AMD Athlon pretty much runs at same speed as p4's, perhaps a lil bit slower, but keep in mind your spending about 50-100 less for a proc that supposidly is the same speed. so who can complain.

lets put it this way


AT LEAST ITS NOT A CELERON! :D

[Spooned]

errm marketing of those athlon 64's is shot to shit....

plus the new p4 extremes with HT is gonna pwn them so bad...

i think amd made their first mistake jumping in to the 64 bit platform too early. no apps will be using 64 bit for a while to come, other then servers. Which P4's are better for anyways.

raah

just my 2 cents. no one can say for sure...

one thing that is for sure is... NVIDIA is going down.. ATI has it made. only thing nvidia is going to be able to hang on to are the nforce boards.

[rage2]

Originally posted by Spooned
one thing that is for sure is... NVIDIA is going down.. ATI has it made. only thing nvidia is going to be able to hang on to are the nforce boards.
haha people are finally realizing that NVIDIA is a great marketing company. Look back a few years, 3dfx vs NVIDIA. 3dfx had better products, better performance, NVIDIA killed 'em in marketing and destroyed 3dfx allowing them to be the only guys in the segment. Now that ATI has stepped up to the plate, NVIDIA actually has a real competitor, with real marketing dollars, and consumers are finally realizing the truth. The last few years sucked with only NVIDIA in the spotlight.

Down with NVIDIA!

[sliderr]

For best price/performance, amd is what you want.

Motherboard selection(chipset/memory config) can often be more of a factor nowadays than processor speed.

And of course tuning it all on top of that.

[scenic121]

Originally posted by 403Gemini
AMD Athlon pretty much runs at same speed as p4's, perhaps a lil bit slower, but keep in mind your spending about 50-100 less for a proc that supposidly is the same speed. so who can complain.

lets put it this way

AT LEAST ITS NOT A CELERON! :D

Rightly so!!:D :D :D