Slashdot Mirror
It's All About the Pentium (4)
Submissions about the P4 flow in like the tides, so here's a batch
of them.
Rooster sent us
the Hot Hardware take.
TBM sent us Ace's extensive comparison of the P4 and K7.
Piete submitted a
fairly negative review of the chip (between the RDRAM thing, the motherboard thing, and the fact that the chip just isn't much faster for normal use, that's not surprising).
Slashdot Minion sent in
Hard OCP and
Sharky Extreme's respective reviews (including 200fps Quake).
The Pentium Pro was a dog of a chip for running the 16-bit code that was still prevalent back when it came out, and people jumped all over the chip and bashed the hell out of it. But a heck of a lot of servers were sold using 32-bit code and Pentium Pro processors, and we were very happy with the way they performed in a 32-bit world. I still have several dual Pentium Pro servers around, and they run very nicely still.
I think it's similar to the situation with the Pentium 3 and Pentium 4. The Pentium 3 is designed to take advantage of today's memory systems and bus technology, and the Pentium 4 is designed to work best with technology that really isn't in popular use yet (and may well never get there). So right now, pund for pund, the Pentium 4 looks like a bowser. Given code that's designed and optimized for the Pentium 4/Rambus combo, I'm sure it'll look much nicer than it looks running current apps. Nobody's bothered optimizing for that sort of environment yet.
What'll be interesting is what happens in the competition while Intel strives for Pentium 4 market acceptance. When the Pentium Pro came out, there was no competition in the high-end chip category, so Intel could afford to bide their time and wait for the marketplace to catch up. With the pressure AMD is applying in the high-end with Athlon, Intel can't afford to just sit and wait. They're going to have to be a lot more aggressive with Pentium 4 pricing, and push to get Rambus RDRAM pricing down in order to build any sort of demand.
Remember how 2000 was supposed to be the year of 64-bit computing? Looks like the priorities have shifted in the market.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I'm becoming a tad irritated with people who keep bringing up that moot point.
First off, in complex scenes filled with gibs, smoke, and the like, framerates drop drastically.
Second of all, when things such as FSAA are enabled, visual quality increases and framerates drop accordingly.
Third of all, 60 fps now will mean about 15fps in new games in 2 years. I remember these exact same comments when the Voodoo 2 debuted. Are people inherently this nearsighted?
Please, people, think ahead.
I'm surprised to not see Tom's review of the P4 listed in this roundup. See: Intel's New Pentium 4 Processor at Tom's Hardware Guide.
"Watch in awe as MP3s download more quickly and graphics flow more smoothly."
What a load of crap! it's no wonder Joe Consumer keeps buying Intel's overpriced junk. As long as Intel's marketing Juggernaut keeps tossing around flashy words like "NetBurst Architecture" and "HyperPipeline", Intel will continue to sell chips. I fully believe that they could package shit on a stick, give it a nice marketing spin, and show some weird abstract commercials during prime time, and people would continue to buy it.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
This is the first *really* new core from Intel since the P2. The P2 first shipped at 120Mhz. This puppy is going to clock and clock. Expect to see 2Ghz by Q2 2001, 3Ghz before Q2 2002.
I agree that this release is strictly for the lunatic fringe, but this is the core that Intel are relying on to regain them bragging rights. Don't underestimate it.
Meanwhile, I'm still hoping for my 1024-way UltraSparc 3 box...
Am I the only person who finds all it annoying that most anti-Pentium retorts always include something positive about AMD? It's not like AMD is breaking amazing new ground. They're still keeping the x86 family alive, with all of its standard troubles (too many instructions, overly complex addressing modes, too much legacy baggage, too few registers, stack-oriented design of the floating point processor). The processors from both Intel and AMD are too expensive for what you get, and use too much power, especially when compared against other chip designs outside the x86 world. So both these companies are having a high-end pissing contest that only seems to be advancing the so-called state of the art in minor, expected ways, trading more power consumption and die space for speed increases of a few percent. Yee-haw!
I would love for another company to walk in and set things straight. Too bad Motorola seems to have trouble figuring out where to go with the PowerPC.
This is a bad kind of message to post, I think, considering the preponderance of crazed AMD supporters. But let's not let fanaticism for a corporation get in the way of real progress, okay?
Back in the dark ages (say, 4 years ago) you needed a high-end PC if you just wanted to surf the Web and print a document at the same time. But these 1 gHz+ machines have are overkill for general-purpose users. Combine that in with mediocre reviews and recent evidence that PC market growth is finally leveling off, and it can only translate to sluggish sales.
The best part of all of this is that people who have been chugging along with older P2s will be able find moderately-clocked P3 chips cheap.
Is there anyone out there that is planning on getting a P4 for non-corporate use? Or even corporate use, for that matter?
-
Next time I buy hardware, I want to make sure that not a dime of my money goes to Rambus. That means I want no memory from any of the memory manufacturers who caved to their demands, no chipset from manufacturers who caved to their demands and of course no RAMBUS RAM. Is it even possible to set up such a system anymore?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
From the ZDNet UK article:
Intel's new Pentium 4 "Willamette" processor (Willy for short) will become public news: it's really not worth buying. At a clock speed of 1.5 GHz -- Guy Kewney says it's barely faster than a Pentium 3 at 1 GHz Intel, in short, has a little Willy. Go to AnchorDesk UK for the news comment.
--K
---
That is not the point.
Intel is not trying to beat the competition immediately, despite appearances to the contrary. They are, instead, looking on the Pentium IV as a long-term solution.
Take a look at the chip. The whole thing is designed to run at faster and faster clock speeds. Now, I am not taking a stand on whether AMD will be able to out-clock Intel (though personally, I hope so) but their CPUs do not sacrifice as much to clock speed at the moment. That is, AMD prefers to produce more complex, slightly less highly-clockable CPUs.
Of course, these chips could be clocked higher than Intel's Pentium III chips, and they were more stable as well. But now Intel has redesigned.
Really, the question comes down to how well AMD can scale to faster clock speeds. If AMD can hit even only 3.5 gigahertz by the time Intel hits 5 gigahertz, AMD will have won. But it is quite possible that AMD will not be able to do this, at least not without a redesign. Of course, if AMD can match Intel Ghz-for-Ghz, Intel is in serious trouble.
And that, my friends, is the point.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
And to reiterate - killing it more than direct comparison to the Athlon is that the associated parts are just out-and-out defunct.
The RDRAM system is hideously expensive; when implemented (correctly) by Intel it didn't meet Rambus's projected specs; anyone who gets in bed with Rambus gets a nasty case of lawsuits.
Entirely new boards, no compatibility, either backwards or forwards.
Chip itself is massively more expensive, perhaps to produce as well.
No SMP - goodbye server market. Remember how long it took to get 4-way Xeons? SMP will not be kludged in easily.
VIA, Intel, Rambus, and others are in a really screwed up relationship ATM.
Intel has some large problems here, more than can be overcome by one chip, even the most important chip, scaling to infinity. But hey, I hope they do - what would AMD do without competition?
Well, anyways, just thought I'd throw out my opinion, based on the real world use I would have put on the comp anyways. This just reinforces my thought that the P4 is gonna flop, and take a large chunk of Intel's marketshare with it. The only thing that's gonna save it is if Intel gets the speed up to 2gHz+ very soon, and even then I still have my doubts. My advice is that noone buy this version of the chip, since once the chip moves to the .13 micron process, the existing chips and MB's are gonna be completely worthless, since they are not gonna be forwards compatible.
Well, anyways, feel free to disagree with me. I don't claim to be some computer genious, I'm just someone with enough knowledge to use a computer and do some basic testing.
-C
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
Also note, performance-wise to compare to the Athlon - in 1Q2001 AMD releases the Palomino version of the Athlon, which should perform even better than the current Thunderbird Athlon, plus be at higher clock rates. At the same time, SMP systems will start coming online for the Athlon, which you can use Durons, Thunderbird Athlons, or Palomino Athlons with, so you can grow your system slowly if money is tight. Take two 900mHz Durons and start SMP slowly. Most people probably won't need to go to the Athlon at all! Sweet.
Also note: DDR will get better - current comparisons are being done with systems using, I think CAS 2.5-3-3 memory. Faster DDR is coming soon (though, of course, that'll obviously cost more). I don't mind paying for performance, but I _do_ mind paying for uneven performance (better in some ways than old, worse in others, like Rambus DRDRAM and the Pentium 4).
This all adds up to some pain for Intel in 2001.
As the P4 and the K7 recognized each other, each would vie for more and more system resources. This would cause a radical increase in power consumption, which is of course eventually released as heat. The intense heat from the resource battle would strip all electrons from your video card, essentially reducing it to a glob of molten plasma. Due to the strange interactions between the Intel and AMD products, both would begin feeding off of this plasma as a power source, and it would grow, eventually consuming everything it comes in contact with, including, but not limited to, your house, your pet cat, and your neighbour's swimming pool. Essentially, you will be accelerating the eventual heat death of the universe by approximately 82%.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams