Slashdot Mirror
The Pentium IV Dissected
An AC pointed sent us this: "In this extremely well written and technical article, the author points out the various mistakes that Intel made with the production of the Pentium IV, the fact that Intel and other manufacturers have been misleading customers about the performance of the Pentium IV, and the amount of work that will be pushed onto software developers backs to get a piece of software to run at a reasonable speed." Beginning section readable by anybody; by the end you need to know a little more assembly language than is healthy for anyone, but excellent overall. For a Cliff's Notes version of the above, try this NYTimes article discussing the chip in non-technical terms. My guess is that most computer buyers will continue to compare only clock speeds, however.
I think a lot of people need to take a chill pill. The guy's not saying Intel sucks, period. He's saying that the P4, in its present form, is not a good value for your money. That's it. That's all he's saying.
He didn't say that the overall architecture is bad. He didn't say that the P4 will lead to bad designs in the future. He said that some of the choices for the present P4 configuration are bad and that people would be better served by spending their money elsewhere. If people buy Intel chips no matter what the actual price to value ratio is, then Intel has won and the consumer has lost.
The author gives very good explanations of the limitations of the present incarnation of the P4. He also explains what he thinks needs to be fixed. With all those fixes, the P4, in a few years, will likely be a really good chip. The design isn't beyond repair, it's just flawed.
I remember the 486SX clearly - and how my father was duped by the hype. The same thing's happening here. Also, if Intel really believed the P4 was its best chip, why are the colored guys on TV hyping the P3 like there's no tomorrow? (No, that's not a racist remark. If you've seen the ad, you know what I mean.)
The bigger problem is that, even though you can get around the limitations of the P4 chip by writing a really smart compiler, the P3's and below will be around for years, so you won't necessarily be using the optimization settings in generic code. You'll likely see 'Word 2005 for the P4' and 'Word 2005 for the P3 and below', although there's nothing preventing them from being on the same DVD and the installer choosing the right version.
If you can get past some of the strong language in the article (Intel engineers are stupid; boycott Intel; etc.) you can see that he's not anti-Intel per se. He's anti-Intel's marketing guys, who seem to be running the company at the moment. The decisions made in the present P4 incarnation have to be marketing's - no other explanation holds water. You can't design the next generation chip and then deliberateley cripple it. That's like having a son and then cutting off his foot to see how he gets along in the real world. I doubt engineers had much to say in the present P4 configuration.
The author provides pretty convincing proof that the best value for your money is an Athlon system, right now. I haven't seen anyone here able to refute that statement. It's the same conclusion that a couple of other people have reached. From all I've read over the past few months, I have to agree.
--