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Pentium 4 Under Linux
A reader writes "I just ran across this article over at LinuxHardware.org that reviews the Pentium 4 under Linux. It gives a lot of insite as to why anyone would want to buy a Pentium 4 and has some great clips from Alan Cox and Jan Hubicka (from the GCC team). Very thorough job."
This is so wrong. The AMD core breaks up an x86 instruction into RISC-like "micro-ops" or ROPs, and then various RISC-like execution units go to work executing the ROPs. Up to 9 ROPs can be executed at the same time! This is why the Athlon so thoroughly stomps all over the Intel chips at equivalent clock rates--the AMD chips can get more done per clock. This is especially true for floating point, where the Athlon can execute 3 floating point instructions at once.
Full details here in the AnandTech article. I linked to page 8, the one that has the discussion of how instructions get executed.
This is the reason why Pentiums cost more than AMD's
Total nonsense. Intel chips cost more because Intel charges more. The Pentium 4 is expensive because its die size is freaking huge.
Let's just say I have inside knowledge of Intel products. :-)
You don't seem to know very much about AMD products.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
The P4 has all the 3d optimizations, just like the old p3's. The only thing is, most of the programs (not all, but most) that depend on those optimizations and dont use athlon optimizations are originally designed as wintel programs, like quake 3. Those programs are also available as binary only, not source. While the P4 is apparently a great system for an avid gamer, for developers the AMD line will probably remain cheaper and more useful to *nix developers like myself.
I am !amused.
If any gcc hackers out there are reading, just le me know where to start poking and I'll try and implement a solution.
Ryan T. Sammartino
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
Errr, I tend to disagree on this.
1) First of all, the Pentium4 is indeed slower according to some benchmarks. And indeed, it doesn't perform as well as you might have expected. Why? Because of its "revolutionary" design. It's a completely different architecture, you may want to go to the specs on intels website for more detailed info on this (I did).
2) The P4 outperforms the P3 when it comes to memory-intensive applications. Using the Intel850 chipset, it has far superior memory bandwith. A Intel845 chipset is in the making, which will be able to use more common SDRAM instead of Rambus. Although this solution might be less expensive, it will seriously hurt performance. Intel has finished the design of a similar board using DDR-chips. This will by far be the most cost-effective solution. Don't expect it before christmas though, since they have a deal with Rambus until 2002.
3) Bandwith from CPU -> northbridge: a stunning 3.2Gb
4) If you're running an open-source OS, noone's gonna stop you from recompiling the source and optimize programs for your architecture. I would.
5) The P4 currently sold, as well as the mainboards, don't offer an upgrade path. If you upgrade regularly, I'd stick with AMD for a while. Intel will soon release a different chipset and a new version of the P4.
6) Needing a little more beef than a uniprocessor platform? I would wait a little. Since AMD designed their multiprocessor chipset to scale beautifully (2 CPUs / northbridge), one would expect some mainboard manufacturer to design a "hot rod" with at least 4 or 8 CPUs in the near future. The P4s future is uncertain. I really don't know what kind of rabbit Intel will pull out of their hat to counter AMD.