AMD Athlon MP 1800+ Processor Review

Lars Olsen writes: "Amdmb.com has posted a review of the new AMD Athlon MP 1800+ processor -- a big speed jump for the dual Athlon processor family with the new processor running at 1.53GHz. There are also 1600+ and 1500+ Athlon MPs available as well right away at stores around the World. Dual AMD Goodness is now running just as fast as its desktop counterpart ! Here's a quote: 'Those of you who want to jump into the dual processing Athlon world will finally be able to do so with the knowledge that your processors are the top speed that the Athlon family has to offer. And for anyone who already has a Tyan Thunder or Tiger MP board and a pair of Athlon MP processors, you may just want to pop a couple of these new Athlon MP 1800+ CPUs in your system to boost performance.'" Some of the comments following yesterday's "dream system" article addressed dual-Athlon complications, so make sure you read before you buy.Update: 10/15 15:14 GMT by T : Check below for LinuxHardware.org's take on this chip, and Athlon MP systems in general as well.

Augustus writes "LinuxHardware.org takes a look at the Athlon MP platform under Linux and the newly released Athlon MP 1800+ is included. Covered in this article is not only the technology and performance of the AMD-760 MP chipset and the Tyan Thunder K7 motherboard but we also look at why anyone would consider a multi-processor system."

Comments

Re:Why bother ? its an excuse to write bad code

[cfriesen]

A few points:

Have you ever
a) done audio editing
b) done video editing
c) applied a filter to a 50MB+ image
d) compiled X
e) done any ray-tracing
etc, etc.

Any of these things can suck up vast amounts of horsepower and beg for more.

Also, 2.4 is getting somewhat more sane in recent releases.

Chris

Re:Why bother ? its an excuse to write bad code

[FortKnox]

Wow, your right.
New, faster technology is being brought out just to make programmers dumber. Its an evil conspiracy against us all!

Seriously, though, what is your definition of "bloatware"? Lets say I'm writing Quake4. I want to use C++ and lotsa nice OOD that's easier to write, easier to read, easier to expand, easier to debug, and easier to maintain.
Is that "bloatware"?
Sure, I coulda used assembly on the whole thing and it woulda been efficent and fast! You wouldn't need the super hardware!

Hope you don't want to mod it, or me to fix any bugs, though.

Maybe us developers like faster systems so we can implement software with better techniques to make technology grow? Sure it requires a little more hardware, but I wouldn't call it some evil conspiracy.

It doesn't matter what technology is out there, there will always be crap (bloatware).

BTW - You might want to buy this shirt.

Re:Truth in labeling

[baptiste]

I refuse to buy AMD products as long as they use this gimmicky, false labeling. If you think the MHz is no longer a good measure of performance, stop using MHz in the product name. Don't tack on an inflated "Model Number" the most consumers will mistake for a MHz rating.

From your tone I'd expect you woudln't buy AMD anyway. However, if you did any research, you'd find the AMD's new numbering plan is actually conservative. Independant benchmark reviews have shown that the AMD 1800+ is actually more of an equivalent to the Pent 4 2GHz chip. But AMD chose a conservative threshold. Granted, the new Intel cores will boost performance a bit, but even then the AMD numbering plan is expected to be on target. Honestly - who cares what they call the chip - anyone with half a brain can find out the MHz value. But to what end? Me? I want to buy teh system which gives me the most performance for the least $$$ and right now that is an AMD chip hands down when you account for other CPU specific system costs and impacts (chipset, memory type needed, etc)

I honestly think AMD did what it HAD to do - their chips are faster at slower clock speeds and Intel managed to get folks thinking MHz was king. Now AMD has ot try and chance that thinking.

Re:Why bother ? FOR THE GAMES, SILLY

[Edward Kmett]

A console is a very different environment. You can tune exactly for the hardware because there will be no variances. A PC game has to allow for 30 different graphic cards using APIs that supposedly make the different cards look the same to you but fail miserably. By the time you get done tweaking for the current morass of cards, a new generation of them is present with their own damn bugs. In the console world you deal with 2-3 environments IF you are allowed/it is practical to port given the current state of exclusive games. Also, if you've ever developed for a console, its very different, with a PC you have a lot of freedom to build how you want and what you want, in the console world you pretty much have to build around the hardware. This means you are constrained to build the same kind of engine for most every game you build on that console. If you don't you are just looking for different ways to cull the scene down to fit into the same miniscule space.

The two environments are very different, and most of that fat can't be trimmed by wishing it away or blaming on programmers .</RANT&gt

As for bloatware, start modelling cloth, hair, IK, bump maps, and the hardware gets used again. The reason the games aren't doing it now is because they want the comfortable sales window.

Honestly pushing ultra-high-end features that cut your market to 4% of what it could be isn't a big selling point - good luck convincing your publisher to bring the game to market - and trying to build an engine to scale between low and high-end aggravates the bloat of PC vs. console problem even worse.

Re:Expensive heat death?

[Jeffrey Baker]

Why do you kiddies keep beating this particular drum. Your heat sink should never fall off! Why is it falling off? Because you don't know how to properly build a computer? Than buy a Dell and don't sweat it.

For your convenience, here is a list of other things you should avoid buying because they have "fatal flaws":

• Internal combustion engines (can seize if their oil pan suddnely falls off)
• Airplanes (can crash if their engines suddenly fall off)
• Nuclear power plants (may malfunction if all coolant pumps fail)

Things You Need To Know About Dual Athlons

[ruiner5000]

Here's the low down on the dual Athlon. It is incredibly fast for any server or workstation application. Of course the app has to be SMP capable which is why your seeing the new KT266A chipset single CPU system beat it out in some apps, but those are only non SMP capable apps. It is apples and oranges. Yes, I would like to see some chipset improvements to the 760MP. The latency is too high. Perhaps the 760MPX will address some of this. I would very much like VIA to commit to their dual Athlon chipset, but they have not as of yet. Another issue is heat. While they do use the cooler running Palomino core, they are still quite hot for say a 1-2U rack. The shrink to .13 micron early next year will eliminate that issue and should hasten adoption by larger computer makers. For the time being though it is a relatively cheap solution for those who need it, and is a blazingly faster web server for those who know how to set it up. Check out my review for more, my site is still up, and we didn't copy anyones site idea.