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AMD Duron vs. Intel Celeron
DeadBugs writes: "With all the hype surrounding the new Athlon XP and P4 2.2 GHz, the more affordable processors have been ignored. Tech-Report has a great article comparing the new AMD Duron and Intel Celeron. Both are now running at 1.2 GHz and have upgraded cache. The new Duron contains XP technology, while the Celeron is a PIII Tulatin with a 100MHz bus and built on the .13 micron process."
Tom's Hardware already did a review [tomshardware.com] of the Celeron 1300 vs the Duron 1200 (benchmarks included the Celeron 1200) where the Duron simply spanks the Celeron.
The test shows why the Celeron is inferior to the Duron: the Duron's vastly superior FPU unit allows it to substantially outrun the Celeron on FPU-intensive tasks. That is the reason why the Duron has become the choice for many do-it-yourself computer builders.
Athlons may be only $5 more for the same speed, but Athlon XPs are not. The older T-Bird Athlons are slower than the new Durons. And the new Athlons run MUCH cooler. So you can pay $5 more for a 1.2ghz T-bird and get a slower CPU that runs a lot hotter.
it's poor software authors and poor compiler writers that are to blame for the lackluster performance of code on Intel's CPUs.
I think this one can be blamed on Intel too. If Intel really wanted to sell its processors, they'd invest a little money in helping push compiler improvements to take advantage of their processors--such as contributing to GCC. Instead, they do invest money in compiler technology, but only in their own proprietary compiler, and then try to sell that as competition for the other two mainsteam, more popular compilers that everyone uses (GCC and MS VC++). Then they wonder why software isn't optimized for their processors.
The compiler authors don't have time to make processor-specific optimizations for every single flavor of x86 architecture out there; they already have to deal with P5, MMX, P6, K6, 3D-now, etc. Why is Intel's newest fad so special that they should get extra attention? It's not. Compiler authors are going to write their compilers to perform the best on the majority of processors out there, instead of concentrating too much on one specific technology.
It's saddening to me to see the optimization skills software engineers *used* to have back in the day diminishing year by year as the ability to right crappy code is justified by ever-faster CPU's.
Well, its just a matter of economics. In the beginning of computing, you could get maybe 50 programmers for the price of one computer. So the time of the computer was valued more than the time of the programmers. The programmers had to spend a lot of time optimizing.
Now, the price of computers has fallen, until you get a lot of computing power for the price of one programmer. The time of programmers is valued a *lot* more than the time of computers. So the rational economic choice is to buy more (or more powerful computers) to make life easier for programmers.
When you look at how some of the old time programmers react to this change, I think it is insteresting to look at the medieval guilds. The programmers are angry at the newcomers and try to put them down, and make it as hard as possible for them to advance ("RTFM!"). The guilds on the other hand made it forbidden by law to practice the craft in question outside the guild. Both guilds and programmers occasionally justify their behaviour by the need to preserve the fine traditions of the art, and distrust new techniques and technologies that make things "too easy".
But what it really is, is a fear of competition. Instead of trying to improve themselves and keep up with the times they try to stomp out the competition.
This may cost me some karma...
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