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Intel Funds AMD-bashing Report
Jim Norton writes "The Inqwell and ZDNet are reporting that the Aberdeen group, who recently published a report attacking the Athlon XP's processor rating system, was funded by Intel to produce the report. The articles also mention that AMD claims they were never contacted for information regarding this issue." From the benchmarks that various outfits have done on the new AMD chips, their model number is actually pretty conservative.
Microsoft funds for reports on Linux, Intel refunds for reports on AMD. I guess if you don't like someone you just pay someone off to blast your target. I was under the stupid impression that this kind of thing was sort of frowned on.
I really don't know anywhere that would print something hostle just because it was pro one OS or the other...opss damn..nevermind.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
And in other news, business as usual continued yet again today. Analysts continue to be shocked.
NO CARRIER
When AMD released the Athlon XP 1800+, every reviewer on the planet ran a battery of benchmarks and concluded that for most applications, the XP 1800+ not only beat the P4 1800 MHz, but also the P4 2000 MHz.
When AMD released the Athlon XP 1900+, every reviewer on the planet ran a battery of benchmarks and concluded that for most applications, the XP 1900+ not only beat the P4 1900 MHz, but also the P4 2000 MHz.
When Intel released the Northwood 2000 and 2200 MHz P4s and AMD released the XP 2000+, every reviewer on the planet ran a battery of benchmarks and concluded that for most applications the XP 2000+ beat the P4 2.0A but could not quite beat the P4 2.2A
Then when AMD released the XP 2100+, many reviewers concluded that it tied or beat the P4 2.2A, although I really think that the 2.2A has the edge.
Based on this data, what really happened, what is really happening, and what disinterested parties seem to believe, I would conclude that the AMD PR Rating system provides a very nice comparison of Athlon performance relative to P4 performance at the clockspeed of the PR rating. Even though AMD says the rating is to compare the Athlon XP to other AMD products, it is incredible how well it scales athlon performance to the P4 performance at the clockspeed of the rating.
Therefore, if I wished to buy a machine, as a general purpose user, I think the best way to compare prices would be to match the AMD PR Rating against the Intel P4 clockspeed.
OTOH, comparing raw clockspeeds would give a false conclusion that an Athlon XP 2000+ would not outperform a P4 1.7 GHz. Sure, this is true if you plan on using Newtek Lightwave (where all P4s beat all Athlons), but for most tasks you would be horribly in error.
It would seem fairly obvious, that for this point in time, and with the current set of processors available, for the user who uses a variety of applications, the consumer would be better informed by using the AMD rating system than by just about any other comparison (other than carefully studying a battery of 30 different benchmarks)
However, there has been a flurry of criticism of the PR rating.
As much as I hate to cheerlead corporations, I just have to yell...
FUD!
...and anyone who disagrees with me is invited to study any of the following review sites:
Tom's Hardware
Anandtech
XBitLabs
Sharky Extreme
Lost Circuits
etc... etc... etc...
I really have to shake my head in amazement that Intel of all things would do such a report in the first place.
People already know that thanks to the vastly more modern CPU core, the AMD Athlon CPU core on a true per MHz basis is way faster than any Intel CPU. The proof of the pudding is this: the current AMD Athlon XP 2100+ running at 1,733 MHz actually out-performs the Pentium 4 running at 2,200 MHz on several benchmark tests, and of course the AMD CPU is quite a bit less expensive, too.
I think the report was done as a pre-emptive strike against the upcoming AMD Thoroughbred CPU's, which should be out very soon.
Personally, I've been running an Athlon XP 1600+ (1400MHz) since the month the processor was released. It spanks my friend's P4 1.7GHz hands down, both in the "gaming benchmark" department, as well as the "look and feel" of the system during use. One unfair advantage I have, though, is that my system was built with 512 megs of DDR RAM, and he has the same amount in PC133. DDR support for the P4 is a "recent" development compared with the Athlon platform.
I mean, let's face it... if you're building a system (which I'm sure many of us here do), how can you beat a $52 ECS K7S5A from NewEgg, coupled with a $120 Athlon XP 1700+ processor (boxed with heatsink and 3 year warranty), versus $100 for a P4 mobo and $165 for the processor? Even the MHz disparity between the rating and the actual clock is lost in price/performance comparisons.
The only people buying Intel are big OEMs and end users who still haven't given up the idea that AMD is an "incompatible clone processor." (Yes, some of these clueless folks still exist, brainwashed by marketeers during the K5 days.)
Intel is clearly running scared on the news that AMD has taken nearly thirty percent of the desktop x86 processor sales market. Their monopoly is in jeopardy; so quick! let's buy some negative press for the competition.
(Full disclosure: I own stock in neither company, and run both platforms at home: AMD and Intel.)
SlashSigTheorem: Humorous, Political, Critical, Constructive- If you have a
and gartner still recommended that people ditch IIS for apache... damn IIS must really suck!
AMD and Intel can argue for as long as they like about whose benchmarks are rigged, but it doesn't change the fact that, in the end, they are just that - benchmarks. They bear absolutely no resemblence to real life performance whatsoever. In the end, it doesn't matter what the graphs say or who claims to be faster that whom.
:)
If you're going to start sueing people for misleading the public into buying products by presenting them with misleading data, then any hardware or software vendor who uses a benchmark in their marketing literature should be prosecuted.
The hierarchy is thus: lies, damned lies, statistics... benchmarks.
These sigs are more interesting tha
Seems that the guys over at ID software have been the paying Gamespot to benchmark Quake and Unreal.
"It seems they have tained the pure nature of our business by funding this research into frag count. It is just, low down and dirty" said on game that refused to be identified. This is the latests in a long string of rumors about funding benchmarking test by game companies.
The issue at heart is frag count, the dismemberment of your pray or enemy in the 3d first person shooters. "Dude, just because that artical had some lame ass gimps playing the tester and he was able to blast some ass chunks all down the air duct does not mean that that aging Hexen is a better frag fest than Quake. I got some guys at work that can't strife, it is like taking candy from a baby." spat G-spotkilla from his cubical at a trendy NY base marketing company.
Probing for the female veiw I asked G-spotkilla's cube mate, code name HelloKitty her view on this whole thing "You know, G-spotkills is just a little gimp. He could not hit you with a sniper rifle at 30 feet let alone a g-spot!". Well it turns out she had not read the artical but she was hot, so I printed her concerns.
It seems no matter what people just don't believe the media anymore. G-spotkilla was last heard running down the hall screaming something about toenail polish and gravity problems that "Just don't work like that man!"
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
Since I can not link directly to this article I will quote Kyle from HardOCP.com - and as of 8:18 CST March 28th, this can still be found on the Front Page of www.hardocp.com.
I just off the phone with the fine folks over at AMD and was discussing the issues over the Aberdeen Group white paper. Aberdeen, if you are unfamiliar with them, claims to be a Market Analysis company. If this is all new to you, please visit the InqWell as well as ZDNet on this issue.
There are two situations in this issue that are fun to look at. If you go read the white paper entitled AMD's Gigahertz Equivalency: Inexperienced Buyers Accept Bad Science, published here (and you will have to sign up) you will notice that Aberdeen uses flawed logic to pick on AMD's model numbering system of their CPUs.
Nevertheless, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) last year deliberately took a step down a slippery slope of bad science when it named its Athlon XP line of microprocessor models with clock-speed gigahertz ratings equivalent to Intel's competing Pentium 4 (P4), based on a set of application
benchmarks audited by Arthur Andersen and fully described in AMD vs. Intel comparisons at AMD's Web site.
And then..
What's the flaw in AMD's equivalency ratings? There are many discussed in this Aberdeen Executive White Paper. The key flaw is that the equivalency rating is a snapshot in a moment in time -- and time surely marches on in the computer industry -- making the gigahertz equivalency subject to increasing variance over time. For example, the AMD Athlon XP 2000+ processor announced last fall runs at 1.667 GHz. The 2000+ equivalency rating is aimed at Intel's P4 2.0 GHz Willamette processor.
Aberdeen seems clueless that the basis for AMD's model numbering system is a comparison to their own TBird core CPUs and the speed they would have to run to be equivalent to a Palomino core CPU in performance. Seems as though Aberdeen did not even contact AMD in order to better understand the exact subject they were commenting on.
The other part of this situation is this. It is now being rumored that Intel paid for the white paper.
But the INQUIRER learned from Intel this morning that it paid for the report to be written, which certainly puts a different complexion on the thrust of the piece. Intel maintains, however, that fact doesn't affect the objectivity of the Aberdeen Group's findings. Cough.
While I have no idea of the validity of this claim, I will tell you this. I think of all of these "market analysis" companies as no more than paid mouthpieces of the hardware industry. Some are scumbags that make a living off taking a product and making it look good to distributors and consumers. They are spinmeisters looking for a buck and will spin their "truths" to support their clients needs. If you think market analysis companies are in this hardware industry to make sure that you, the consumer, get the truth, you are sadly mistaken. Is this to say all anylysts bad and are always wrong? Of course not, but I give them about as much credibility as a 4th grader with a Geocities site. At least the 4th grader most likely has purer motives.
I think it was one of these industry analysts that referred to sites such as our own as "homebrewed" and that we bascially did not deserve the voice that we have in the hardware community. I guess even we piss off the analysts when we uncover the truth that does not agree with their spin.
Anyway, this is all my opinion and subject to just flat being wrong but there is one thing I will tell you for sure and that is that the hardware industry has a nasty underbelly just about like every other industry in this world.
UPDATE: From the cards and letters we have gotten on this subject everyone seems to be missing the point of my little diatribe posted above. The rating methodology wars are over in my mind, and have been for a long time now as Aberdeen is way late to this party. The opinion I want you know about analyst companies is that they are simply all bought and paid for and expected to spin the agenda of their client.
Also, Intel did share with us tonight that they did finance the Aberdeen research into the AMD rating system.
As long as you guys are smart enough to form your own opinions and thoughts, which most of your are, just make sure you don't let these "analyst" companies shape your opinions as some are nothing more than a PR company that runs a couple of benchmarks. In this case Aberdeen based their entire opinion on BABPCo Sysmark 2001 and Quake III numbers.
You guys would hunt me down and whip my ass if I ever gave you a review based on that little data.
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
In my early-morning haze, that's how this headline reached my cortex. You can imagine how disappointed I am right now.
god is just pretend.
Intel :
:
:
:) )
:
Pros
Stability - Rip out the CPU fan, these would still run till kingdom come.
Heat Dissipation - As explained above, its above par than AMD cpus
Research - Constantly comes up with new technology. For e.g. AGP Pro and improvements to Chipset comes to mind.
Cons
FUD - Like to propogate FUD about competitors. Hence I have no sympathy towards them when they cry wolf at Microsoft.
Speed - If you look beyond the constant Mhz bumping is what they all been doing..
AMD - The Underdogs (Obviously a Slashdot fave because of the same fact
Pros :
Speed - Raw RAW SPEED!!!.. Enough said. Whoops Intels ass on a wide range of benchmarks.
Cons
Stability - Needs improvement. But then again, if you have a decent CPU fan and if you are not too keen on Overclocking, then you are good.
Chipset Issues - Quite obvious. AMD needs to improve on this.
Heat Dissipation - Stories about guys making scrambled egg on the CPU are not exaggerated.
Rapid Nirvana
SPEC
see the 1st quarter 2002 results for CPU2000
We use dual processor machines to run simulations (particle physics). We have 3 dual 1.7gig Xeon/RDRAM setups and several 1800+ MP/DDR setups. The 1800+ setups will complete the same amount of work as the xeons in 75% of the time! I thought they were better, but I didn't think they were that much better. That is a 1.53gig machine completeing the same work as a 1.7 gig machine (with faster memmory) in 75% of the time.
Our application, as you can imagine, is very floating point intensive.
Spell check? Why bother. That is what grammer/spelling Nazi freaks who waiste band width posting "spell right" are for.
From the ZDNet article:
AMD's insistence on IPC is also misguided, Dunford says, since the Pentium chip has to execute fewer instructions than the Athlon XP.
Okay, they've got to be referring to the fact Athlons are really a CISC-to-RISC architecture that translates the x86 instructions into an internal RISC ISA. One CISC instruction would typically correspond to more than one RISC instruction, so yes, it would be executing more RISC instructions than a Pentium would execute CISC instructions...but this is deceptive.
I'm a user running a program who wants the program to finish ASAP. To me, the processor is a black box that takes instructions from my program and does whatever it needs to so the program finishes ASAP. As a user I DO NOT CARE that it changes to RISC internally. All I care about is it executing my program, which is a set of CISC instructions. If you run the same program on an Athlon and a Pentium they will both execute the same number of CISC instructions...they have to...otherwise one of them is not correct. So as long as the IPC number AMD is using is in terms of number of CISC instructions per cycle, they certainly do have a valid comparison and are not misguided as this guy says.
I'm not sure if this has been said or not (I didn't see any posts, but I might have missed one.) so I'll say it anyway.
How much will this report will really matter? In the average consumer sector, where the PR rating was really intended for (to combat the perceived performance vs. megahertz gab with Intel), they probably will never see or hear about this report.
Its not going to have much effect in that case, but even in the business sector, what's the chance it will make a difference? AMD has been working on building a business end to their products for awhile now, and I doubt that this would make much of a difference to those efforts. Most if the people that would be in the marked for an AMD from that area ought to know about the PR and likewise would be more likely too actually look at reviews/benchmarks/etc than base all their decisions off of what really amounts to just hype, which this report, and notably enough, the AMD PR rating both are. Though perhaps I'm giving business buyers too much credit...
forma3
Who really gives a rat's ass? I run a dual PII Xeon 450 system on a motherboard I got from Supermicro (case too) and it just goes. I have NEVER had a problem with this system. My next systemis going to be a dual P4 Xeon running on a motherboard from Supermicro because I'm happy with the stability my current system provides. The difference in times tasks are completed in these benchmarks aren't enough to make me want to switch to an AMD. Who cares if a 3D scene finishes 5 minutes later? I set my machines to render during downtimes anyway. Who cares if Photoshop can perform the lighting effects filter 1.5 seconds faster? I surely don't. What I care about is not having to worry about the latest VIA drivers wrecking my system or hoping the bargain motehrboard I purchased for my AMD CPU won't gie me problems in 6 months. I stick with Intel because it just plain works, no worries.
I might add, this is because some Lightwave portion of the rendering pipeline are heavily optimized for SSE2. The benchmarks on tom's hardware are flawed because he uses a scene that 95% of the calculations are SSE2-based (radiosity) and it's a known fact that it's heavily optimized (so it's clearly not a balanced scenario). If they'd use standard raytracing, you wouldn't see such a jump. In fact we use lightwave where I work, I am a lightwave fan since 2.0, and I've built up a renderfarm based on Dual XP athlon solution (with tigerMP and yes it works with bios 2.03). I don't even want to touch a dual P4 solution, clearly not a good bang for the buck even if it's faster in some (clearly not all) cases.
Again, When you look at tom's benchmarks you tend to think like if the P4 would be almost 50% faster than AMD, when you'll render balanced stuff (which is most cases I've seen and besides, nobody will do a fully animated short with "radiosity" on, it takes forever to render, so you render 1 and use the "baking" function, so you revert to raytracing or standard rendering after that), the margin grows way thinner. When you calculate the costs, Intel is way out of range for price/performance. A lot of people told tom about his LW benchmark, but as usual, he didn't acknowledge nor changed his ways (there have been benchmark data available and howto's on the net for lightwave since 4.0 on multiple platform, he doesn't seem to want to follow the "standard" thus invalidating his work to the eyes of the LW community checking the benchmark numbers. But that's another story.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
The exciting sequel to MySQL Myths Debunked is AMD Myths Debunked! Laugh, cry, maybe share your experiences?
All of the people that shared their experiences with MySQL helped turn that document into a very useful weapon against nuisance naysayers. I'm hoping the same will happen for AMD.
For a long time, the majority of the intel motherboards were MUCH more stable then the majority of the amd motherboards, though intel boards had their share of turkeys as well (820 anyone?). The trick had been to find the rare stable amd motherboard, learn every aspect of it, make sure the bios was up to date, etc. The tyan trinty 100 AT was a great k6-2 board, and my email server to this day runs on it without any problems. Most of the k6-2 boards werent very good though :( When the kt133 and kt133a chipsets started coming out, I noticed that there was a LOT more in the way of stable amd boards. In fact, very few were "unstable" after a few bios revisions. Also, the VIA 4-in-1 drivers improved radically as well.
At the current state of processors and motherboards, i feel that the AMD/VIA platform is as reliable as the Intel/Intel platform. The majority of current market VIA boards are quite mature and reliable and when problems are encountered, often a simple bios upgrade resolves it quickly. The intel 850 and 845 boards are also equally reliable. So the decision comes down to the 3 P's, preference, price, and performance. Some people refuse to use Intel for political reasons, and thats ok. Some people refuse to use AMD because of bad experiences with previous generation motherboards, and thats understandable too. Most of the expericened hardware consultants that i know of are currently pushing AMD solutions due to the better price / performance of AMD solutions now, as well as the fact that the P-4 on the vast majority of benchmarks is no faster then a competing Athlon XP, and often slower on high performance benchmarks such as 3d rendering.
The point of my whole rant.......With 90% of modern motherboards and processors, your going to have a stable platform as long as you configure it correctly (yes, even Intel stuff will crash on you right and left if you have a poorly configured bios, and a lot of default bios options are cruddy). It all comes down to the 3 P's.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
C'mon the only thing 'frowned' upon by a corporate world is getting caught, or failing to make a profit. Frowning on an act would indicate some remedial conscience or morals, and as we see everyday corporations have NONE. That is not to say the individuals that make up those corps are bad but if everyone 'just follows orders', Lemmings Inc. will be as dirty as they come.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Just look at what they did for Cyrix!
Oh... erm... wait a minute...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Well, if you're going to insult all the folks with AMD processors, you could at least spell "Athlon" right.
C//
MHz can be just as misleading as the PR numbers. As I'm sure you're aware, there's a lot more that goes into CPU performance than just the MHz speed. You have to take the whole architecture into consideration. So, until and unless an objective, independent, accurrate benchmark (or set of benchmarks) is agreed upon by CPU manufacturers, I don't fault either of them for choosing to advertise in a way that is beneficial to them. While it might seem reasonable to expect people to understand that an Athlon can perform as well as a higher-clocked Pentium, consumers really don't understand anything except which number is higher, nor are they interested in learning. Sales people don't want to deal with it either. It makes them look like they're trying to hustle the customer. I think the PR ratings are pretty accurate, and even err on the conservative side. I don't see any foul here.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer