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First Benchmarks of AMD Hammer Prototype

porciletto writes "As seen on Ace's Hardware, this article features Quake 3 benchmarks comparing an 800 MHz ClawHammer sample to Athlon MPs at 800 MHz and 1667 MHz, as well as a Willamette Pentium 4 (256 KB L2, 400 MHz FSB) at 800 MHz and 1600 MHz. The benchmark results indicate a 40% performance increase over an Athlon MP for the ClawHammer. Additionally, the 800 MHz ClawHammer manages to tie (actually outperform by 1 FPS) the 1667 MHz Willamette Pentium 4."

473 comments

  1. It would be more interesting if... by xiox · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They tested some software which had been compiled for 64 bit mode. With the large number of 64 bit registers the hammer has there should be some significant speed improvement.

    1. Re:It would be more interesting if... by Jugalator · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Enlighten me! :)
      How many registers are there?

      I've only programmed on assembly level for MIPS (32 regs) and x86 (whoa - registers gone awry) :)

      In short, the MIPS was fun and an excellent "beginner's processor" to try out your noob assembly skills on. The x86 was a nightmare. :P

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    2. Re:It would be more interesting if... by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      I don't think so - the whole point of this x86-64 approach is to add 64 bit functionality while retaining top-notch performance in existing applications. If AMD CAN manage this - and it's starting to look like they can - then they deserve to wipe the floor with Intel. It'd be pretty hard to give meaningful 64bit benchmarks until we know what Itanium "II" can do.

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    3. Re:It would be more interesting if... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It would be very intresting to see indeed.
      Especially since there is not that much data (yet) that actually benefits from 64 bits. 64 bits addressing takes double bandwith, so it would be great to see if this means a performance hit or not.
      Take for instance the Ultrasparc family, where it turns out that in most cases 64 bit code tends to run at the same speed, or a bit slower then 32 bit code.
      More bits doesn't allways mean faster.

    4. Re:It would be more interesting if... by turgid · · Score: 2, Informative

      There are twice as many registers and they are twice as wide (obviously -:) comapred to IA-32 www.x86-64.org

    5. Re:It would be more interesting if... by Jugalator · · Score: 5, Informative

      Ah, thanks ;)

      Found this PDF document to be a very interesting document with tons of info about the Hammer. So intersting that I felt the need to post it here. :)

      Regarding registers, it shows that not only has it got 2x "standard"/GPR registers that's 2x wide, but also 2x SSE/SSE2 128-bit registers.

      So it seems to total in 16 * 128-bit registers, 16 * 64-bit registers (and 8 * 80-bit regs for floating point ops).

      Yeah, and a widened program counter register too. :D

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    6. Re:It would be more interesting if... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Suppose Itanium is faster, it still won't matter because itanium will cost several thousand dollars more each, use more power, occupy more space, and
      will require expensive experts to run them. :-(

    7. Re:It would be more interesting if... by p3d0 · · Score: 2

      Not at all. Comparing 64-bit code on the Hammer versus 32-bit code on the Pentium would be apples-and-oranges.

      --
      Patrick Doyle
      I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
    8. Re:It would be more interesting if... by timeOday · · Score: 0

      Not if the Hammer costs around the same price as a P4. I just want the best bang for my buck.

    9. Re:It would be more interesting if... by Jahf · · Score: 2

      So compare 32bit code to the P4 and 64bit code to the Itanium, which is commercially available and is what the Opteron will be going after.

      --
      It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
    10. Re:It would be more interesting if... by p3d0 · · Score: 2

      Exactly. And the former is exactly what they have done in this article.

      --
      Patrick Doyle
      I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
    11. Re:It would be more interesting if... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The assertion that 64 bit software was used is absolutely wrong. It's obvious you didn't bother to try to read or get the article translated. The Author's of the story provided an English version at http://www.tecchannel.de/hardware/937/ . The article clearly states that 32-bit software, and only 32-bit, was used for the Benchmarking. I'm glancing through the article and they don't specifically say why, but they mention later on in the article that they only had an hour to benchmark so that may have somethign to do with it. Plus, I get the impression that they didn't have 64-bit software available suitable for Benchmarking, but I could be wrong on that. However, assuming this article is legit then only 32-bit software was used.

      Based on the above and assuming this is legit, these benchmarks are impressive. An 800 Mhz ran Quake 3 faster than a Pentium 4 running over twice as fast. You can't ignore or gloss over that bit of info no matter how hard you try. There is only one direction to go at this point with this CPU and that's up (as in better). For one thing, you have to believe the clockrate will be faster. I think it's save to say that it will be out running at least 1.6 Ghz. Heck, MSI had a board at computex. They had a spec sheet listing some items. They may have let a cat out of the bag so to speak because on the sheet, they listed the board as being able to run an Opteron at 1.6 Ghz. They didn't list a range that it ran in, they mentioned that speed specifically so I think when the CPU is released it will run at least that fast. If software ran that good at 800Mhz, imagine it at 1.6. There is a real possibility the Clawhammer will be released during the last 2 or 3 months of this year. Intel is saying the P4 will be around 3 Ghz around then. It'll be interesting to see how a 1.6 Ghz CPU stacks up to a 3 Ghz model. So far, Intel didn't fare to well in this early benchmarking. But again, you have to wonder about how legit this article is... C-ya!

    12. Re:It would be more interesting if... by Dunkalis · · Score: 1

      Remember that Itanium is vastly different from previous processors, even moreso than the difference between the Pentium and the 80486. The Itanium doesn't even use a conventional BIOS, I believe. Its a vastly different architecture, which is why its so damn expensive. x86-64 processors are extensions to the existing 80x86 architecture. Granted, x86-64 may be very different than Pentiums, but nowhere near as alien as Itanium.

      --
      Slashdot is a waste of time. I enjoy wasting time.
  2. Binary compatible by thammoud · · Score: 0

    Will any future Intel 64bit x86 chip be binary compatible with the Hammer ?

    1. Re:Binary compatible by turgid · · Score: 1

      I expect so. Give them until next summer (2003) and there will probably be a Pentium V which will be x86-64, run at 1.5 times the clock frequency of the AMD one and be almost as fast. Then expect Dell to start making "low-end" servers out of it. A year later, itanic will be all but dead and buried.

    2. Re:Binary compatible by intu · · Score: 1

      Will there be 64bit x86 proccessors from intel at all? ;)

      BTW, MIPS architecture rules...

    3. Re:Binary compatible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. What in the yamhill were you thinking?

    4. Re:Binary compatible by connorbd · · Score: 2

      As I understand, it's called Yamhill, and it's basically a hedge against the fact that no one paid attention to Itanic and there aren't a whole lot of people lined up to get their hands on McKinley either.

      /Brian

    5. Re:Binary compatible by intu · · Score: 0

      rumors, just rumors...

    6. Re:Binary compatible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Intel is scrapping project Yamhill. They don't want to make an AMD "clone" because they would be going against their own philosophy. and the prescott core won't have x86-64. only x86

  3. Intel has a Big Problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I've been saying this for many months, and I'll say it again: By far the biggest problem on Intel's horizon is the AMD Hammer series of chips. In the IA64, Intel decided to make a clean break and go to a new architecture, incurring performance hit when running IA32 code. AMD instead blew out the IA32 architecture to 64 bits.

    Expect a massive FUD attack from Intel in the coming months as they try to convince the world that their chips aren't really inferior to those from AMD.

    1. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by jtshaw · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not to take the side of Intel... but as an Electrical Engineer with a good amount of interest in microprocessor design I have to say I like Intels move away from x86. X86 is definitly not even close to the best computer architecture out there.

      It does make most sense for AMD to spend there time building a 64-bit x86 processor then it does a completely new architecture atm. But that doesn't mean we wouldn't all benifit greatly from dropping x86. Of course this can't be an overnight change, but it does need to happen.

      Eventually you have to break backwards compatibility to move forward without making things ugly. x86 is old, it is overly complex, it is inefficient in many respects, it is time to say good bye. There is a reason the original designers only expected it to be a 3-5 year temporary solution.

    2. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by Jay+Carlson · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Yeah. But IA64 made a lot of sense for Intel, given their market position when the effort started.

      Think back to Rambus. (Back?) Intel got a lot of options on Rambus stock, provided that Intel could ship n percent of systems using Rambus memory. If Intel had no significant chipset competition, this would be easy. But it turned out there was enough competition to give people a choice of chipsets, and hence memory technologies.

      Still, the P4 seems consciously designed to play to Rambus strengths. It chews memory bandwidth like candy through prefetching, which helps cover the higher Rambus latencies. I think Intel took a performance hit relative to AMD when the market preferred DDR SDRAM.

      Anyway, it's a great story for Intel if they could control the future of PC technology. Rambus gets rich, Intel gets rich, you pay more. Three cheers for AMD for breaking this.

      IA64 now looks similiar. If it wasn't for the aura of inevitability associated with the Itanic, nobody would be particularly thrilled with it. The initial SPECint numbers where it barely kept up with a SPARC were the first practical warning---if you don't count the schedule slips.

      If IA64 was inevitable, everybody would have to pay up to transition to it. If it was the banner Win64 platform, a lot of places would be buying them regardless of relative price/performance. But because it looks like AMD will eat IA64 from the low end, and with POWER4 staring down from the high end, there's no longer an obvious niche where IA64 dominance is inevitable.

      Four cheers for AMD.

    3. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by ryanvm · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In the IA64, Intel decided to make a clean break and go to a new architecture [...] AMD instead blew out the IA32 architecture to 64 bits.

      Right, and what's interesting is that from a pure geek perspective, Intel did the right thing - AMD did not.

      People have been griping about CISC and Intel's grotesque manifestations of x86 for years now. So they finally do the right thing and sit down with HP to spend a couple years hammering out a brand new design. And what do they get from the geeks? Nothing but boohs and hisses. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves. Did you really want a Pentium V, VI, etc.?

      I'm glad Intel finally quit x86 cold turkey. AMD may have bought themselves a little time with the Opteron, but the sooner we're all off x86 the better.

      Oh, and don't think that IA64 won't be looking MUCH better once we start seeing properly optimized software and later iterations of it. Intel is just like Microsoft, the first implementations invariably suck, but they always get better from there.

    4. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by jmauro · · Score: 3, Informative

      They haven't quit the x86 cold turkey. That's part of the problem, it can STILL run unmodified binaries built for an 8086. IA64 has x86 grafted onto it. That's a big reason why its been delayed for so long and why the performance sucks. There is a lot of hardware on the chip to convert x86 instructions to IA64 instructions. Time that could of been spent making the rest of the chip better, has been spent verifying x86 conversion circuitry. Intel will never drop IA32. They learned that with the iAPX-432, i860, and the 8080. No one wants a chip unless its x86.

    5. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by Jay+Carlson · · Score: 5, Funny
      Or the short form of that:

      AMD design engineers run into an Intel strategy exec at a conference. Intel guy says:

      And my plan would have worked, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!
    6. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Did you ever consider that maybe Intel's chips aren't inferior to AMD's? Both the P4 and IA64 architectures (esp. IA64) are different enough from previous generations that current non-optimized code is going to run slower. I have seen the odd benchmark here and there that shows that using properly opimized code for both Athlon and P4 processors puts the P4 even or ahead of the Athlon at the same clock speed. No they weren't special Intel sponsored test cases and yes, they compared the same real clock speed, not this Mhz+ crap. The truth is that applications used by most sites for benchmarking (Quake 3, et al.) are optimized for the shorter pipelines and different instruction ordering that was offered by the P3 and now the Athlon.

      Also, I'd like to point out that Intel has been in this position before. When they introduced the Pentium Pro it was trashed for being slow with 16-bit applications, which was a big deal since that was the majority of the codebase at the time. Not only was it not much faster than AMD's chips, it wasn't even much faster than Intel's own P200 and 233 chips. But Intel released the PII and 32-bit code became more common and Intel stayed on top while AMD was playing catch up once again. I'm not saying that this will happen again. I think AMD is in a much better position now than they were then. I'm just saying don't count Intel out until you see where they are going with the technology.

    7. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by kwerle · · Score: 1

      It does make most sense for AMD to spend there time building a 64-bit x86 processor then it does a completely new architecture atm. But that doesn't mean we wouldn't all benifit greatly from dropping x86. Of course this can't be an overnight change, but it does need to happen.

      I recommend buying an iBook for the "overnight change" problem :-)

      Sigh - I do wish that Apple would ditch Moto and just get their chips from IBM - who seem to still be able to make them well...

    8. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > No they weren't special Intel sponsored test cases and yes, they compared the same real clock speed, not this Mhz+ crap.

      The point is that you cannot compare different chips at the same clock speed.

      *duh*.

    9. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by NanoGator · · Score: 2

      Yah! Damn Intel for trying to maintain backwards compatibility!!

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    10. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by Cyno · · Score: 1

      Or maybe you mean the sooner we're all on Intel's DRM technology the better. See I dislike Intel for their politics which has nothing to do with their chips. Its just fortunately for me that their chips suck ass right now for performance. What worries me is that since the IA64 has so much industry support they'll fix the compiler problems and get real performance numbers out of that chip. And that chip's design could clearly wipe the floor with any X86 or most other architectures, from what I saw. But I hope it fails to marketting and timeline demands because its Intel, duh.

    11. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      Of course this could be solved by bundling Virtual PC (or the equivalent) with the chip. :-) However, that is a software solution.... and looks too much like Transmeta. :-)


      If the objective is "next generation fast" 32 bit x86 this isn't the solution, this won't work. This is the disconnect. I think the problem is that Intel didn't want to have two chip lines... just one. However, that doesn't seem pragmatic, but will likely turn out to be the case.



      No one wants a chip unless its x86.


      Not really. The embedded/network folks don't care. If you are talking folks who want to run Windows ... then yes. And there is the rub. If Microsoft released a IA64 version of Windows with a transparent (32bit x86) combability mode and a extensive set of native software.... folks wouldn't care. Apple, HP, DEC, IBM, etc. number folks moved folks from one base architecture to another relatively seemlessly while keeping the operating system consistant. The problem in the x86 market is the decoupled nature of the chip, hardware, and os vendors.

    12. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by Sloppy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Eventually you have to break backwards compatibility to move forward without making things ugly. x86 is old, it is overly complex, it is inefficient in many respects, it is time to say good bye.

      Everybody has been saying that for twenty years.

      Twenty years. It is far too late for x86ers to worry about "making things ugly". That sacrifice was made in the early 80s. And it paid off.

      The reason Intel is still in business, is because they knew what drove the market. Superior (in performance, power use, and just plain elegance) alternatives were around all along, but x86 still got all the sales. The reason for this is that the strongest market force is the need for good compatability with The Legacy. Against this force, all other considerations are irrelevant.

      That's why Intel survived (flourished) in the 90s, and why AMD is about to kick their ass. AMD's embarrassing toadying to this principle in the Hammer design, shows that they understand. Intel attempt to raise the bar, shows that they have forgotten. Intel's chip is going to be the next 68k or PPC or SPARC. It'll be a niche, where everyone says how neato it is, and yet few actually use it. And in the mean time, AMD will be selling gazillions of Hammers.

      --
      As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
    13. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by ryanvm · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Or maybe you mean the sooner we're all on Intel's DRM technology the better.

      Exactly what Intel-sponsored DRM are you referring to? The only technology that Intel has introduced that bothered me was the short-lived serial number fiasco, and once the press put some heat on them they dropped that quicker than a pair of wet undies.

      Most of the hardware companies out there are not too keen on DRM. How does it benefit them? It's the legislation sponsored by content providers that you have to worry about.

    14. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by evilpaul13 · · Score: 1

      A good computer is one that is useful for what applications it is needed to do. There is lots of software out there still in use that requires x86 or porting to a new architecture.

      If x86 is doing everything that most everyone using it wants, what incentive is there to change it on another ISA's technical merits. Starting with the Pentium Pro, x86 CPUs have had respectable performance compared to other architectures and continue to.

    15. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by megalomang · · Score: 1
      Exactly what politics are you talking about?

      You couldn't be bitching that Intel is trying to ensure no more copyright extensions for media giants like Disney: Intel's Amicus Brief for Eldred vs. Ashcroft

      You couldn't possibly bitch that Intel's Andy Grove and Leslie Vadasz have been THE most vocal tech company in the fight to protect our consumer rights against Disney's Michael Eisner pushing the CBDTPA bullshit and and closing the analog hole: Hollywood vs. High-Tech and EFF Applauds Intel's Stand

      Perhaps you are disturbed that Intel didn't whore itself to Microsoft in true AMD's Jerry Sanders fashion to help alleviate Microsoft's legal woes AMD chief testifies in Microsoft's favor followed by the very coincidental Microsoft support for Hammer Microsoft To Support AMD's Hammer

      As far as marketing and time to market go, I can't think of a more formidable opponent than Intel. Hoping Intel will fail in this arena is futile. And hoping they will fail for ethereal political reasons is absurd. And thinking that a quake demo against a 1.6GHz P4 underclocked to 0.8GHz and memory bandwidth equally underclocked is any indication of "suck ass" performance is pathetic.

      You know when you have to tie both hands of your opponent behind their back to give him a fair fight, you've got some serious problems of your own.

    16. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by budgenator · · Score: 2

      I agree, I remember back in the old days when a self-taught Basic programer could actualy almost understand 6809-680X0 assembler language.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
    17. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by Sivar · · Score: 2

      As was said earlier, a new architecture is nice, but hardware geeks were hoping for one that was better than current high-tech architectures like Alpha, or at least an architecture that is not worse. So far, the IA64 looks pretty pathetic, runs as hot as an active volcano, and hasn't managed to eclipse the architectures that it was meant to obliterate.

      Besides, alot of the old x86 design lemons are popping up as lemonade. The x86's variable instruction width, widely considered a horrible idea, makes code for the Opteron about 5% larger rather than nearly twice the size.

      --
      Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
    18. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Uh, no. 2 points:

      1. You can compare different chips of the same clock speed if they are based on the same design. If we were talking about comparing completely different chips/design philosophies (PPC, x86, Alpha) where design differences play a larger role in determining the performance delta, you would have a point. But AMD and Intel make very similar chips based on the same instruction set.

      2. AMD's Mhz+ rating system is a marketing tool designed to sell chips, not prove which chip is actually superior, which means it has nothing to do with my original argument. You need to have properly optimized code for both chips in order to determine which hardware is the best. If I compared an Athlon running 80286 optimized code to a P4 with fully optimized code, would it be fair to say that the P4 is superior?

      *duh*

    19. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by packeteer · · Score: 1

      I agree that your post is funny but on a more serious note im tired of people calling AMD a "kid". AMD has been around for some years and its still got some left but its definetly NOT a "kid". They make some of the best chips you can buy on a price/performance ratio, so really AMD is more like a slightly younger peer.

      --
      unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
    20. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by arthurh3535 · · Score: 1

      Too bad that computers are not just run by geeks but by the bottomline. I totally expect that AMD's implementation will be 1% to 5% slower with 64 bit apps. Unless they do some seriously cool opimization.

      But your CFO is going to look at this box and ask what is it going to do. (It cost enough, he wants real answers.)

      And your tech who bought Intel will say, it runs this one App in 64 bit mode that we really need to stay competitive.

      Your tech who bought AMD will say, it runs this one App in 64 bit mode that we really need to stay competitive and all of our 'legacy' 32 bit apps that we run our business on.

      Can you guess which CFO is going to be happier?

      --
      No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
    21. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by mlyle · · Score: 1

      A key one is HDCP which makes CSS look like child's play. This extension to DVI will make everyone's life more difficult with devices they use every day-- if Intel's dream of HDCP + DVI being the standard consumer digital video interconnect takes hold.

    22. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by Locutus · · Score: 2

      Look what happened with Intel brought out a optimized 32bit CPU(PentiumPro). The brand-new 16bit Windows 95 came out and flopped when run on the PPro. The tried Titanicium and it's not doing too well either. This time it's not all because standard OS's aren't advanced enough to run on it. It's huge, expensive, runs very hot, and requires all new software to run on it. Kinda does sound like the PPro. At least real 32bit OS's like Linux and OS/2 ran great on the PPro(I didn't forget about the 100,000 NT machines that were out there at the time of the PPro release).

      Gawd, I wish the PREP or even the CHIRP machines took over...... Oh well, it looks like x86 is going to be around for another decade. Win-AMD has be worried though. I've not seen them quoted recenlty without mentioning Microsoft Windows and that's a "partner" who'll slice you head off if they just feel like it. Dangerous move AMD, very dangerous.

      LoB

      --
      "Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
    23. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by phil_was_here · · Score: 1

      what makes a 'best' architecture? people bitch about x86 assembly thinking the next thing will be easier to learn. haha... if they haven't learned it by now: give it up! what is wrong with intel is simple: their new architecture sucks, their business practices suck, their profits suck... hence their stock sucks. intel switched architecture for the good of their wallet not the consumer. but look at the good side, now intel can blame compiler makers for their lame chip's performance. phil :)

    24. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by roca · · Score: 2

      From a geek perspective, Intel did a good thing by moving away from x86 and betting the company on an interesting, untried technology. Unfortunately for them they lost the bet: their brand new design is wrong. It is slow, it is expensive, and you can't expect geeks to keep cheering for that.

      > AMD may have bought themselves a little time
      > with the Opteron, but the sooner we're all off
      > x86 the better.

      With x86-64 AMD has cleaned up and improved the basic x86 architecture. It should last a long time, longer than IA64 if IA64 implementations don't catch up. If AMD keeps taking it in the right direction they can keep doing this indefinitely.

      > Oh, and don't think that IA64 won't be looking
      > MUCH better once we start seeing properly
      > optimized software and later iterations of it.

      That's always the promise: "Yes, the current generation sucks, but the NEXT generation will catch up!" We heard it with Itanium, we're starting to hear it with Mckinley, and we'll hear it until IA64 is cancelled. Some people need to learn that there are fundamental limits to what compilers can do.

      > Intel is just like Microsoft, the first
      > implementations invariably suck, but they
      > always get better from there.

      On what do you base that observation? Until now every non-x86 CPU Intel has produced has withered and died.

    25. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes as companies, AMD has been around almost as long as Intel.

    26. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by Buck2 · · Score: 1

      Are there two CFO's?]

      Can you repeat the question?

      --

      As my father lik@(munch munch)... ....
    27. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by 13Echo · · Score: 1

      AMD (1969) was founded only a year after Intel (1968). They both have been around the block a few times.

    28. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by Cyno · · Score: 1

      Thanks for replying. I'll try to absorb your links soon. Its interesting that AMD is being this friendly to Microsoft, who originally wasn't going to port XP to the X86-64 stuff. I'm not a huge AMD fan either, since their clock locking and disabling dual processor capabilities in their XP line, which probably cost them extra. Maybe Power4 would be the right platform to migrate to... Alpha seems deal. Itanium and Opteron are both first generation and anything else, except maybe Ultrasprac III, doesn't really compete. I don't even know if those hammers can compete with the performance of the Power4s at the same clockspeed.

    29. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The only technology that Intel has introduced that bothered me was the short-lived serial number fiasco, and once the press put some heat on them they dropped that quicker than a pair of wet undies.

      Come on, about everything has a serial number. Hard drives, flash memory, ethernet interfaces... Your IPv6 address will likely include your unique Ethernet hardware address.

    30. Re:Intel has a Big Problem by Wil63 · · Score: 1

      This is a point raised by many armchair industry watchers, but this misses the point. By losing the 32 bit stuff, Itanium chip designers are no longer constrained by "legacy" technology. The Itanium specs are far more solid than anything from AMD - we are talking scalability, caches, memory capacity etc. Intel chips are "inferior" to those from AMD? - I think you'd find many in the business world (which is where these chips will initially be aimed - not at Quake players), would be completely puzzled by that statement.

  4. why would anyone buy intel? by httpamphibio.us · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    seriously, is there a logical reason to buy intel? it seems like they are selling all their chips in prebuilt machines. does anyone that is up on technology use intel chips? and if so, why?

    --
    sig.
    1. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by jridley · · Score: 4, Informative

      I currently have two Intel P4 machines; my laptop (Inspiron 8200) and my machine at work. I would rather have gotten an AMD chip in both cases, but on the laptop, I was shopping for features and had to get an Intel processor based machine to get the other features that I wanted, and with the work machine, I took what they gave me.

      Having two AMD machines at home, a Tbird 1400 and an Athlon XP 1700+, I'm seriously underimpressed by the P4 performance. As far as I can tell, the only reason to buy Intel anymore is out of pure inertia; they bring nothing to the table.

    2. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use Pentium 4 based workstations. For science and engineering applications, Intel chips are notably faster. We do floating-point and memory intensive simulations where the P4's better FPU and faster RAMBUS memory do make a difference.

      Of course we also have several desktop class systems for browsing the web, checking email, writing documents, etc. These are all Athlon, and are much cheaper and at least as fast as P4 systems for this purpose.

    3. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      Two words: Chipset stability. I know countless people who have been burned by non-Intel chipsets, VIA in particular.

      One of two things is correct here; either most non-Intel chipsets do not following the PCI and/or AGP specification or Intel's chipsets never have and PC peripheral makers build to Intel's spec. In either case the result is the same, a lack of stability with name-brand components on non-Intel chipsets.

      One of my friends recently went through three sound cards until he found a model that wouldn't randomly lock his VIA chipset machine solid. I have an Asus P4T-E with every PCI slot filled, and I use my machine for everything from development, to 3D gaming and it simply never crashes... ever.

      There will no doubt be people replying this stating that I am full of crap and their VIA chipset motherboard is rock solid. Maybe so, but how many crashes did you have to endure first before you found a piece of hardware that wouldn't kill the system or a BIOS tweak that slows your system down, but at least lets it run stable. If it's neither, I'd say you got lucky.

      Now having said that, AMD makes great CPUs, but as long as they are hampered by unstable chipsets I have no choice but to buy Intel.

    4. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There used to be a major issue that AMD couldn't go more than 1 way. Now, I haven't read the most recent, but the most i've seen is 2 way from AMD, where Intel chips and boards are off the shelf as 4 way.

      In a large scale application designed to use many procs there is a big difference.

      Equations:
      1 x Intel = 100 proc units
      1 x AMD = 120 proc units (Obviously better and probably cheaper)

      2 x Intel = 200 proc units
      2 x AMD = 240 proc units (Obviously better and probably cheaper however you can't order form Dell, which is important to some, you have to roll your own)

      4 x Intel = 400 proc units (beats AMD's max of 240 proc units)

      Individual processors are about equal when matched. It is when you start to scale, for other uses than home computing, that you have to account for other factors.

      -Zach

    5. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If 3d gaming is your primary concen look at their own benchmarks. AMD's strategy is to be "just as good for cheaper" in some cases, especially where code is not 3dNow-ed, they perform below Intel.

      http://athlonxp.amd.com/compareThePerformance/3D Ga ming/3DGamingBenchmarks.jsp

      everything deserves a grain of salt.

    6. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One reason is that you can have a mobo with an Intel chipset, which, based on my, and many others', experiences, are preferable to any of those VIA/SiS/etc chipsets which I personally have had very bad luck with. Others have found them to be fine. Each to their own, I guess.

    7. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by jridley · · Score: 2

      While I agree that there have been some horrible chipsets for AMD CPUs, there are also some good ones. Most chipsets are pretty decent these days. The last couple of AMD based machines that I built, with Asus mainboards (K7V266E) have been rock solid, doing even video capture with a BT848 card (a good acid test of a mainboard) for hours on end without any problems. Some Intel based mainboards can't do as well.
      When switching to an unknown mainboard, I go with a manufacturer I know to build good stuff, and make sure I beat the hell out of the mainboard before my return policy time runs out.

    8. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by arivanov · · Score: 1

      Traditionally bad and buggy chipsets from Via is one reason. If you go out there almost all mainboards use Via southbridge and we all know that its IDE is b0rken and its PCI performance is only a percentage of what it should be.

      The unavailability of low profile how performance rack servers with AMD is another reason. Basically the smallest reasonable Athlon multiprocessor machine is 4U. For the last half a year I have been looking at how to get away from Intel for a task which AMD has always done better and I still cannot.

      Unavailability when it comes to most brands/models oriented to be the common low end corporate machines. Basically, usually you cannot get AMD machines along existing contracts/discounts.

      --
      Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
      http://www.sigsegv.cx/
    9. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by jridley · · Score: 3, Informative

      BTW, what I do most is video encoding, mainly VCD and SVCD using TMPGEnc. For that application, the Athlon XP 1700+ (running at 1.47 GHz) absolutely BLOWS AWAY the P4 running at 1.6 GHz. I mean, it's a LOT faster, and the P4 has more RAM and everything so it has no excuse. AMD might finish a job in 2.5 hours and the P4 would take well over 3 hours to do the same job.
      Don't ask me about game performance, hell, I don't even have Solitare loaded.

    10. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      we replaced out Pentium III on Intel 840 workstations with Athlon Thunderbird and Palomino on AMD 760. We have suffered SIGNIFICANTLY less crashes and random lockups with our Athlon based 'stations. We used Gigabyte mobos in both cases - we have certainly found the GA-7DX series to be excellent.

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    11. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by yusufg · · Score: 1

      You might wanna take a look at this 1U Quad AMD system from Angstrom Computers

      Personally, I haven't heard of any Quad CPU AMD mobo's at all

    12. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by afidel · · Score: 2

      Basically the smallest reasonable Athlon multiprocessor machine is 4U.

      WTF have you been smoking, I can get dual processor 1U Athlon MP designs from litterally dozens of vendors! Many beowolf clusters of late have been based on this exact configuration, a couple gigs of ram and 2 high speed Athlons in 1U is a sick computation density that can only be rivaled by the new 1U dual Alpha boxes from hpaq, but those cost about $25-40,000 so the Athlons still easily win on performance/cost/space considerations.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    13. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amnet Computers (http://www.amnet-comp.com) has prototyped a 1U dual athlon.

    14. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by benzapp · · Score: 1

      Having used non-Intel chips since the NexGen Nx586, this is all very true. It is a new phenomonen that is entirely VIA fault however. The Athlon was hit hard by terrible taiwanese chipsets. My first athlon mobo had a VIA KT133 chipset, and I ultimately had to retire it due to excessive system instability and incompatibility with other major component manufacturers like ATi and Creative.

      That said, my new nvidia based ASUS board is fast and incredibly stable. With a SB Audigy Ex and an ATI Radeon 8500 AIW, I have not had a single crash since I turned this puppy on.

      Of course, my personal anecdotal evidence means nothing, but read any review on the web and the Nvidia chipsets are fast and rock solid. The Intel chipset advantage is now gone. Nvidia and AMD are going to completely dominate the home market, and hopefully the professional market.

      --
      I don't read or respond to AC posts
    15. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My experience with the Gigabyte GA-7ZX motherboard is the opposite of yours. Nothing but problems, including defects that required an exchange. I will never buy or recommend any Gigabyte components.

      I've had two computers with VIA chipsets, both of which are terrible. One has chronic IDE problems, the other has chronic USB problems.

    16. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OMG I almost thought I posted this message. I had the same experience with a KT133, with the same conclusion.

      The CPU I'm using is a Tbird 900. What MB would you recommend for a replacement? This is no longer my primary machine, so I'm not concerned with speed very much. Just reliablity and stablility.

    17. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by captain_craptacular · · Score: 1

      Bah, AMD DOMINATED the benchmarks from the advent of the athlon through the most recent set of P4's that just came out in april. Untill they gained the 800mhz advantage of the P4 2400, Intel got their ass handed to them by "just as good for cheaper" processors on a regular basis.

      --
      They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty nor security
    18. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by Seeker5528 · · Score: 1

      We've been using Abit kt7a and Kr7a. We are now getting Gigabyte Ga-7vrxp boards for the new systems.

      For people looking for a more integrated design. I have been testing an MSI K7n420 for the last few days and it seems to be pretty good. It has onboard sound, nic, and video (Nforce chipset). It also has an AGP slot so you can upgrade the video later on (there is also a version without onboard video).

      Later, Seeker

    19. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      the ZX has a different chipset - the DX uses the AMD 760 'set. Idiots like Tom's Hardware will always recommend some flaky VIA chipset that benchmarks 0.1% faster or is $5 cheaper. God knows why.

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    20. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      except the Intel chips use a shared memory bus, so the more procs you add, the slower they get.

    21. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is what I suspected, Its good to hear someone confirm my suspicions. I'm amazed at how hardware review sites will treat a 1% speed difference as a justification for hundreds of dollars or significant losses in stability.

    22. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by Equinox · · Score: 1

      I had an ATI AIW Radeon 7500 and SB Audigy running on (what I think) is a generic board (Biostar...feel free to correct me if it is not generic.) I had an Athlon 800 (classic) being cooled with a 486 fan, running Windows XP, without any driver updates other than what came with the hardware. I didn't even have the VIA 4in1 drivers loaded. 128 Megs of ram. Even playing quake 3 at 90 FPS (not great, but I don't care) I never had a single hiccup out of this machine. Now that I think about it...I've never loaded the 4in1 drivers and had MB's from manufactuers across the board, never used Intel anything, and I've never had a problem in any of my systems. All ran rock solid.

    23. Re:why would anyone buy intel? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Forgot about Tyan Thunder? Its dual Athlon MP in a 1U chassis. Many rack mounted Beowulf clusters use this as the nodes. And its been out for a year. Evidently you do not look very hard. Try www.microway.com .

  5. Re:I want one already by AsnFkr · · Score: 2, Informative

    they are supposed to be out somewhere within october - december, but in very limited numbers..(something like 10,000) with early 2003 still being slim on chips. production is supposed to pick up Q2 of 2003. Thats word around the campfire anyways. we all know how definate any of this will end up being.

  6. Re:Six minutes later... by iainl · · Score: 1

    Thats only fair. Germany has just declared war on the Jones boys, after all.

    --
    "I Know You Are But What Am I?"
  7. Please Help!!! by SuperCal · · Score: 2, Funny

    I can't think of a good reason to justify a upgrade to 64bit. Its killing me, not to have a reson to get one... or four.

    --
    Business News and Resources: www.usasource.net
    1. Re:Please Help!!! by array_one · · Score: 1

      Are you into computer graphics design/programming at all? Im planning on getting four of these when they come out so I can run Entropy (a renderman compliant renderer, www.exluna.com) at blazing speeds.At least that's my excuse.

    2. Re:Please Help!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Did you look at the benchmarks?

      An 800Mhz Clawhammer was doing better frame rates then a P4 at a much higher clock speed (1.6GHz I think).

      Imagine the Clawhammer at 1.6GHz and beyond!

    3. Re:Please Help!!! by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      if you're on windows, that's TWO licences you owe 'em!

      haha!

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    4. Re:Please Help!!! by intu · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Imagine a beowulf clusters of these? So what?

    5. Re:Please Help!!! by intu · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      actually "cluster of these" :) My bad grammar...

    6. Re:Please Help!!! by Decimal · · Score: 2

      I really doubt the home user would ever need anything more than programs that use 36-bit (color, data size, etc). Even Doom III wouldn't need 64-bit power. So why don't we just add 4 bits to the current chips and be done with it?

      --

      Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
    7. Re:Please Help!!! by billstr78 · · Score: 1
      So why don't we just add 4 bits to the current chips and be done with it?


      Um, becuase computers prefer things in powers of 2: 16,32,64... A 36 bit word 9*(2^2) just does not divide up into nibbles the same way a 64 bit word (2^6 || 2^4*2^2) does. For the purposes of memory mapping, division, multiplication ect, powers of 2 just make things alot easier.

    8. Re:Please Help!!! by Cyno · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yeah, and I doubt the home user would ever need anything more than 640K. The facts are I'm a home user. I have files I'd like to use larger than 4GB. I need 64-bit.

    9. Re:Please Help!!! by Sloppy · · Score: 1

      I can't think of a good reason to justify a upgrade to 64bit. Its killing me, not to have a reson to get one... or four.

      The reason will be this: It's 2005, and you've decided that you want a new computer, because your existing machine isn't idling in the web browser fast enough. (dnetc is only getting 99.90% of the cpu instead of 99.99%!) So you check prices, and the 32bit processors are being closed out at $50 apiece, and the new 64bit processors are $150 apiece. You decide, "Oh what the heck, let's splurge" and then you have one.

      --
      As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
    10. Re:Please Help!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How would this compare to a dual 2G Xeon system? I'm looking for something for animation/video editing, trying to decide how long I want to wait.

    11. Re:Please Help!!! by vrmlknight · · Score: 1

      please tell me its not an outlook PST file....

      --
      This must be Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
    12. Re:Please Help!!! by ozzimark · · Score: 0

      well if you're worried about that, you crack windows, assuming you can get it easily... KaZaA works well :P happy hunting

      --
      C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg
    13. Re:Please Help!!! by Sivar · · Score: 2

      Right, after all nobody will ever need more than 640K of memory....

      --
      Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
    14. Re:Please Help!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ah men.... $150.... SCHWEET

    15. Re:Please Help!!! by Seeker5528 · · Score: 1

      " I can't think of a good reason to justify a upgrade to 64bit"

      If you consider that Speed = IPC * MHZ and that even without a 64 bit OS and software you will still get a significant boost in IPC on Hammer based systems that will give power users looking for every edge (along with the other reasons mentioned elsewhere)enough reason to want to upgrade.

      The nice thing about what AMD has done is the chips can work themselves into the normal comsumer channel and all the consumer has to know is they are getting a faster machine.

      In the early going power users will upgrade because they want the advantages. Later the avereage consumer will upgrade just because they need a more powerful machine.

      Later, Seeker

    16. Re:Please Help!!! by ealar+dlanvuli · · Score: 1

      I'm a home user and my largest directory is 30 megabytes..

      --
      I live in a giant bucket.
    17. Re:Please Help!!! by be-fan · · Score: 2

      Actually, its terribly useful to the OS to have a large address space. With the super-limited 1GB address space Linux gets on a x86 system, it has to keep remapping physical memory > 1GB into an address window. 64 bit addresses would allow the kernel to just keep everything mapped all the time. Also, there are a lot of cool MM tricks you can do when you've got such a large address space. Of course, there's the most important arguement: memory is freaking dirt cheap these days. You can get 4GB of memory for $500 now.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    18. Re:Please Help!!! by Decimal · · Score: 2

      I have files I'd like to use larger than 4GB. I need 64-bit.

      Yes, but 4 GB is the 32-bit memory size limit. 36-bit lets you access up to 32 GB.

      --

      Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
    19. Re:Please Help!!! by Cyno · · Score: 1

      I could use files larger than 32 GB too. But maybe you wouldn't, so 36-bit will work great for you. Good luck finding a system. Personally I like XFS's ~9 PB filesize limit. It would take some time and a lot of creative thought to create a file that big, but I'm up for the challenge.

    20. Re:Please Help!!! by Decimal · · Score: 2

      Huh, I posted a reply already but it never showed up.

      Anyway, just remember that we're talking about memory size, not file size. That would mean that your OS and all of the applications you are running would require more than 32 GB of address space altogether.

      --

      Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
  8. Hammer's final name by joestar · · Score: 3, Informative
    1. Re:Hammer's final name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The Opteron name only applies to the MP variant of their new CPU, as you may have noticed if you had actually read the page at the other end of your link. Chances are that the UP CPU will carry some sort of Athlon moniker (Athlon XP+? Athlon XXL?).

    2. Re:Hammer's final name by SuperCal · · Score: 5, Funny

      If I were AMD I'd stick to Hammer. Hammer says: I'm hip, I'm happening; I can kick your a$$. I'm tough; I scare the hell out of the porkiest, poorly optimized code. Grrrrr Opteron says: I ware glasses.

      --
      Business News and Resources: www.usasource.net
    3. Re:Hammer's final name by red_dragon · · Score: 2

      "Opteron" is the name of the SMP-capable Hammer -- the non-SMP version will carry the old name, "Athlon". Look here for more.

      Personally, I very much prefer calling it "Hammer". It's much easier to pronounce, for one.

      --
      In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
    4. Re:Hammer's final name by SuperCal · · Score: 1

      My last post says : I'm a goof without spell check. I wear glasses

      --
      Business News and Resources: www.usasource.net
    5. Re:Hammer's final name by ilsie · · Score: 1

      If you had actually read the press release, you'd see that Clawhammer will still bear the name Athlon, while Sledgehammer is debuting with the Opteron moniker.

    6. Re:Hammer's final name by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 5, Funny

      I believe that the new naming scheme is something like this:

      Duron becomes Athlon Jr.
      Athlon XP becomes Athlon
      Clawhammer becomes Double Athlon
      Sledgehammer becomes Bacon Double Athlon with Cheese

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    7. Re:Hammer's final name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Hammer says: I'm hip, I'm happening; I can kick your a$$. I'm tough

      Hammer is a name doomed to failure.

      If AMD had named the chip Hammer, then we would expect to see it on some "where is it now" show after a couple years.

    8. Re:Hammer's final name by Deziex · · Score: 1

      FYI, AMD is phasing out the Duron. Information on this can be found here.

      --
      Never pet a burning dog.
    9. Re:Hammer's final name by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      Athlon Jr. please.

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    10. Re:Hammer's final name by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      but Hammer is a GREAT name! I would particularly like to get the multi-CPU version - THE MP HAMMER.

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    11. Re:Hammer's final name by jcoy42 · · Score: 2, Funny
      If I were AMD I'd stick to Hammer

      The problem was not with the name hammer itself, per sae, but with the cost of manufacturing the little anti-static balloon pants they were going to ship the CPUs in.
      --
      Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
    12. Re:Hammer's final name by kigrwik · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Do you know what they call the 'BaconDouble Athlon with Cheese in France ?"
      "What, they don't call it the 'Bacon Double Athlon with Cheese' ?"
      "Nah, they got some sense, they call it "Le Hammer"
      "Le Hammer, sh*t"

      (well , actually we'd pronounce it "le ameure" (no 'H' at the beginning and the usual adding of an 'e' at the end))

      "We're french types-ah , why else do you think we have this outrrrrrrageous accent for ?"

      --
      -- don't discount flying pigs until you have good air defense
    13. Re:Hammer's final name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      ...the little anti-static balloon pants...

      It took me a moment to figure this out, but then it made me chuckle.

      (That "hammer time" guy who, despite claiming to be 2 legit 2 quit, slid into obscurity soon after. In one video he was wearing these absurdly clown-like genie pants that if I had worn them would have gotten me beaten to a pulp.)

    14. Re:Hammer's final name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah-what do you meean, I AM speaking freeench!

    15. Re:Hammer's final name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Stop..Hammer Time.."

      Very energetic music video. I estimate the Hammer burned about 10,000 calories during the video.

    16. Re:Hammer's final name by archen · · Score: 1

      Athlon without heatsink becomes Athlon sunny side up.

    17. Re:Hammer's final name by smaug195 · · Score: 1

      When they overheat, do they start singing "Can't touch this"?

    18. Re:Hammer's final name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuckin' shitty-assed motherfuckers.

      See, I can speak French too.

    19. Re:Hammer's final name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's just wrong.

    20. Re:Hammer's final name by compwiz3688 · · Score: 1

      Hmm... I would've thought they'd come up with Quarter Pounder for *hammer names.

    21. Re:Hammer's final name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bien sûr my lord !!

    22. Re:Hammer's final name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In other news, France Surrenders.

    23. Re:Hammer's final name by ABetterMan · · Score: 1

      "Also, you know what they call an Athlon in Paris?" .. [apologies to Pulp Fiction :P]

      --

      Someone you trust is one of us.
    24. Re:Hammer's final name by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      cultural imperialism?

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
  9. Yeah, but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I don't take any notice till i see the notepad.exe benchmark.

    1. Re:Yeah, but by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      isn't notepad.exe P4(SSE2) optimised? Anyway, we all know that the Altivec-enhanced version of Simpletext is out now and kicks notepad.exe's arse!

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    2. Re:Yeah, but by caca_phony · · Score: 1

      C'mon guys, an unoptimized beta of ed can kick both the ass of either notepad or simpletext no problem. Hell, I bet even sam could kick their asses.

      --
      ...and this lie crawls out of its mouth: 'I, the state, am the people.'
    3. Re:Yeah, but by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sam can kick anyone's ass.

  10. Non-Intel all the way! by blankmange · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I have purchasing and building computers for over 10 years now and have yet to use an Intel cpu -- and have not missed out on anything. I cannot forsee abandoning the AMD platform anytime soon either -- bring on the Hammer (or Opteron or whatever they are calling it this month...).

    ps -- where is the obligatory Beowulf cluster commentary on this??? I am shocked and appalled at this apparent oversight by my fellow /.'ers...

    --
    ...we are from the government - we are here to help...
    1. Re:Non-Intel all the way! by jcoy42 · · Score: 3, Interesting
      I have purchasing and building computers for over 10 years now and have yet to use an Intel cpu -- and have not missed out on anything.

      If you don't have a basis for comparison, how would you know?

      You certainly missed out on a whole slew of pentium FP bug panics.
      --
      Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
    2. Re:Non-Intel all the way! by blankmange · · Score: 2

      To paraphrase "Office Space", I haven't exactly been missing anything....

      --
      ...we are from the government - we are here to help...
    3. Re:Non-Intel all the way! by NatePWIII · · Score: 2

      By the way what exactly is a beowulf cluster?

      --

      Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
      www.haidacarver.com
    4. Re:Non-Intel all the way! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would you be strictly non-Intel? A mindless "Down with the Champ! Up with the Underdog!" attitude?

      What happens when AMD is champ? 15 years from now you'll be writing, "I have purchasing and building computers for over 25 years now and for the past 10 years have yet to use an AMD cpu." And when you get around to writing that, you'll probably convince yourself it's a meaningful statement, too.

      Just because you're mindlessly following a different pack doesn't mean you're not a lemming. ... try broadening the criteria by which you select components.

    5. Re:Non-Intel all the way! by blankmange · · Score: 2
      Thank you, AC, for those scintillating, incisive criticisms. I don't recall stating that I only used AMD procs - just have never used an Intel proc.

      As far a broadening the criteria by which I select components: 1) Cost - bang for buck, currently AMD is far ahead of Intel here; 2) Options - currently there are 2 chipsets that support Intel P4 procs, while there are at least 4 that support Athlon XP; 3)Reliability - granted this is a toss-up here, but I have not had any problems running non-Intel platforms....

      I don't know how much broader the criteria need to be to select quality, reliable components....
      --
      ...we are from the government - we are here to help...
    6. Re:Non-Intel all the way! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ahh, don't take the high road *now*. You wrote up an anti-Intel post to a predominantly AMD story. Ask yourself why you did *that*. When you do, you may want to reconsider to whom you've placed the "scintillating, incisive criticisms" label.

    7. Re:Non-Intel all the way! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I don't recall stating that I only used AMD procs - just have never used an Intel proc.

      So you're saying you are reserving the right to make those comments about AMD 15 years in the future? Haha.

    8. Re:Non-Intel all the way! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So are you bashing this guy because he supports the alternative or because he is anti-Intel??? It is difficult to tell, especially with AC's..

    9. Re:Non-Intel all the way! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So are you bashing this guy because he supports the alternative or because he is anti-Intel??? It is difficult to tell, especially with AC's..

    10. Re:Non-Intel all the way! by BasharTeg · · Score: 2


      A mindless "Down with the Champ! Up with the Underdog!" attitude?

      Yeah, nothing like our usual down with Microsoft, up with Linux posts right?

    11. Re:Non-Intel all the way! by Physics+Dude · · Score: 1
      ... A mindless "Down with the Champ! Up with the Underdog!" attitude?

      No, I think you misunderstood. He was showing a mindless "Down with the Underdog! Up with the Champ!" attitude. ;)

  11. arrg stop with the quake already by tomstdenis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why is Quake the benchmark of a good processor? Maybe computers can do something other than cache intense graphics?

    Gah.

    Tom

    --
    Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    1. Re:arrg stop with the quake already by Fantanicity · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why is Quake the benchmark of a good processor?

      Because Quake is what will be used by people who believe 'reviews' and 'benchmarks' from sites like aceshardware.

    2. Re:arrg stop with the quake already by Emil+Brink · · Score: 2

      Right. Because the guys at Ace's only know about, and use, Quake benchmarking. Oh yes. If you were to show them, for instance, some SPECmarks, they wouldn't understand anything. So, I wonder who built this and stuck it on their site?! What a hack! Perhaps these benchmarks, which do not originate with Ace's are from Quake because that was what was available to run? It's not as if the Hammer is out in all that many reviewer's hands, yet...

      --
      main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
    3. Re:arrg stop with the quake already by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

      Give it up already. I mean once you pass 60fps you really don't need any more power since most games get boring before you notice the sub-pixel accuracies your new GeForce 1800x [running at a cool 1.5Ghz] etc....

      I mean can you picture this in a copororate world? Yes sir, we need the new Intel processors for our medical lab. Why? Well sir they get 200 FPS in Quake3.

      hmmm....

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    4. Re:arrg stop with the quake already by Darren+Winsper · · Score: 1

      I hear this argument over and over again, simply because people don't think. Quake3 isn't the most demanding game out there, but the higher the Q3 score, the more likely that the framerate in a more demanding game will be >60.

    5. Re:arrg stop with the quake already by Syllepsis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why is Quake the benchmark of a good processor? Maybe computers can do something other than cache intense graphics?

      You are right, and in fact Quake is not even a good benchmark for gaming in general. However, it is very memory intensive and was generally the P4's strong point.

      Saying that the Opteron will smoke a P4 at Quake is saying that it smokes the P4 at its own game.

      The test is a good indicator that if ...if... AMD can deliver at somewhere near the promised clockspeeds, Intel is going to have to ramp the P4 very high to compete.

    6. Re:arrg stop with the quake already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Quake 3? I'm waiting for Unreal 2. Now that will be a nice looking game.

    7. Re:arrg stop with the quake already by sgtsanity · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It has a standardized timedemo, is more CPU-intensive than some of the newer games, has been around forever, and outputs easy to understand, real results. Benchmarking-only programs, like 3dmark 2001, output more abstract numbers. Games, being the only reason many people upgrade their hardware, are the only programs that are used by many to tax their computers to the limits. Although, starting up Mozilla taxes my hardware to the limits rather nicely. :)

    8. Re:arrg stop with the quake already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe computers can do something other than cache intense graphics?

      Nope. That's a relic of an outmoded belief system.

    9. Re:arrg stop with the quake already by evilpaul13 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Clawhammer and Willamette (using PC800) have similar amounts of memory bandwidth 2.7GB/s vs 3.2GB/s. The Clawhammer, with its ondie memory controller, will probably have half the latency of the P4+Rambus. Hammer is also supposed to have higher IPC, putting it way over the top.

      Because of the number of games using the Q3A engine, I don't think it is a bad benchmark of gaming performance.

      The rest of the year should be interesting: If AMD hits 1.6 and that scales to the speed of a 3.2GHz Willamette, then it should be very close performancewise with Intel claiming to be ramping Northwood up to 3Ghz for year end.

    10. Re:arrg stop with the quake already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0



      'cause DOOM 3 isn't out yet....

    11. Re:arrg stop with the quake already by JBv · · Score: 1

      Why would I need a Ghz CPU if not to run quake? To run solitaire?

    12. Re:arrg stop with the quake already by Zonekeeper · · Score: 0

      Blasphemy!!

    13. Re:arrg stop with the quake already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Games, being the only reason many people upgrade their hardware

      Speak for yourself. I also upgrade my hardware for porn. And maybe mozilla too I guess. :)

    14. Re:arrg stop with the quake already by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

      Not really. A more demanding game may have more pipeline stalls or cache misses. Which means while an Athlon could beat a P4 with Q3 a new game may be better suited to the P4 core than the Athlon core.

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    15. Re:arrg stop with the quake already by Darren+Winsper · · Score: 1

      I guess so, but keep in mind Q3 is the gaming benchmark the P4 does best in. In damn near every other gaming benchmark the Athlon does a lot better with a P4 of the same "speed"

  12. Re:Microwave my brains! by jpmkm · · Score: 2

    If you have problems with that, then put the cover back on your computer. And I don't think you are going to be cooking very much because microwave ovens are designed to put out microwaves at several hundreds of watts. I don't think that's how these processors are designed.

  13. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of /. humourists by Hektor_Troy · · Score: 3, Funny

    *dread*

    --
    We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
    1. Re:Imagine a Beowulf cluster of /. humourists by Aceticon · · Score: 2

      It made me think of the Philosophers Soccer Match sketch from Monthy Pythons

    2. Re:Imagine a Beowulf cluster of /. humourists by OWJones · · Score: 2

      Are we talking about cramming a bunch of bad slashdot humorists into 1U racks? Because you may be on to something there ...

      -jdm

  14. Re:I want one already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > When are these supposed to come out?

    Normally I would be a sarcastic dick and say 'about when Mozilla 1.0 comes out', but that won't work anymore.

  15. Re:Microwave my brains! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually microwaves work at 2.45GHz. It's not much of a difference, but it's enough that water absorbs much more strongly at 2.45Ghz than at 2.4Ghz.

  16. Re:Microwave my brains! by TMLink · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    This got moderated interesting? Damn...

    --
    Every time a guy gets a threesome, somewhere in heaven an angel gets his wings. --Cary Tennis
  17. Amazing performance from a clock-limited proto by Thagg · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you manage to get through the slashdotting, the story in the tecchannel web pages is amazing. The prototype Clawhammer, while limited to 800 MHz, performed shockingly well on the few, but varied, benchmarks they subjected it to. It's interesting that both Intel and AMD teach the same lesson, that MHz doesn't determine performance. Unfortunately for Intel, they demonstrate it by the P4 not running as fast as the MHz would imply, where the AMD chips run far faster than MHz would imply.

    I can't wait for these chips to get out there.

    thad

    --
    I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
    1. Re:Amazing performance from a clock-limited proto by systemapex · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I think the release of the Clawhammer shows the great divide between Intel and AMD's philosophies widening. Mind you, Intel's strategy isn't entirely bad, although it seems highly inefficient at first glance. Intel will happily fire back when the Clawhammer is released. What will they do? Quickly ramp up the clock speed towards 3.4-4GHz. I wouldn't be surprised if they also enable hyperthreading on "consumer" P4s. And, they'll increase the memory bandwidth of the P4 platform by releasing dual-channel DDR chipsets. As for AMD, this looks like one great chip. If AMD plays its cards right, I think it would REALLY make a splash in the server/enterprise market. Whereas, Intel can stay neck and neck with AMD on the consumer end, we've seen how great AMD's SMP platform is. Imagine a 4-way AMD hammer computer:-)

    2. Re:Amazing performance from a clock-limited proto by bstadil · · Score: 1
      I wouldn't be surprised if they also enable hyperthreading on "consumer" P4s

      I hope they do that but there is a licensing issue with MicroSoft. So far the have stated that if the hyperthreading is turned on you need a license for 2 cpu's. Maybe they will waver this on consumer versions of the XP, maybe not.

      Linux has added to the rift between MS and Intel and they are currently best buddies with AMD. I think MS is doing this as much as a blocking maneuver against Linux on Opteron. AMD can not initially penetrate the high end but their aim is squarely where Linux is strong.

      Sun is rumoured to be very active behind the scene on Opteron as a possible key component in the Cobalt overhaul.

      --
      Help fight continental drift.
    3. Re:Amazing performance from a clock-limited proto by VasilyPupkin · · Score: 1

      ...Intel will happily fire back when the Clawhammer is released...

      The feature is called Yamhill

  18. Re:Microwave my brains! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    >Does it emit 2.4GHz Microwaves and how many?

    Not enough to worry about unless it includes a klystron.

    Remember, the fcc allows you to emit a maximum of 0.1 watts of unauthorized radio power. Considering 900 Mhz computers did not ruin the cellphone band, I expect the same of 2.4 Ghz machines (even though they operate in the unlicensed radio spectrum).

    Why can't all electronic devices have cool names like that? :-)

  19. text from article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    First Benchmarks of Hammer Prototype

    First prototypes of the future 64-bit Athlon - code name ClawHammer - have reached the developers. Exclusively tecCHANNEL has tested a sample of AMD's eighth CPU generation.
    VON NICO ERNST, CHRISTIAN VILSBECK, MICHAEL ECKERT UND MALTE JESCHKE

    "Discover performance - discover AMD", that was the slogan which adorned every single AMD PR kit at Computex 2002 in Taiwan. And there really were several things to be discovered - in the end even the Hammer itself.

    AMD had already shown its CPU called "Hammer" on the fringes of Intel's IDF at the end of 2001. It shall be launched as desktop processor (code name ClawHammer) and as well as server version (product name Opteron), ClawHammer will be launched at first at the end of 2002.

    Apart from AMD (8000 series) also Ali (M1687), NVIDIA (nForce2), SiS (755) and VIA (K8 series) are producing chipsets for this CPU. But the Northbridge has not a great deal to do because the memory controller is integrated into the processor. Thanks to this widespread support for ClawHammer AMD did not manage to prevent a hardware manufacturer from allowing tecCHANNEL to take a look at the processor.
    ---
    Test Hardware

    Maybe AMD has beaten the Hammer drum a bit too loud at Computex and has raised great expectations. The Texas-based company may propably not be too happy about these early benchmark results. But we still decided to publish them. On the one hand we were allowed to use the system a whole hour on our own and could equip it with the test components. Neither while configurating the system nor while testing it any problems whatsoever emerged. The prototype hardware was running absolutely steadily.

    On the other hand, AMD itself has been making a fuss about the new CPU for a whole year - at least if the Hammer should be launched by December. For customers it will be a completely new platform and therefore the purchase decision should be well considered. But it is much too early to make a decision by now because the tested devices were mere prototypes like those engineers use for developing components.

    The graphics card we used was a GeForce3 with Detonator driver XP 28.32. We used 256 Mbytes DDR333 memory. The Timing was conservative 2.5-3-3 clocks, for all other BIOS issues we used Default settings. Processors we compared with the system have been tested in a configuration comparable with our current test configuration.
    ---
    As test mainboard we used an AMD's Solo 2 with 8000 chipset, the processor was a ClawHammer at 800 MHz. It was equipped with 64 Kbytes L1 cache each for instructions and data, the L2 cache came with 256 Kbytes. AMD vice president Richard Heye himself had announced the cache sizes at the first day of Computex.

    The clock rate that was gauged with tecMem and WCPUID meets the result which was circulating at Computex on the quiet - and also this specification has already been reported by Heye to the British news site externer LinkThe Inquirer . If the lock against overclocking the Inquirer quotes has been a part of our test system we could not check, time was too short.

    Bildgröße: 213 kByte
    [213 kByte]
    Right: The results conducted with WCPUID correspond with AMD's announcement at Computex.

    According to the software we had at our disposal it was a CPU "Stepping 0". But we can't truly be sure about this because Windows XP Professional, the test OS and the other programs can't possibly recognize the CPU. According to experience ClawHammer should experience at least one more Stepping until its launching.
    ---
    Benchmarks

    The processor and mainboard tested by tecCHANNEL were prototypes. With the given configuration the real performance of the series CPU can only be assumed, last but not least because of the low clock rate of the prototype. Moreover, we only could run our tests with 32-bit software. The test does not give any results about a performance with 64-bit software.

    The test results only allow to draw conclusions if one compares the performance of ClawHammer at 800 MHz with the performance of Athlon MP at 800 MHz with 32-bit software. It's safe to say that ClawHammer will not be available in the version we tested.
    ---
    We decided to publish those results of our tests which we thought would make sense, so we only give details but rounded results for Quake III Arena 1.17.

    Benchmark: Quake III Arena 1.17
    CPU Clock Rate [MHz] Memory Quake [fps]
    ClawHammer 800 PC333 2.5-3-3 183
    Athlon MP 800 PC333 2.5-3-3 130
    Athlon MP 800 PC333 2.5-2-2 133
    Athlon MP 800 PC333 2.0-2-2 135
    Athlon MP 1667 PC333 2.5-3-3 210
    Pentium 4 800 PC800-45 111
    Pentium 4 1600 PC800-45 182

    Configuration: Windows XP Pro, GeForce3, 256 Mbytes memory. The Athlon MP was tested at 133 MHz FSB clock rate. The Pentium 4 is a version with Willamette core at 400 MHz FSB.
    ---
    Memory Performance

    Here you find a comparison of cache and memory transfer graphs which we detected with our benchmark tecMEM. We do not publish the exact results of this highly exactly benchmark, to us it does not make much sense because of the prototype hardware. Please consider the results as prospects for a possible performance of the internal memory controller of the ClawHammer.

    The specifications in the graphs for 32 and 128 bit refer to the used 32-bit or respectively multi-media instruction set. tecMEM is a 32-bit software that additionally can use 64-bit MMX and 128-bit SSE instructions but does not use the x86-64 extensions of the Hammer processors.
    ---

  20. Benchmarks by gUmbi · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    This is ridiculous - benchmarking a 64-bit server chip on Quake3? What's that suppose to prove? Is someone going to drool over this chip because it gives them 183fps instead of 182fps?

    This is a server chip. Benchmark it using a database, a web server, number crunching, etc. Even better, why not put the 64-bit Linux port on it and run a kernel compile.

    Jason.

    1. Re:Benchmarks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Clawhammer isn't a server chip, AMD are positioning it to take over the AthlonXP as their performance desktop part.

      the AthlonXP meanwhile, will be knocked down the ladder to replace the Duron, which is being phased out.

      SLEDGEHAMMER, which isn't what they tested, will be replacing the AthlonMP as their server/workstation processor.

    2. Re:Benchmarks by 10Ghz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "This is a server chip. Benchmark it using a database, a web server, number crunching, etc."

      In case you don't know, Clawhammer is meant for desktops/workstations. Hell, there's even a mobile version of it in the pipeline! Then we have Clawhammer DP (dual-processor) and Sledgehammer that are meant for servers.

      Please, get your facts straight before opening your mouth!

      --
      Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
    3. Re:Benchmarks by qorf · · Score: 1

      Why don't you read the article first?
      They did not test it on Quake 3 because it is most suited to measure Hammer performance.
      Access to this hardware was not given by AMD but leaked out by some 3rd party.
      They used it because they needed a quick solution while they had access to the system and do some secret benchmarking...

    4. Re:Benchmarks by MindStalker · · Score: 3, Funny

      As the other guy said clawhammer is the consumer chip. Also Quake 3 is an excellent test of memory usage, bus speed, and in general overall performance of a computer. It uses everything the computer can give it, and more. Hmm can wait to start benchmarking computers with DOOM 3

    5. Re:Benchmarks by 13Echo · · Score: 1

      You are also getting the same framerate on an 800 MHz clawhammer compared to a 1600 MHz P4. Maybe that says something?

      The chip also is designed for desktop machines too. It is just the start of new 64 bit architecture for the desktop. The will most likely make a server oriented multi-processor model of the Clawhammer, like they did with the XP to MP CPUs.

    6. Re:Benchmarks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      This is a server chip.

      Wrong, dumbass.

      Benchmark it using a database, a web server, ...

      Why the hell would they benchmark a CPU with IO-bound applications? Fucking pointless.

    7. Re:Benchmarks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Opteron (Sledgehammer) is the server chip. Clawhammer is the home PC version.

    8. Re:Benchmarks by pwagland · · Score: 3, Funny
      Please, get your facts straight before opening your mouth!
      What? And ruin a perfectly good slashdot tradition? Shame on you for even suggesting it! :-)
    9. Re:Benchmarks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. I think people are missing the point that it's 800mhz vs 1.6GHz. Quite an acheivement I think.

    10. Re:Benchmarks by davew2040 · · Score: 1

      Always remember that you're dealing with people who are traditionally more concerned with showcasing their elite attitudes toward computing than providing information and/or a reasonable perspective.

      Slashdot: News for nerds. Non-nerds be damned!

    11. Re:Benchmarks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Q3 runs at great framerates on a amd k6-III 450 with a voodoo 2 and 128mb pc100 sdram. I'm prety sure it's not a great program to use, as it's so well writen that it's hard for it to suck the framerate.

  21. Re:I want one already by ShavenYak · · Score: 5, Funny

    Normally I would be a sarcastic dick and say 'about when Mozilla 1.0 comes out', but that won't work anymore.

    Don't worry, though. You can still refer to indefinitely long time periods as 'about when the Hurd is released'.

    --

    Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
  22. would be faster by intu · · Score: 1

    It would be faster if it will drop old compatibility layer (x86) and go on as full 64-bit proccessor. Remember what happened to 6800 architecture when motorola compleatly redesigned new 68000 processor line from ground up? 68000 serie rocked (and it still rocks on embedded applications). Well, that's what i think a x86 should do... and intel got that point allready..

    Sadly, compatibility is impotant only for small time...

    1. Re:would be faster by turgid · · Score: 5, Informative

      AMD has effectively done that, if you've read any of the technical documents to see what they've done. The 64-bit mode has twice as many registers that are completely general-purpose (as opposed to the old CISC design of intel where one was a loop counter etc.) They've only implemented the simpler intructions in 64-bit effectively making it a 64-bit RISC. Since the K6, AMD processors have been superscalar RISC internally with a translation layer which breaks down complex x86 instructions into simpler RISC ones. It's still there for running legacy code, and completely transparent, i.e. it operates concurrently and with no performance penalty with the 64-bit instructions. The x86-32 registers are effectively just the top-right quarter of the x86-64 registers. Go and read AMD's docs. It's all there (and has been for the last 2 years).

    2. Re:would be faster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      General purpose registers??
      You mean something like that i could index my arrays using [(any register)+(any register)*(some constant)] instead of extremely limited [(bx or bp)+(si or di)]?

      Oh thank you, i've been waiting for this to happen for years! Now if they just went and implemented paging too.

    3. Re:would be faster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must want to slow your programs down, huh?

    4. Re:would be faster by Hoser+McMoose · · Score: 1

      Quick question: What do you think the fastest chip that Intel currently offers is?

      Answer: The P4. Intel's new Itanium, which totally dropped the old compatibility layer and all, is quite a bit slower then the P4, x86 and all.

      Simple fact of the matter is that x86 isn't NEARLY as bad as people make it out to be, and what's more, it's well known and VERy well optomized for. The end result is that most of the fastest chips in the world are x86 chips, right now only IBM's monstorous Power4 is faster when it comes to raw processing power (as per Spec benchmarks at least).

      With the Hammer series, AMD is getting rid of two of the problems that people kept complaining about with x86. first, it adds 64-bit support, and second, it doubles the number of registers available. Ok, I'm sure that some people still want a lot more registers, though a good compiler should be able to make very effective use of what the Hammer offers.

  23. Yes, but by Xcrap · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can that hammer smash a block of itanium without breaking?

    1. Re:Yes, but by Decimal · · Score: 4, Funny

      Can that hammer smash a block of itanium without breaking?

      Sledgehammer can. Clawhammer is better used for ripping out chunks of embedded Celeron.

      --

      Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
  24. They should use POVRay or GCC by r6144 · · Score: 1

    Or SPECint2000 and SPECfp2000 if they want to sound more `benchmark-like' at the cost of some money. If they want to be Windows-ish, compare the rendering time of some HUGE web pages on IE6.

    1. Re:They should use POVRay or GCC by SignoffTheSourcerer · · Score: 1

      SPEC benchmarks are very expensive, we (the opensource community) should get together and compile a similar benchmark that is available to all, SPECInt is afterall using things like running a crosscompiling gcc to create some binary and then emulating a machine to run it. It's not hard to get SPEC, but it's not very usefull when your'e not allowed to publish your results.

      --
      Ordo Militum Unix.
    2. Re:They should use POVRay or GCC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      What I'd like to see is the performance of the gcc x86-64 backend. Especially against ICC, since it's been beating gcc in benchmarks.

    3. Re:They should use POVRay or GCC by Paladin128 · · Score: 2

      They had access to the machine for only about an hour. The machine already had Windows XP on it. They had QIII and a couple other things with them. Read the damn article.

      --
      Lex orandi, lex credendi.
  25. Migration path by distributed.karma · · Score: 1

    Having both the old x86 and new 64-bit instructions on the same CPU is a nice thing for users. They can still run their old apps, but they should also see that native 64-bit programs are much faster. That way, they have the incentive to upgrade the software. If they do this as planned, AMD's next line of processors could well be purely 64-bit.

    --

    --
    If you moderate this, then your children will be next.

  26. I'm confused... by Seekerofknowledge · · Score: 1

    On the front page of the article they say "The Texas-based company may propably not be too happy about these early benchmark results. "

    .....what? The benchmarks show that it totally spanks everything else that is within range of it. I fail to understand how these could possibly be unsatisfying results for AMD.

    1. Re:I'm confused... by intu · · Score: 2, Funny

      Maybe that company was intel? ;)
      actually - dunno...

    2. Re:I'm confused... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because AMD has a strict NDA on all performance related information on the K8 design.

      Of course they won't be too unhappy with these results. Good pick of benchmarks to show off the strengths of the chip, no comparison of SSE2-enabled applications (which are few in numbers but will be Intel's club to beat the Hammer with, considering they scale straight with clock speed).

    3. Re:I'm confused... by entrager · · Score: 1

      These chips weren't released so that companies can do benchmarking. That's probably why AMD gave them an 800Mhz chip. I bet they thought no one that has more than a dozen brain cells would even consider benchmarking an 800.

      I'm sure AMD will be quite upset with these released benchmarks.

    4. Re:I'm confused... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The benchmarks show that it totally spanks everything else that is within range of it.

      Because Texans like their sex straight-laced: A man, a woman, and the missionary position. This "spanking" preversion stuff isn't welcome in Texas.

    5. Re:I'm confused... by budgenator · · Score: 2

      I bet they thought no one that has more than a dozen brain cells would even consider benchmarking an 800. Wasn't realy a benchmark more of quick peek at speed. a Real benchmarking is concerned with what tunes-it up also. There is probably more that could have been wrung out of the chip, motherboard and bios issues ect. All we realy know right now is that it runs with the big dogs out of the box. A little later we'll find its sweet-spot.

      --
      Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
  27. Bah by johnburton · · Score: 0, Troll

    So --- AMD's next generation chip, which isn't out for 6 months proves to be only very slightly faster that Intel's current generation chip which is available now. If I were AMD I'd be very worried about now.

    --
    Sig is taking a break!
  28. ya missed the point by pezpunk · · Score: 2

    the chip was locked at 800Mhz because it's a developer's sample. The actual chips, when they're released, will be at higher clock rates. if an 800Mhz Hammer can spank a Wilhelmette clocked at twice the speed, what will happen when the Mhz field is leveled a bit?

    --
    i could live a little longer in this prison
    1. Re:ya missed the point by johnburton · · Score: 2

      No, you missed my point. In six months Intel will have chips running at quite a lot more Mhz than now. So this chip as it stands will be significantly slower that the Intel chip at the time of it's launch. Ok, so maybe it will run faster when it's released than the sample. Lets be generous and say it runs 50% faster than it does now. That will be what, 10% faster than the fastest P4? So maybe AMDs next generation chip will be slightly faster than *this* generation of Intel's chip. If it's released on time. And if it works. And I expect they'll use their usual underhanded marketing trick of making up a model number that sounds like it ought to be Mhz to try to fool potential buyers. No, this chip would need to be maybe twice as fast as Intel's *current* chips to stand a chance.

      --
      Sig is taking a break!
    2. Re:ya missed the point by afidel · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If you had read the article (and many others) the industry expects that if they can work out some silicone problems the opteron will debute at 1.6Ghz, or twice what the demos are running at. Since the current 800MHz parts are matching the 1.6GHz p4, Intel would need to be at 3.2Ghz to match the Opteron at release, since quatity shipments of the Opteron won't happen till Q2 03 and Intel's roadmap says that's when the 3.2GHz p4 will begin production I would say it is likely we will have the same situation we have today where about once a quarter based on production schedules one of the manufacturers will take the speed crown from the other just to have it retaken a few weeks later. It looks like unless the marketing muscle of Intel can misinform people into believing that just because they come with a bigger number attached that the p4's are SO much better that the Opteron should do well. Add in the 64bit icing on AMD's cake and it things start to look good for AMD in the low to mid range x86 server portion of the market.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    3. Re:ya missed the point by himi · · Score: 2

      The projected clock speed at the initial release is 1.6GHz, and it's expected to scale way beyond this. The 800MHz clock is for stepping 0 silicon - ie, this is an example of the first working silicon they've produce from this line, without any of the cleanups and optimisations that will go into it by the time it reaches release status.

      These numbers are really extremely impressive - if the perfomance scales with the clock speed, an Opteron will outperform a P4 running at twice the clock speed. Given that it's also been designed to scale, it's going to be hard for Intel to keep up . . .

      himi

      --

      My very own DeCSS mirror.
    4. Re:ya missed the point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > No, this chip would need to be maybe twice as fast as Intel's *current* chips to stand a chance.

      Alright, AMD Clawhammer at 2.5ghz*2= 5 ghz. Do you really expect to see Intel scale to 10ghz by 6 months? I doubt it

    5. Re:ya missed the point by Seeker5528 · · Score: 1

      "And I expect they'll use their usual underhanded marketing trick of making up a model number that sounds like it ought to be Mhz to try to fool potential buyers"

      So you would rather buy from a company that designs a less efficiant chip so they can pump up the Mhz to try and fool potential buyers?

      As long as the numbers are based on real world performance most people will not care. It's when you have a situation like you did with Cyrix where they claimed numbers that just didn't make sense that it becomes underhanded.

      Later, Seeker

    6. Re:ya missed the point by ealar+dlanvuli · · Score: 1

      It's not marketing it's fact. I have a XP 1600 and a p4 1.6g, the 1600+ runs everything I've ever tested faster.

      The fact that it's not the same mhz, and you find that significant, tells me you think mozilla is inferior to IE because it happens to not be IE. It'd be like comparing a 1ghz apple to a 2ghz pentium, apples and oranges don't benchmark well, especially when your 'quality' standard is acidity..

      --
      I live in a giant bucket.
    7. Re:ya missed the point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't forget the p4 has double pumped ALU's.

      That means a 1.6p4 has parts of the chip running at 3.2ghz already. Yet a .8ghz processor is able to match it? Sounds like a p4 is a high revving 4 banger while the Hammer is a low reving powerful cummings diesel doesn't it? At one point sure they will produce the same power. All that speed will eventually hurt the p4 because you just cannot rev it any higher to get more power. On the other hand the hammer only needs to rev a bit higher to see vastly more power.

      Do you see the difference? One chip has to rev like crazy (the 2.4ghz chip has some parts revving at 4.8ghz). The other produces the same power at 1/2 to 1/4 the speed. Believe me, I would rather have a slower, cooler chip, than a high revving hot one.

      Even the current athlons follow this analogy with p4 being a 4banger and athlond acting like a nive 5.7litre v8.

  29. Not an optimal test of a 64-bit platform... by nahtanoj · · Score: 4, Informative

    As has been said, Quake is only relevant to the chips concerned in that it only tests the 32-bit compatability of the Opteron. I would have like to see some tests that demonstrated the advantage of 64-bit processors over 32-bit processors. Granted, the reviewers only wanted to show benchmearks that the populous was familar with and they were pressed for time. Let's give them a break for that.

    Nahtanoj

    1. Re:Not an optimal test of a 64-bit platform... by Fantanicity · · Score: 1

      they were pressed for time

      No, they weren't. The chip isn't released for 6 months.

      They were rushing to get a scoop. First Review, fanboy!

    2. Re:Not an optimal test of a 64-bit platform... by Cyno · · Score: 1

      Actually I think Quake would also demonstrate SIMD instrutions like SSE and SSE2 and 3DNOW.

    3. Re:Not an optimal test of a 64-bit platform... by p3d0 · · Score: 1
      This has already been said, and my reply is the same: comparing 64-bit Hammer to 32-bit Pentium is comparing applies-and-oranges. There would be no way to separate the advantages of 64-bit processing from the advantages of AMD's implementation.

      It's big of you to offer to "give them a break" though.

      --
      Patrick Doyle
      I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
    4. Re:Not an optimal test of a 64-bit platform... by Cirvam · · Score: 1

      um, did you read the article? They only had acess to it for like an hour...that would be pressed for time.

    5. Re:Not an optimal test of a 64-bit platform... by Fantanicity · · Score: 1

      They had it for an hour .... but they didn't have to publish a review based off of rushed and incomplete testing of prototype hardware.

      The chip is not being released for 6 months.

  30. Not the best architecture by dpilot · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not to take either side...

    But if Intel was going to supercede a messy architecture like X86, I wish they'd done something better than IA64. While the jury is still out on the merits of IA64, it has some of the marks of Internal Politics on it. It sounds like a VLIW camp inside Intel sold some management on a renamed version of the basic approach, and the project gathered Corporate Inertia.

    At the same time, it doesn't sound as if all of the VLIW problems have been solved on the compiler side, so it's not clear that IA64 is doing any more than a clean, modern architecture cable of OOO execution could have done.

    Out of the Hammer series, I'm reminded/hoping for the phenomenon described in "Soul of a New Machine", where they managed to clean and extend the old architecture at the same time. By the time they were done, the old architecture was an ugly wart on the side of a new clean one. The fear was the new being an uglier wart on the side of an already ugly one, and they avoided it.

    I don't know enough about Hammer to know what the case is. I have the documents, but haven't made time to read them. I've also heard some rumblings that some of the performance improvements to IA64 involve de-purifying it's VLIW to pick up OOO techniques. I've heard that VLIW was an attempt to sidestep OOO because those prolems were feared, but in the meantime the industry has learned how to do OOO pretty well.

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    1. Re:Not the best architecture by Decimal · · Score: 3, Funny

      It sounds like a VLIW camp inside Intel

      *sigh*

      I wish we'd just start calling these data types what they are - int16, int32, int64, float64, etc. It could save us all so much confusion. I mean, what are they going to call it when chips move to 512-bit? Uber Turbo Fantastically-Amazing Super Very Long Instruction Word? :/

      --

      Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
    2. Re:Not the best architecture by RobKow · · Score: 4, Funny

      VLIW is roughly synonymous with multiple parallel instructions per instruction word. Which is what makes the IW VL. :)

    3. Re:Not the best architecture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative
      it has some of the marks of .... Politics on it.

      Of course it has the marks of politics on it. :-) It was originally an HP project which they shopped to Intel as a joint project. But yes, the rumor-mill is that their was/is 1. an internal 64 bit version of x86 and 2. a vocal "dynamic scheduling is always better" group.

      IMHO IA64 very likely would demonstrate higher performance if the brain power and transitor budget spent on backward x86 compatibility was spent elsewhere. Much more so than the "evils" of VLIW design.

      involve de-purifying it's VLIW to pick up OOO techniques.

      Hmmm, I thought there was no 000 (other than implicitly implied by the x86 ) functionality there in the first generation. I think they leave some information in the opcode bundles which you could potentially expolit by some 000, but the first generation chip wasn't doing any of that. I suppose adding that hinting took away from tweaking performance on the first generation.

      I've heard that VLIW was an attempt to sidestep OOO

      Sidestep... VLIW in and of itself.... no that is a question/debate of when to do scheduling (compile time versus run time). I think that the predicated execution is the attempt to sidestep OOO. Executing both sides of a branch and then throwing away part "just in time" later might be characterized as a sidestep. :-) However, primarily OOO allieviates the "don't know where the stalls are going to happen" problem. Other than usually having hefty prefetch verbage VLIW doesn't really address that problem directly.

      I think IA64's problem is how to keep the monster feed at gigahetz speeds. It strains the whole system infrastructure to pull in both the data and the "informative" instruction stream at the same time. The OOO pundits will declare it is better to dynamically infer the information rather than encode it and that perhaps doing SMT (work for another thread) is the perferable why to keep the hordes of function units feed and highly utlized.

      Doing OOO with IA64 bundles hard and not compeletely effective, but I can see how you might take advantage of both techniques. Doing SMT and VLIW I don't see.... they seem to distinctly not collaboratively work well together. Especially, when you through predicated execution on top.

    4. Re:Not the best architecture by p3d0 · · Score: 1

      In general, I agree, but not in this case. The "Very Long" in VLIW doesn't refer to the number of bits so much as the fact that there are multiple instructions in each instruction word.

      --
      Patrick Doyle
      I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
    5. Re:Not the best architecture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are we into deep with X86?
      Can intel switch over to new architecture without breaking the rest of the world?

      You wouldnt just throw out windows and expect everyone to switch over to linux tomorow would you?

      AMD is building the bridge and slowly having us start our walk across.

    6. Re:Not the best architecture by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But after 512-bit it gets better. Then we drop all the prefixes and move on to Ludicris Instruction Word.

    7. Re:Not the best architecture by SmittyTheBold · · Score: 1

      re: your sig Sorry kids; fat fairies, talking animals, singing frogs and silly masks DON'T fit into The Legend of Zelda.

      There was a Fat Faerie in Link to the Past, and I assume you're just picking on the N64 games...

      --
      ± 29 dB
    8. Re:Not the best architecture by roca · · Score: 3, Informative

      AMD's 64-bit "long mode" IS cleaner than ia32 protected mode:
      -- No segmentation
      -- Can address bottom 8 bits of every GP register (in other words, GP registers are truly general purpose now)
      -- Some stupid instructions removed (e.g., BCD ops)
      -- Recommend using SSE2 instead of the x87 horror

      In addition you get the nice extensions of long mode:
      -- 16 GP registers
      -- 16 SSE2 registers
      -- 64-bit ALU and memory ops
      -- IP-relative addressing mode

      If you look at long mode and ask, "what's really horrible about this?" I would only say instruction encoding and a large number of remaining wacko instructions. But together these give the x86 a performance advantage it has always had over other designs --- small code size and therefore better memory system performance for the instruction stream.

  31. 1667? by InnereNacht · · Score: 2, Interesting

    No, it outperforms the 1600 by 1FPS. Still quite the feat. If this thing releases at even 1200mhz, you're looking at something comparable to a P4 2.4ghz. The site does say they stated they were aiming for 1.6ghz (nice!), but we'll see if that actually happens.

    It's nice to see that the industry isn't playing too much of the "more is faster" game, at least as much as they used to. When an 800mhz part is comparable to a 1600mhz, you've got to wonder what intel isn't doing to optimize.

    1. Re:1667? by Jugalator · · Score: 4, Interesting

      you've got to wonder what intel isn't doing to optimize.

      FYI, we had a teacher in a processor architecture course that worked with optimizing algorithms and had worked for Intel. He left and started working for AMD instead. He openly said that Intel sucked. Guess what PR that gives when it's from the mouth of an insightful teacher. :)

      So they must do something wrong over there. :) At least in the eyes of some optimizing guys. heh

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    2. Re:1667? by Jugalator · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Forgot one thing... He elaborated a bit about P4's and said that "Intel has an interesting super long pipeline in the P4's - it's gonna be interesting to see what clock speeds it requires to fill so it can be of use to 100%". :)

      I guess we have an explanation of the diff in AMD/Intel clock frequencies right there...

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    3. Re:1667? by jani · · Score: 2
      When an 800mhz part is comparable to a 1600mhz


      But is it, really? We don't know yet. These were, as others have explained, unauthorized tests made on a pre-pre-release system.

      That does not mean that the release system, running at 1600 MHz is faster than a 3200 MHz Pentium 4.

      It might just as well mean that it is slower, and 3 GHz-ish is what the Pentium 4 will be at around release time for Opteron.

      It's still going to be a race.

      On a more historical (heh) note, there have been processors before running at lower clock frequencies outperforming others at double or higher frequency. MIPS R10K and descendants, for instance.

      Also, it is completely out in the blue whether Opteron will be any good in multi-CPU configurations, compared to offers from Intel and other chip makers.
    4. Re:1667? by Syllepsis · · Score: 2

      It's nice to see that the industry isn't playing too much of the "more is faster" game, at least as much as they used to. When an 800mhz part is comparable to a 1600mhz, you've got to wonder what intel isn't doing to optimize.

      AFAIK, the FPU of the P4 is crap (not that the IA32 FPU stack isn't crap in general). Intel's strategy is to get software designers to switch calculations that would normally involve the FPU over to their SSE2 instruction set. This really does improve P4 performance considerably.

      This is happening, but adoption is slow. Also, the Opteron core has SSE2 support.

      I would have liked to see an SSE2 heavy benchmark run on both machines.

    5. Re:1667? by InnereNacht · · Score: 1

      No, but as it usually goes upon release it WILL be faster and better. These pre-release chips are designed with nothing but stability in mind.

      Though being an "unauthorized" test, there were TONS of them at Computex. Unauthorized or not, it was bound to happen. Do you think AMD released these chips to these motherboard MFG's/other distributers and said "Now children, don't go running any benchmarks on these!"

      That's EXACTLY what they wanted.

    6. Re:1667? by sane? · · Score: 2
      Doing a bit of maths.

      If Hammer= 1.4 x Athlon
      & Athlon = 1.2 x P4 (non Northwood)

      then if the word of hammer starting at 3400+ and 4000+ is true it would result in Hammer having a 2.0Ghz to 2.4Ghz clock (assuming AMD do nothing regards 64bit being faster)

      Given the small size of the die, this sounds quite feasible, indeed 5000+ sounds possible with 0.13 and SOI

      OK, ok, so its very iffy to extrapolate like that, but Intel may well have some significant problems if AMD can roll out Hammer fast enough to beat the P4 0.09 die strink.

    7. Re:1667? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's gonna be a race, except that the Clawhammer will be 64 bit and the P4 will be 32 bit.

    8. Re:1667? by Sivar · · Score: 2

      You might be interested in checking out www.faceintel.com

      --
      Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
    9. Re:1667? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      a long time ago, i read the hamemr will be marked as 3400+ that seems to fit 1.6ghz

      there already was a specint2000 bechnmarks
      with some ultrasparc and co...

      Eugene

    10. Re:1667? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's perfectly normal for the final release to be 2 or 3 times faster than the test samples. And we are talking about something a good while away, not to mention the fact that the actual chip will have a new PLL (phase-locked loop) for generating the clock signals. As it so happens, doing a high-speed PLL in SOI is not so easy, and AMD has an outsourced PLL design in SOI that can go to just under 5 GHz.

      Also, one thing that people seem to be missing is that this was NOT an Opteron sample!! It was Clawhammer!! Opteron = SledgeHammer, which itself is going to be significantly faster than this by virtue of dual memory controllers and larger caches and so on. Opteron was not intended to compete against P4, anyway. Clawhammer IS intended for that market, and this early, and probably incomplete, sample shows to be equal to a P4 at twice the clock.

      The question of whether or not it will be good in multi-processor can only be dispelled by actual tests, but the concept itself is much more clean and elegant than any previous multiproc setup, especially Intel's. This doesn't necessarily mean that it will perform better, but stability will be good, and it will also be an easier platform for mobo manufacturers to work with.

  32. Hmmm? by f00zbll · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Just read the article and couple thoughts:

    1. damn it beat the pentium 4 1.6ghz for Q3 by 1 frame per second
    2. Intel is going to have to work much harder to get P4 performance up to par
    3. when will programs and OS be optimized for P4?
    4. what would be the point in optimizing consumer applications for P4 when AMD is offering a very attractive alternative?
    5. Even though P4 is a bigger departure and theortically better for the future, will it get enough software support to live that long?

    It's obvious computing needs and trends are changing rapidly. PC are no longer luxury items as they once were. They are now taken for granted and no one cares about the technology behind it anymore. With all the cheap PC's out there, the PC is becoming less high tech and more every day. Back when PC first started, it was new and different, but now it's just another appliance. With that kind of perception taking over the PC industry, no one gives a damn how many ghz a pc has.

    Sure there's always gamers and programmers who want the newest/best system. But that will change in another year or two. Perhaps that's why Intel is starting to focus more on telecommunications and less on consumer CPU.

    1. Re:Hmmm? by horseshoe · · Score: 1

      I think you are missing an important point. "PC"s are converging on the old RISC chips and taking over in the HPC world. And yes, architecture does matter for these applications; being limited to 3.5 GB of memory on current x86 machines is a problem. You can bet that when these processors become viable there will be massive orders from DOE and the like. You also seem to miss that IBM, Sun, and HPQ make a significant amount of their revenue from selling 64 bit hardware which will come under intense pressure from commodity ia64.

    2. Re: Re:Hmmm? by f00zbll · · Score: 1
      Right, PC's are trying to take over RISC application/hardware market, but I was thinking specifically about consumer products. Enterprise markets don't behave the same as consumer market, so whole other issues come into play. Things like redundancy, hot swappable power, cpu, hd and memory, scalability and modularity come into play. PC platform still has a long way to go to provide the level of reliability and recovery in current mainframe and high end unix market. That kind of reliability doesn't come over night and takes a lot of time, money and dedication to realize.

      Whether IA64 can make it on just on enterprise market alone isn't something I've considered or really care to consider. In those markets being cheap is only a strength when performance and reliability is equal existing RISC option. If it's not equivalent, it's a really hard sell to the enterprise world.

      The research field doesn't have the reliability requirements of financial applications, so Intel might make it on that alone. But then again, research facilities tend to use specialize applications. Whether companies and researchers will optimize their code for IA64 is beyond me. I don't claim to know answers, just asking questions. I doubt Intel would disappear, but the role they play in the future isn't totally clear either.

    3. Re: Re:Hmmm? by horseshoe · · Score: 1

      Point taken. As far as I'm concerned, once x86 hit about 500 MHz, desktop performance became largely irrelevant.

      It will be interesting to see what happens with research type clusters and ia64. I'll be watching PNNL with interest.

    4. Re: Re: Re:Hmmm? by f00zbll · · Score: 1

      Not to be like Katz or anything, but I'm guessing researchers might be more likely to take the linux route with IA64 once GCC is optimized for IA64. Now if Intel were to release their compiler for IA64 free, that could do the trick for research market.

    5. Re:Hmmm? by ealar+dlanvuli · · Score: 1

      What makes you think anything except player positioning is determined by the CPU in Q3 when optimized properly?

      With faster busses all around the system, I'm sure you could make it outpreform the p4 significantly. The CPU has little to do with 'system utilizing' programs like games, it has alot to do with compiling ect.

      --
      I live in a giant bucket.
  33. What's next? by donscarletti · · Score: 1

    Claw hammer, slegde hammer. What's next, Jack hammer?

    or maybe warhammer, I bags a chaos chip

    --
    When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
    1. Re:What's next? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah, but it's really going to be called the Opteron...I hate that, what a stupid name. Athlon, Duron, Opteron...what's next, the AMD Moron?

    2. Re:What's next? by fr2asbury · · Score: 2, Funny

      Armand Hammer

      Cheers,
      Jonathan

    3. Re:What's next? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      omg, the AMD moron joke has been lame since the introduction of the Duron. It's like the BSD dieing posts.

    4. Re:What's next? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer

    5. Re:What's next? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      MC Hammer

  34. Re:First Limey Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The argies are going home early!

  35. Blah blah blah by dynoman7 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Blah Weiter >>
    Blah Blah Weiter >>
    Weiter >> Weiter >> Blah Blah
    Weiter >> Blah Blah Blah Weiter >> Weiter >>
    Returns to /.

    --
    Blarf.
  36. "Please Opteron, Don't Hurt 'Em" by jeffehobbs · · Score: 3, Funny


    ...doesn't have the same ring.

    ~jeff

    1. Re:"Please Opteron, Don't Hurt 'Em" by checkyoulater · · Score: 1

      Is it possible that MC Hammer has some sort of rights to the name "Hammer", and AMD is simply avoiding a potential lawsuit?

      Although, I suppose we should be happy to not have to see AMD commercials on TV with Can't Touch This playing in the background.

      --
      Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or is that a Sears poncho?
  37. Everyone's missing this point. by papasui · · Score: 1

    This is a 64bit processor running in a 32bit mode that's as fast as a true 32bit processor at 1/2 the clock speed. When released it will be able to run existing 32bit apps at the same speed as the highest line of Intel processors while adding 64bit support. Thats where the true performance will shine.

    1. Re:Everyone's missing this point. by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      So "everyone" is missing that?

      I thought it was pretty obvious after reading the review. I mean, what other conclusion could you draw from it? That AMD will mess up big time and Intel will surpass it with the same clock speed? :)

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  38. Re:I want one already by MindStalker · · Score: 1

    Hurd may actually be released soon. I think your much safer with Duke Nukem: Forever, or the 1GHZ Transmeta

  39. Er, yes? by Levine · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Yes, the reasons are called "compatibility" and "proper heat dissipation".

    I know far too many people who have built AMD boxes - people who certainly know what they are doing - to have them crash and burn on a number of applications and games. The problem is so widespread across the AMD platform that the processor is the only logical point of failure.

    Plus, I don't think I need to bring up the issue of the flaming AMD Athlon in too much detail to get everybody's minds on that Toms Hardware video. There have been rebuttals and claims of inaccuracy from the AMD camp, but for the record:

    Removing the heatsink/fan from a P4 chip caused the machine to BSOD.

    Removing the heatsink/fan from an Athlon caused it to BURST INTO FLAMES AND MELT

    I don't care what the details of the situation were, I have absolutely zero desire to run a chip that has the possibility of catching fire. There's an old saying that I'm rather fond of, it goes "The bitterness of poor quality lasts much longer than the sweetness of low cost." If you buy AMD simply because it's cheaper... eh. Your machine, your loss.

    Cheers,
    levine

    1. Re:Er, yes? by jridley · · Score: 2

      Yeah, I remove the heatsink from my machine while it's running all the time...
      I saw the video too, and while it's amusing, I fail to see how this could even happen. The heatsinks on AMD CPUs is on so hard you need to work at it to get it off. Anybody who has one "accidentally" fall off didn't put it on right in the first place.
      Your car (ANY car) will burst into flames if you remove the gas line from the engine and point it at the exhaust manifold while it's running with the engine hot. Same situation; something that's NEVER going to happen in real life, unless the thing was put together wrong in the first place.

    2. Re:Er, yes? by Syllepsis · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yeah, I remove the heatsink from my machine while it's running all the time...
      I saw the video too, and while it's amusing, I fail to see how this could even happen. The heatsinks on AMD CPUs is on so hard you need to work at it to get it off. Anybody who has one "accidentally" fall off didn't put it on right in the first place.


      Haha... what I worry about is catastrophic "smash the flathead screwdriver through the motherboard while trying to loosen the clip" failure.

      or also, catastrophic "heatsink clip breaks off the cheap plastic socket notch upon removal" faliure.

      Much more likely...

      If anything, I wish AMD would do more in the way of promoting bolted heatsinks rather than the cheesy clips.

    3. Re:Er, yes? by rocket97 · · Score: 0

      Actually I saw a Ford burst into flames once, but then again it was a Ford.

      --
      "The two most abundant elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity." -Harlan Ellison
    4. Re:Er, yes? by xmedar · · Score: 1

      AMD CPUs are fine for me, just pick a good mobo, I have a dual MP 1800+ sitting here using a Tyan 2466N mobo with 1GB ECC registered DDR, and it is rock solid, $1000 or so less than an equivalent Prestonia box, and plenty fast enough. The fact that AMD is producing MP processors that I am happy to use in servers is a testament to how far they have come, Intel IMHO seem to be more and more driven by ad campaigns than delivering great technology to customers, which is pretty sad.

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced man is indistinguishable from God
    5. Re:Er, yes? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hehehehehehehehehehe. what this doesnt happen to you? mine falls off so many times i had to secure it with duct tape. i mean damn, if it can hold a nascar together then its ok for my chip.

    6. Re:Er, yes? by ealar+dlanvuli · · Score: 1

      the p4 fan clips are worse. It takes me roughly 15 minuites to get the damn thing off every time I have to, it's rather annoying. They should have made it so there where simple open/close clips, not those ungodly self catching things.

      --
      I live in a giant bucket.
  40. The reason it's only 800MHz. by zardie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's just a sample. AMD released the Clawhammer processor to manufacturers for demonistrations and testing, so they can develop the platform, so that, get this, benchmark results would not be released. Let's face it - who in their RIGHT MIND would benchmark an 800MHz CPU against the latest and greatest processors?

    Obviously, these guys did. AMD will NOT be happy about this.

    Also remember that the Opteron will be running at MUCH higher clock speeds upon release. I'd guess above the 2GHz range for sure, but AMD doesn't want anybody to know that. This also suggests that this lil' 800MHz sample could be very overclockable.

    This is AMD's weapon that can really take a LOT of market share. Microsoft already have a Windows XP build ported to the Opteron/x86-64 platform. The Opteron runs cooler, as well.

    One thing that disappoints me - I have not seen ONE PCI64 slot on any of these test boards!! I hope that this'll be worked out before release.

    1. Re:The reason it's only 800MHz. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I personally think you are wrong on this one, AMD probably wanted benchmarks to slip out knowing how good the processor is. I mean you can n't buy publicity like this, look at the buzz it has created.

    2. Re:The reason it's only 800MHz. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, this was set up by AMD, read the article.

    3. Re:The reason it's only 800MHz. by diablovision · · Score: 2, Informative

      I have not seen ONE PCI64 slot on any of these test boards!! I hope that this'll be worked out before release.

      PCI64 has fuck-nothing to do with a 64 bit address space. It's a data bus. Since when did the register width of a processor have anything to do with the width of its memory and io buses? Hello, modern ia32 machines have 64 bit and 128 bit memory buses these days.

      --
      120 characters isn't enough to explain it.
    4. Re:The reason it's only 800MHz. by be-fan · · Score: 2

      Actually, since PCI multiplexes data and address lines, 64-bit data path == 64-bit address path. More info here.

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    5. Re:The reason it's only 800MHz. by zardie · · Score: 1

      I never said that.

      With increasing bandwidth requirements (eg, ATA RAID, Gigabit Ethernet), PCI32 is already nearning its end of life. I sure as hell don't want to be stuck with a slow peripheral I/O bus on my next PC.

    6. Re:The reason it's only 800MHz. by zardie · · Score: 1

      To quote from HardOCP:

      The Clawhammer samples that you're seeing now are locked 800MHz parts. This way the board builders get working parts, but don't get to leak benchmark numbers at this time.

  41. Re:I want one already by dastrike · · Score: 1

    ...or that graphics chip from BitBoys.

    --
    while true; do eject; eject -t; done
  42. Welcome to the world of Motorola (and Apple) by Eraser_ · · Score: 1

    Ever benchmarked an 800Mhz G4? or even a 400Mhz G4 Ti laptop? Those things fly a hell of a lot faster than the Mhz would suggest, and if anyone would write games at the Altivec core, they would also fly. See the numbers a 400Mhz G4 dnetc client runs at, and then compare them to my 1.3Ghz AMD. The G4 beats out my computer by about a Gkey/sec. I am so glad to see AMD build a chip which is more efficient with the time it has (800million clock cycles/second :). That little Ti laptop renders video much better than anything i have here in windows. Maybe now i will be able to beat my Mac head friends at Photoshop renders ;-) (btw, OSX++)

    1. Re:Welcome to the world of Motorola (and Apple) by Andy_R · · Score: 2

      ...which leads to the real problem for this chip... marketing

      How is any PC manufacturer is going to turn round to it's customers and say "you know all that stuff Apple was telling you about the megahertz myth? Well, they were right and we were conning you which meaningless speed measurements all this time"?

      Moving this chip out of the 'well informed geek' sector of the market will be tough, imho.

      --
      A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
  43. Re:I want one already by Jacer · · Score: 1

    remember diakatana? all of our zeal over the hammer may end the same way, wait patiently

    --
    --fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
  44. Not Entirely Sure by Syllepsis · · Score: 2


    I know far too many people who have built AMD boxes - people who certainly know what they are doing - to have them crash and burn on a number of applications and games. The problem is so widespread across the AMD platform that the processor is the only logical point of failure.


    I am one of those people, and I tend to disagree with you. I had a machine subject to random lockups and general disintergration of system integrity (on linux!). It was a K6-2 on a FIC-VA503+. The motherboard had issues. My friend who went with a nearly idenitcal system but used an older FIC motherboard with a higher stepping never had any problems, and is still using the machine today, five years later (six?).

    I am not saying that the K7 is definitely not to blame, but it is also not the only logical point of failure. The amount of poorly tested crap that comes out for the K7 is a suspect for higher failure rates.

    OTOH, the last two AMD machines I have built, a TBird 1.0 GHz on an Asus A7V133A, and an XP 1800+ on an A7V333 have worked flawlessly.

    Plus, I don't think I need to bring up the issue of the flaming AMD Athlon in too much detail to get everybody's minds on that Toms Hardware video. There have been rebuttals and claims of inaccuracy from the AMD camp, but for the record:

    Removing the heatsink/fan from a P4 chip caused the machine to BSOD.

    Removing the heatsink/fan from an Athlon caused it to BURST INTO FLAMES AND MELT

    I don't care what the details of the situation were, I have absolutely zero desire to run a chip that has the possibility of catching fire. There's an old saying that I'm rather fond of, it goes "The bitterness of poor quality lasts much longer than the sweetness of low cost." If you buy AMD simply because it's cheaper... eh. Your machine, your loss.


    This is no longer a valid argument. If you are willing to shell out the $40 for a quality Mobo, then you are now likely to get thermal protection. If my heatsink falls off with my Asus A7V333, the chip does not fry. However, this fall would crush my All-In-Wonder 7500, which I am more worried about.

    1. Re:Not Entirely Sure by SN74S181 · · Score: 1

      this fall would crush my All-In-Wonder 7500

      That sounds like one hell of a heavy heatsink.

    2. Re:Not Entirely Sure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RE: K6-2 on a FIC-VA503+

      Yes - that combo is a Total POS - suspect motherboard. Switched that box from being a server to being a desktop running ext3. Now tolerable...

  45. ONE NIL! by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    ONE NIL!

    ONE NIL!

    --
    That was classic intercourse!
    1. Re:ONE NIL! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      English eh?
      Congrats!
      Not too good for us swede, but we'll get'em as well ;-)

    2. Re:ONE NIL! by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      I dunno, you can take pride in when Sven's achieved - his tactics were absolutely spot-on!

      ONE NIL!

      ONE NIL!

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    3. Re:ONE NIL! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While walking through Broad Street in Birmingham today, I saw a bunch of fervent England supporters dancing on the roof of a bus, mooning at police officers. It was bloody hilarious, especially the bit where one of them jumped off and broke a leg.

    4. Re:ONE NIL! by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      I'd like to see a Brummy fool break his leg in such a manner - you didn't happen to capture the moment for posterity with some kind of digital gadget, by any chance?

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    5. Re:ONE NIL! by Captain+Pedantic · · Score: 0

      Tactics? Tactics?

      First half, pray!
      Second half, defend!

      But anyway, ONE NIL! ONE NIL!

      --

      None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
    6. Re:ONE NIL! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well lived in London the last 5 years so, yes, I'm very happy for the english team!

      Not to be bore but: what hasn't england done for 34 years? (and counting...) *grin*

  46. yippie ! by zozzi · · Score: 0, Troll
    I made an experiment and found out that they're right about the hammer. The gui in MS-Word now really rocks!

    In fact it took 1.205 secs to write "Hello World" as a heading with my Pentium and it took an incredible 1.215secs to click select Heading1 and type "Hello World" with the Hammer. The time savings is a whopping 8% or 0.01secs!!

    Yeah i'll definitely buy the hammer -- after all if i have 100 headings in my document i'll finish early and can spend an extra second at the beach!

    --
    ---
    1. Re:yippie ! by zozzi · · Score: 1

      oh and don't bother commenting on the fact that I switched timings ;-)

      --
      ---
    2. Re:yippie ! by CaseyB · · Score: 1

      Why do you have a Pentium? A 286 is plenty fast to run DOS WordPerfect.

    3. Re:yippie ! by BenjyD · · Score: 1

      Yes, you're right, desktop users are far better off spending their money on a decent monitor/hard disk/amount of memory. However, chips like this mean seriously powerful low-budget servers are possible. Personally I'm hoping my uni dept ditches their outdated ultra60s and goes for a few of these when they come out

  47. There is actually by Syllepsis · · Score: 2

    A good, really good intel chip is the 1.6 GHz Northwood. They are ~$137 on pricewatch, and have incredible overclocking capabilities.

    Most people are sorely dissapointed with their 1.6a if it only overclocks to 2.2 GHz (stable with standard cooling). Most people can ramp it up to between 2.4 and 2.6.

    At that speed, it can smoke everything AMD is offering, and at a low cost. Lots of the OCers are buying the P4 1.6a with an Asus P4S533 motherboard.

    1. Re:There is actually by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

      good call

      --
      That was classic intercourse!
    2. Re:There is actually by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You forget that:

      1. amd is coming out with the XP 2200+ very soon (next week or two).

      2. some athlon xp's are also very overclockable, especially the XP 1900+ and 2000+.. the 2100+ doesn't oc very well

    3. Re:There is actually by ealar+dlanvuli · · Score: 1

      Did you just compare overclocked chips to factory settings?

      You do see the falacy there, right?

      --
      I live in a giant bucket.
    4. Re:There is actually by snak0rific · · Score: 1

      there is none, more bang for the buck :>

      --
      -- "Put on your big girl panties and lift!"
  48. I will tell you why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What drives people to get faster processors?

    Answer for the corporate world: The only reason is if the computers are utilized for graphic intesive operations and/or math operations. You don't need processing power galore to do DB functions (since most are SERVER based) or Word processing. Simulations, CAD/CAM, printing and photo editing, high order math for physics and chemistry, et al drive this. Out of all the desktops in the corporate world, what percentage actually are used for these types of apps? I would hazard a guess as less than 25%.

    Answer for the home user: Games. 3D graphic Games. Nothing else a home user does requires massive number crunching unless they are doing graphic or music work as an enthusiast. Given the numbers of americans playing games (100 Million home users at last count), that is probably a majority. However, not everyone plays 3D graphic intense games, so I would say only 1/4 to 1/3 of home users need faster processors all the time.

    Think about that... now think about who spends the most money on computer hardware and upgrades? Gamers and those who are involved in cpu intensive operations on the desktop. Since graphics are a measure of math crunching (at least for now until Jaguar and Longhorn), the areas overlap significantly. These people need the crunching power of the processors and push them alot. They do spend alot to get faster results and better crunching power.

    The chip makers and reviewers know this and know what drives the market. Hence the use of games as benchmarks.

    Now, I don't agree that this is an accurate benchmark... as GPUs become more powerful and OSs rely on them more for graphics crunching, the load on the CPU is lessened. SPecPerf and a littany of other benchmarks are better suited to push the processor and test it fully to be sure. But, recognition of games and the impact it has had on the hardware industry as a driving economic and profit force for manufacturers cannot be denied... the name recognition of games like Quake is also undeniable... hence the use of these programs as 'benchmarks'.

    Now honestly, do you need a computer processor running at 2.5GHZ if all you are doing is typing on /. or surfing for p0rn? Does that minirature supernova of a processor in your computer get utilized or even taxed playing solitaire or crunching Perl code? I don't think so. Graphics do drive the market, like it or not... and name recognition of games and their impact on the computer industry just can not be ignored.

    1. Re:I will tell you why by be-fan · · Score: 2

      Now honestly, do you need a computer processor running at 2.5GHZ if all you are doing is typing on /. or surfing for p0rn?
      >>>>>>>>>
      Just wait until KDE 4 and GNOME 3 come out and ask that question again...

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
  49. How is ClawHammer a Server Chip? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Read up on the new AMD 64bit chips... hell, just read the article. ClawHammer is NOT a server chip... it is a desktop chip. That makes Quake3 an okay (loosely said) benchmark since it is aimed at home and corporate desktops.

  50. Ah, so you are one of 'them'... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... the 'purist' PC user who never does anything other than work with text. Nice... you are soooo relevant to today's computer world, a real legacy class act that keeps everyone towing the line. Jesus... don't buy it if you don't need it, don't slam real computer users who do more than AIM their neighbors and surf for p0rn

    1. Re:Ah, so you are one of 'them'... by zozzi · · Score: 1
      Dear non-purist,

      You may find this useful for "Real computer users". Kindly forward this information as appropriate:

      ironic Pronunciation Key (-rnk) also ironical (-rn-kl) adj.

      Characterized by or constituting irony. Given to the use of irony. See Synonyms at sarcastic.

      Poignantly contrary to what was expected or intended: madness, an ironic fate for such a clear thinker.

      You'll also find this defintion useful:

      twit Pronunciation Key (twt)

      tr.v. twitted, twitting, twits

      To taunt, ridicule, or tease, especially for embarrassing mistakes or faults. See Synonyms at ridicule.

      n.

      The act or an instance of twitting.

      A reproach, gibe, or taunt.

      Slang. A foolishly annoying person.

      --
      ---
    2. Re:Ah, so you are one of 'them'... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dear 'Purist' from a By Gone Era

      How sad... go hack some code and leave the real world who actually enjoys computers for more than 1s and 0s alone. Your time is past, your rebuttle indicative of your sad life, and your comments a waste of computing power...

      Thanks,

      The Real World of Computing


      P.S.

      You are not relevant

  51. Re: Reasons for 64 bits by Rebar · · Score: 1
    How about:
    1. more than 2GB address space for your programs? I've loaded 6GB of hash table data on a 64 bit platform, and that's peanuts compared to what people are doing with some current database servers. You just can't do that kind of work on a 32 bit platform.
    2. never having to compile with -D_LARGE_FILES (or your compiler's equivalent) again!
    3. avoiding the 2038 problem completely!
    I'm sure someone can come up with reason number four for you... Once you get used to 64 bits (like Tru64, or Linux on Alpha for example), it's difficult to go back.
  52. Then again, the mis-informed know FUD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually, a second follow on video at Toms indicated the reason was actually the MOBO because it did not shut down or step down the power when the heat threshold was exceeded.

    Additionally, I have a box full of burned up PIII 800's courtesy of Dell's bad heatsink and minimal ducting.

    The crashing you most likely are refering to is actually a problem on both platforms and has to do with voltage tolerance and undervolt situations with small powersupplies and 4XAGP video cards with more than 32MB of memory, complicated by Win2K/XP (though Linux and Win95/98/ME systems have the problem too). It's called 'infinite loop' and has a wide and varied hardware base that can get the problem and the symptoms and end problems are varied as well. Alot of fanboys like you pointed at AMD or alternately VIA as the problem, but just spend a few hours on Dell's, Compaq's, and GateWay's forums to find out that it strikes Intel boxes just as hard.

    Finally, I can't fathom why anyone would spend 1/3 to 1/2 again as much money on an Intel processor that runs 1/4 slower than the AMD. It makes no logical sense.

  53. Sign...more of the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'll start this by saying YES, I work for Intel. Hate me...whatever.

    But its SOOOOO disheartening to see my fellow nerds and /.ers so ignorant on something like the computer scene. I'm talking about all the AMD LOVE and Intel hatred posts that always follows a news article about CPU's.

    I can understand the love for Linux. A group of people programming for free, fighting a giant like Microsoft. But why should AMD garner the same sort of love and respect? AMD is a giant corporation itself, willing to screw you over. They'd charge you $2000 per processor if Intel wasn't around (and yes Intel would do the same).

    Last week Intel dropped the prices of its processors. AMD was forced to follow suit, dropping their prices about 2 days later. Did the Slashdot community cheer Intel?

    So along comes this news...AMD Opteron 800 MHz beats a Pentium 4 1.6 GHz by one frame pre second. I guess I fail to see why everyone is so excited?

    I'll wager ANYTHING that when it ships, a 800MHz Opteron will sell for at LEAST twice the price of a Pentium 4 1.6Ghz.

    Why do I even bother.

    1. Re:Sign...more of the same by 0x69 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Try looking at it one of these ways: (A) This isn't news, it's entertainment. Everyone's cheering for the underdog AMD, partly 'cause it's easier for little ol' us to identity with than giant Intel and partly because the fun will end if Intel kills AMD. (B) We don't want to pay either of 'em $2000, so we shift our support to whoever's the underdog in order to prolong the price/performance war.

      --
      It's easy to make up & spread cool- and credible-sounding stuff. Finding & checking hard facts is hard work.
    2. Re:Sign...more of the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmmm... you are a bit confused.

      First, Intel dropped prices. They are doing this to initiate another price war in hopes of hurting AMD, not help out computer users. They are far bigger than AMD with much deeper pockets and can spread losses in chips (their PIV and Celeron's are now loss leaders) to the rest of their product lines and still show a minor profit. AMD has to respond or be priced out, and their pockets are not nearly as deep. This is why AMD posted a LOSS last quarter even though they gained market share... all thanks to Intel. Not sure how this makes Intel better, stop spreading FUD.

    3. Re:Sign...more of the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > A group of people programming for free, fighting a giant like Microsoft. But why should AMD garner the same sort of love and respect?

      Because AMD _is_ the underdog. The wintel hedgemony has existed for a loong time. And because they are the underdog, they have to price items better than Intel. I do hardware reviewing for most of my income, and I am very partial to both companies, but I currently have a Athlon XP because it just makes more economic sense. I've used MANY Intel chips in the past for over 16 years, the last being Dual Celeron 300A's :-)

      > They'd charge you $2000 per processor if Intel wasn't around (and yes Intel would do the same).

      Agreed.

      > So along comes this news...AMD Opteron 800 MHz beats a Pentium 4 1.6 GHz by one frame pre second. I guess I fail to see why everyone is so excited?

      Because a 64 bit chip running in 32 bit mode runs at the same speed as it's

      > I'll wager ANYTHING that when it ships, a 800MHz Opteron will sell for at LEAST twice the price of a Pentium 4 1.6Ghz.

      This was the Clawhammer (desktop-model), not the opteron (server model). Since it will be the next Athlon (replacing Athlon XP's), they will be priced very competitivly since it's competition is the Pentium 4. Of course, as you said, the Opeteron, whose comptition is the Xeon, will be priced a lot more than a p4.

      Also the Clawhammer is going to come out somewhere between 1.6 (conservative) to 2.4 (liberal) ghz. I'd wager around 2.0ghz, as that was what most people figured in Computex.

    4. Re:Sign...more of the same by tlunde · · Score: 1

      I'd happily take that bet. Except that I'd bet even more money that AMD will not ever "ship" an 800mhz version of the Hammer.

      I will happily take a bet from you (non-anon) that mhz for mhz, the Hammer will outperform the P4 or current IA64 chip at the time of the Hammer's release.

    5. Re:Sign...more of the same by mestreBimba · · Score: 2, Informative

      Inspite of the above post appearing to be a raving troll, I will respond with:

      Lets see..... why do we like AMD

      1 Dollar for dollar they kick Intel's hiney for performance. IE you get more bang for your buck.

      2 A 800 mhz AMD is as fast as a 1600 mhz Intel. That is just plain cool.... It has geek cool factor all over it.

      3 As to the last statement about an Opteron 800 being twice what a P4 1600 .... some how I doubt it. AMD has consistently underpriced Intel for the same level of performance. If it is more expensive it will only be at initial release and soon will be cheaper than a comparable Intel.

      4 As geeks we get tired of a market dominated by inferior products... IE Windows is the dominat operating system, and Intel is the dominant chip. Sometimes we just like to root for the underdog. If AMD can beat Intel at their own game, more the power to them.

      --
      Fly Fish? Participate in our forum
    6. Re:Sign...more of the same by ProtonMotiveForce · · Score: 0

      Mhz for Mhz? That is an utterly pointless comparison. Why on Earth would anyone say such a silly thing?

      "Hey, my Geo-Metro can take your Ferrari anytime*."

      (* Per-gallon of gas only, in a distance to be determined by the maximum distance obtainable by one tank of gas in either car)

    7. Re:Sign...more of the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that AMD is not planning on releasing an 800MHz Clawhammer - they are planning to release at 2GHz. At 2GHz it will destroy a P4... it already has nearly equivalent performance. Granted, the Willamette is not the latest and greatest P4 model, (A northwood would've been a better comparison).

      Also, keep in mind this CPU was running on a BETA board, with BETA drivers, and a A0 stepping CPU. I don't believe I've ever seen an Intel CPU even *work at all* on A0 silicon.

    8. Re:Sign...more of the same by xr6791 · · Score: 1

      But why should AMD garner the same sort of love and respect?

      Because, my dear fellow, if it wasn't for AMD we would still buy P3@1100MHz for what.. 500 bucks? Try to dig CPU prices from 1999 and think for a while.

    9. Re:Sign...more of the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How's this wager? I'll wager my Pentium 4 1.6 Ghz system against your 800MHz Opteron system... heh.

    10. Re:Sign...more of the same by jeti · · Score: 2

      As soon as Intel begins to be the underdog,
      my heart will beat for it.

      We just like competition.

      PS:
      I actually think Intel is making good CPUs.
      And it's hardly their fault that the i860
      failed and we're still stuck with x86.

    11. Re:Sign...more of the same by Timmeh · · Score: 1

      I don't cheer on Intel when they drop their prices because frankly they were too high to begin with. Despite the 'official' AMD cuts that happen after every Intel cut, that's merely a PR stunt, since you can get the AMD's for so much cheaper than the 'official' price. Intel's chips tend to not wander as terribly far from the 'official' price.

    12. Re:Sign...more of the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. this article is talking about the clawhammer, not the opteron, dumbass.

      2. the opteron doesn't even compete with the p4

      3. in terms of pricing, clawhammerp4opteronitania

    13. Re:Sign...more of the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is the AC from above responding to some of your uninformed comments. I don't blame you for your ignorance, I just doubt you work in the computer industry, and think you shouldn't comment on what you don't know about.

      1. Wrong. Intel does not care about the "Enthuasist" market, and doesn't care if the nerd community pays more for a Pentium 4 part over an equivalent AMD. The market is just too small. But don't believe that means Dell or HP pays more for an Intel CPU than an AMD.

      2. As a AMD fan, I thought you've been saying GHz does not matter. If it doesn't matter, why get all excited about a 800 beating a 1600?

      3. Hmmm, okay I'll even use dealer prices. A Pentium 4 1.6 GHz sells today for $118.00. The Opteron is supposed to ship around Jan 2003, and at that point, I suspect the 1.6 will sell for around $80 dollars. Do you honestly think AMD will be selling its "Server" 64 bit processor for $160.00?

      4. Inferior...no simply wrong. This comment makes you look especially stupid. There is a reason Intel consistently dominates OEM's CPU vendor of choice ratings...because we offer a better overall product. Hopefully you can understand there is more to a product then price or performance. Let me list a few things that are important to OEM CPU buyers:

      1. Price.
      2. Performance.
      3. Lot Amount.
      4. Lot shipping variancy.
      5. Lot shipping consistency.
      6. Lot defect counts.
      7. Motherboards tested against.
      8. Memory tested against.
      9. Customer Service.

      Everyone likes to root for the underdog, but don't let it skew your brain so much that you start to spread lies and FUD.

    14. Re:Sign...more of the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I'll wager ANYTHING that when it ships, a 800MHz Opteron will sell for at LEAST twice the price of a Pentium 4 1.6Ghz.

      When it ships, do you think the speed will be as low as 800MHz? The first rev of many processors is slower than the second (and later) revs, as the designers work out speed paths, find circuit issues, etc.

    15. Re:Sign...more of the same by WDemon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think people sense that Intel went the wrong way. Even Intel can't fight physics.

      Energy dissipation of processor is in vast majority due to tranistor switching. So if you switch tranistor N times more frequently you generate N times more heat. In case at hand P4 has to switch it's transistors roughly 2 times more often than the Hammer for the same amount of work to be done.

      Why is this important, who cares about power usage ?

      The problem is that too much heat on a very small spot can rise temperature (localy) to the point it damages that part of processor. This is why both athlon and P4 are in the end thermicly bound.

      Thought it might seam that going to smaller technology helps it really makes matters worse. Just think of it, now you have transistors that generate heat closer together, so cooling becomes even bigger problem. Yes you can lower the voltage (till the noise gets too big), but it turns out that this effect is not enough. (Meaning is you have a CPU core thermicaly bounded at 180 nm it will be stay thermicaly bounded at smaller technology)

      So I think P4 extreme frequencies will prove quite a problem for Intel in the long run... Asuming that AMD and Intel will have comparable technology P4 woun't be able to keep up with Hammer.

    16. Re:Sign...more of the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      First of all, from the vast knowledge that you are showing us here, I would guess that you are either work in Intel's shipping department or sweep their floors. Now let's discuss your last post.

      1. You say that Intel doesn't care about the enthusiast market, yet on your previous post you question why we like AMD. Perhaps it is because AMD caters more to the enthusiast market. Why is it so hard to understand why we would like a company that sells higher performing chips at a lower price. I really don't care what the big OEM's are paying for them. I don't buy from Dell and HP.

      2. GHz in itself doesn't matter. The impressive part is that the new Opteron is expected to be released at 1600MHz. Considering a 800Mhz Opteron beat a P4 1600MHz, how do you suppose a 1600MHz Opteron will measure up?

      3. I'll have to excuse your ignorance, but the article says that the benchmarks were run on a ClawHammer. This is the AMD 64 bit DESKTOP processor. And as for the pricing of the Opterons, AMD has consistently priced their chips so as to give the consumer better performance for the dollar as compared to Intel. I doubt that will change anytime soon.

      4. The OEM's like Intel because they give them advertising money. The "Lot Shipping Variance" has nothing to do with the quality of Intel's products. Consumers want the best performance for the best price, PERIOD. They couldn't care less about any of that other crap.

      Talk about spreading lies and FUD! Intel does it more than anyone(except maybe Microsoft).

    17. Re:Sign...more of the same by prisoner-of-enigma · · Score: 3

      Why the love? Perhaps because AMD has brought something to the table that was long lacking in the hardware scene: competition for Intel.

      Seems to me that Intel used to spend months, even YEARS between significant speed increases of their processors. How long to go from a 486/33Mhz to a DX2/50? How long from the 486 to the Pentium? The Pentium Pro? Before AMD was on the scene Intel would milk every processor for a long, long time. People would pay through the nose for Intel chips. Intel's profit margins were grossly higher than anyone else's in the industry.

      Now comes AMD, bringing similar (sometimes GREATER) performance than Intel chips at a FRACTION of Intel's price. A quick check of Pricewatch shows an Athlon 2100+ going for $177, while Intel's 2.2Ghz P4 (the likeliest competitor) is going for $238. The situation was even more out of wack last week until Intel lowered pricing. Do you think for one minute Intel lowered prices out of the goodness of their hearts? Of course they didn't. They did it because Athlons had been grossly undercutting them in price and performing every bit as well as Intel's finest.

      Your predictions on the pricing of the Opteron are not valid as there will BE no 800Mhz Opteron. The Opteron is most likely going to debut around 1.5Ghz, give or take a couple of hundred Mhz. It will most likely cost twice what a 1.6Ghz P4 is costing right now, but that'll be just fine as it will most likely OUTPERFORM that 1.6Ghz P4 by about two to one. Things will be much closer with the Northwood B chips, but no matter what, AMD will almost certainly undercut Intel in pricing while delivering the same (within 10%) performance.

      Face it: Intel is used to high margins and is unwilling to cut their pricing far enough to put AMD in the coffin. They are running on brand name and little else right now. If the situations were reversed and AMD had the household name and Intel was the relative unknown, does anyone for one moment think that anyone in their right mind would pay the lofty prices Intel is commanding right now? Of course not.

      --
      In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    18. Re:Sign...more of the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      They are running on brand name and little else right now.

      They've had name recognition, locked OEM contracts, and up until recently, the only solution for high end SMP server systems. Not quite a monopoly, but a damn tough incumbent to be sure.

    19. Re:Sign...more of the same by DarkHelmet · · Score: 2
      I'll start this by saying YES, I work for Intel. Hate me...whatever.

      So if I say I work at AMD, do I get karma too?

      *blah blah blah* works faster *blah blah blah* higher IPC *blah blah blah* Better memory interface *blah blah blah* lower price *blah*.

      There, I'm done. Where's my cookie?

      --
      /^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
    20. Re:Sign...more of the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To state something obvious:

      Yeah, Intel thanks AMD everyday because AMD is preventing them getting sued for being a would-be monopoly.

      Also, AMD is using "Opteron" because you can't trademark something like "hammer"

      I predict when the K8 family is retired, AMD should have at least 50% of the market share. Why?

      1. 64 bit application for free. When you buy XP, why buy (pirate) a 32 version when you can get 64 bit version for the same price? First applications that'll be ported will be games, database, scientific applications (64bit matlab, mathematica?), multimedia applications (photoshop, etc). More applications will be ported to 64 by a simple recompile. The only thing that'll hold this migration back will be dammed Intel chips that oems will be selling and people will be buying because of brand name.

      2. Top OEMs already support AMD, the biggest (Dell) should follow soon because they'll want to get into that cheap multi-way high performance server market too and Xeons just won't be able to keep up with hammers performance and price wise.

      3. AMD will be able to keep it cheap. From the alliances they currently have with UMC and the fabs they have, they'll be able to meet demands, unlike the early days of athlon.

      4. Intel's P4 has potential to go to 10 GHz, but that's a moot point because it's not 64bits. It'll run those 32 bit applications blazing fast, but by then there will be a solid 64 bit market which AMD will dominate, unless

      5. Yamhill is released and soon. Given that it takes 3 years to make a solid desige and not a simple hack, yamhill might be released late '04 or early '05. It'll be interesting to see a P4 derived core going against AMD's designs.

      Also, stop knocking AMD for making a chip extending x86. If Intel had made the perfect architechture (and there is not such thing), then what is AMD going to do, make a chip that is incompatible with everything or extend that architechture? And would people still complain as much? Of course, Intel isn't to blame, since they didn't really come up with the architechture, they just took over the design from another company which went under because of it.

    21. Re:Sign...more of the same by Captain+Smooth · · Score: 1

      Read the article. The chip is a 1.6 GHz P4 NORTHWOOD. Not Williamette

      --


      The ability to monopolize an industry is insignificant, next to the power of the source.
    22. Re:Sign...more of the same by Hyped01 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Why do you bother?

      First, Intel literally SCREWS users over. AMD hasnt went that far. Making what they or Intel can off a product is one thing. Changing the PII to Slot I because it is sooo superior to Socket 7 and similar socketed designs (all while hiding the standard type chip in a neat case) and *advertising this* to help cripple AMD's slow creep into your market was absurd. It hurt the market, and it was a lie - as we all (who werent the techie type and already knew) shown when Intel changed back to the socket design.

      Intel released buggy CPU after CPU just to make deadlines and be able to yell "me first!" even when the defects were known (online articles, lawsuits and statements concur).

      As mentioned, "flavor of the month" seems to also be Intel's biggest favorite thing to do to make some extra money off everyone involved... new chipsets all the time, new socket/slot/socket/slot designs (often for the same damn chips). Exhorbitant pricing (while you are claiming AMD would/will do the same but is consistently cheaper on an equal performance level).

      Then there's Eternium... do I even need to go any farther with that buggy, half decade delayed piece of still in the works crap?

      So, nothing personal, but why do you bother? You apparently dont know much about the company you work for. I've worked for some big IBM VARs and seen too much of what Intel really does that I am not permitted to mention here.

      --

      WebMaster:
      BinFeeds
      XXX Thumbnailed Image Newsgroups but

  54. Hmmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have an OC'ed AMD +2000 that ramped up nicely to 2.63GHZ... smokes anything Intel makes currently and cost a few bucks less. Runs rock stable and only required a minimally better heatsink from what came in the packate (though I do have three quite case fans doing an excellent dissipation job). My buddy got his +2000 up to 2.8GHZ solid with a water rig and currently has the highest 3DMark rating online at 15789 marks with his measly Radeon8500LE.

  55. Man, are you off base... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    AMD will be doubling the speed and stepping, with a targe tof 1600 to 2000MHZ. They are also doubling the onboard cache of ClawHammer.

    Intel will have a pure 64bit chip out with 1/2 the 32bit performance of todays PIV (their words mind you). Since it will take years for 32bit apps to disappear, this is a big deal. Their first 64bit chips will come out at 2.4 - 3GHZ, but with half the 32bit performance and only 1/3 the FPU performance since intel worries more about MHZ than individual operation efficiency.

    The ClawHammer should ber 20 - 40% faster out of the gate initially, and AMD has plans to ramp up the speed to 3GHZ by mid summer. Intel has no plans to ramp up speed on their 64bit chip beyond 3.5GHZ in 2003.

    It's all speculation, but get your facts right at least.

  56. It isn't 4-way by moogla · · Score: 1

    Its two seperate two-way motherboards in a single 1U. It even has two seperate power switches and power supplies in the back.

    Heh. I was fooled the first time I saw that too.

    --
    Black holes are where the Matrix raised SIGFPE
  57. Kernel Hackers by alexborges · · Score: 1

    Is the Athlon K7 EVER going to run on Linux properly??????

    Alex

    --
    NO SIG
    1. Re:Kernel Hackers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      Mine (Athlon Thunderbird 1.4Ghz) runs Linux (Slackware 8) extremely well.

    2. Re:Kernel Hackers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It seems to work just fine. What are you talking about?

    3. Re:Kernel Hackers by autechre · · Score: 3, Informative


      You've been living in a cave, right?

      Yes, _some_ Athlon chipsets did have serious problems with early versions of the 2.4 kernel. But this has been fixed for a very long time. I know this, because I'm using one of those chipsets. Be sure that you're actually using a recent kernel, and that you've gotten the latest BIOS updates for your motherboard.

      Also, there were never any problems with running Linux 2.2 on an Athlon.

      --
      WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
    4. Re:Kernel Hackers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      wake up !

  58. Re:Microwave my brains! by jhampson · · Score: 0

    Actually, I prefer think the tube Phantastron tube sounds cooler. And there's always good 'ol Magnetron('Maggie')!

  59. more regulation!!! by meis31337 · · Score: 2, Informative

    A fake newspaper reports:

    Senator F. Bar R-51st state announced the drafting of a new technology bill. It requires that all CPU chips conform to a regulated speed quantifier. This will allow all chips to be able to be easily compared with one another to end industry confusion. The unit, abbreviated IHz (Intel Hertz), was developed by the Intel Corporation. They have lobbied to get this standard, which will be controled and policed by a board of independent persons funded by Intel, adoped into Federal law....

    ughh..

  60. OT: a patch for your sig by caca_phony · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    You may find this might do the trick for especially tough documents "I am so very very very happy that you are so very very nice" verys seperated by line breaks should be dealt with with a tool like ssam, for which newline is just another character (I can't think of a sed hack that would deal with such a situation properly- maybe join two adjacent lines if one contains a very at the end and the next a very at the beginning before the pattern matching?)

    sed 's/very \{very \}+/extremely /g'

    --
    ...and this lie crawls out of its mouth: 'I, the state, am the people.'
    1. Re:OT: a patch for your sig by turgid · · Score: 1

      Thank you very much. As you have sussed out, I am just getting to grips with sed :-)

  61. AMD does not live in that world ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In the real world, where people dont usually just run the few micro-benchmarks Motorola's CPUs excel in, you need high speed execution of long strings of dependent serial instructions ... trying to improve performance by architecture alone runs into diminishing returns awfully fast, only MHz helps there in the end. Thats AMD's bread and butter, and Im pretty sure they realise that.

    As everything in life you can go overboard of course, Intel might have gone a little overboard to one side (too many pipeline stages) but Motorola is too far overboard on the other side to play a part in the high performance processor buessinuess (which is why Apple will probably have to switch to IBM wholesale in the near future, especially with Motorola giving up trying to keep their semiconductor processes competetive for high speed logic).

    AMD probably wont close the MHz gap, but they do not intend to lag it to the same extent as before ...

  62. Shouldn't that say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is Linux ever going to run on the Athlon K7 properly?

  63. I think you are talking loco by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think you have it the other way around. Linux has been designed to work wonderfully with the K7. The problem lies with AMD and Linus. You see, they don't like each other so all Athlons are designed to make Linux look stupid.

    Look it up. It was covered extensively here and almost resulted in a celebrity boxing fight.

  64. Indeed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As AMD has always, making the processor 64 bit only adds little area gates to the design ... there is no reason for them not to cover all the market segments with it, they need the higher clock the longer pipeline supplies but adding a longer pipeline to the K7 would be more effort than its worth.

  65. odd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What's up with the "photographic" screen shots?
    Don't they know about the printscreen button?

  66. Re:I want one already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Don't worry, though. You can still refer to indefinitely long time periods as 'about when the Hurd is released'."

    Or.. 'when Duke Nukem Forever is released.'

  67. call me with the real benchmarks by dutky · · Score: 3, Interesting
    <YAWN> wake me up when someone does a usefull benchmark on these systems. I don't trust proprietary micro-benchmarks and I have no use for Quake III fps numbers. I'd prefer a SPECint/fp score set, but will settle for kernel/gcc/ddd compile times and a stream run. (I don't do enough FP work to propose a poor-man's substitute for SPECfp and the entire question of DB/transaction benchmarking is a tougher nut than I'm willing to crack).

    Still, I'm eagerly awaiting the ClawHammer release. Every x86 box I've built for the last 5 years has been pure AMD, and I've been quite happy with them.

    1. Re:call me with the real benchmarks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > wake me up when someone does a usefull benchmark on these systems

      Why? The Clawhammer is a consumer chip aimed at replacing the Athlon XP. Many consumers run games like Quake3. Other things that consumers do (browse the web, download pr0n, word-processing), can be done on a Celeron 400.

      But I agree, I'd rather see benchmarks between the Opteron (not clawhammer), and p4/Xeon or Itanium.

    2. Re:call me with the real benchmarks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RC5 benchmark is fair., its source is available and for 64 bit it can blow doors of 32 bit chips for a few parts of the code.

      For example apples 2598 dollar dual 1Ghz G4 macintosh gets almost twice the speed of a Dual AMD 1800+.

      the mac gets a Key Rate of 21,129,654

      a high end dual AMD 1800+ AMD gets only 10,807,034 or half the speed.

      check out the official rc5 web site for more details.

      Its source is avaialble and relevent.

      ByteMark is also a great test. its 10 different benckmarks aggregated and listed discretely.

    3. Re:call me with the real benchmarks by dutky · · Score: 2
      wake me up when someone does a usefull benchmark on these systems
      Why? The Clawhammer is a consumer chip aimed at replacing the Athlon XP. Many consumers run games like Quake3.

      Well, that's find for them, but it's of no help to me (who doesn't run Quake). Besides, what makes anyone think that frame-rates in Quake are primarily dependant on CPU speed? Maybe they are, but I suspect that AGP bandwidth and the polygon drawing rate of your video card are more important.

      For what I use my x86 boxen for, SPECint and stream are pretty close to perfect benchmarks, and, I would think, for most users, the same benchmarks would be pretty good measures of the fitness of one CPU verses another. My real complaint isn't that Quake III isn't a usefull benchmark for some user's, but that it doesn't really measure CPU performance. You might as well tell me which machine rolls downhill faster or better survives a drop from the third floor.

      The folks doing Quake III fps benchmarking aren't using it becuase it measures the anything important, but because it is the only tool they have: they are driving screws with a hammer. That wouldn't be such a bad thing, except for the fact that better benchmarks are readilly available. Why should I listen to someone who is clearly too ignorant to even choose appropriate tools?

  68. New AMD is defective at RC5 compared to Mac? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hope the final mask of this AMD is no longer defective at RC5 tests compared to Mac?
    A dual g4 mac totally blows away every 2002 workstation at up to four times the macs cost!

    A sub-three thousand dollar Apple Mac gets a sustained RC5 benchmark keyrate of 21,129,654.

    A dual 1800+ AMD MP usually gets only HALF! 10,807,034 rc5 keys !!!!

    I Have no idea if people have run a benchmark to see if the defects have been remedied. The source to the core of RC5 is downloadable, as is the source for the Altivec portions used on Macs.

    The dual G4 1Ghz macs also have a L3 cache that might help with RC5 key cracking.

    Amazing still.... even touching cold memory AMD is slower than mac for writing coupled with some
    reading according to memperf

    here's RC5 Processor Comparison
    Processor MHz CPU's Key Rate

    PowerPC G4 1000 2 21,129,654
    DEC Alpha 21264 725 8 11,536,680
    AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1533 2 10,807,034
    Intel Pentium 3 1333 2 7,559,280
    Intel Xeon 1000 2 5,835,597
    Intel Pentium 4 1800 2 4,870,420
    Sun UltraSparc III 750 2 2,977,968
    Sun UltraSparc II 450 2 1,458,333

    People seriously need to start paying respect to the 2999 dollar gual g4 mac with dvd-R DVD-ram burner.

    For binary only code though, most binaries are more optimally hand optimized for intel world obviously, but if you can get control of code to compile yourself then look out!

    1. Re:New AMD is defective at RC5 compared to Mac? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      FYI: slashdot code seems to have ruined the bench chart columns.. should have used html I suppose

    2. Re:New AMD is defective at RC5 compared to Mac? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > People seriously need to start paying respect to the 2999 dollar gual g4 mac with dvd-R DVD-ram burner.

      You forget that you can build a dual Athlon XP 2100+ box that will outperform that for nearly a thousand dollars less.

    3. Re:New AMD is defective at RC5 compared to Mac? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You said "You forget that you can build a dual Athlon XP 2100+ box that will outperform"

      how will it outperform it.. if a dual 1800+ AMD yields a poor RC5 benchmark score of half the speed of the dual Motorola MPC 7455 equipped macs being sold, how will a sinlge chip 2100+ outperform a dual 1800+ MP AMD?

      It wont.

      The mac is the same price (or cheaper if GigE latency is paramount) and even if the mac costs a little more, its so much faster that you would need to buy two complete amd dual 1800+ systems to get the speed of one mac for the RC5 benchmark.

      i welcome this hammer chip... it has 64 bit features that should help on RC5... the same way apple benefits from 64 bit altivec.

    4. Re:New AMD is defective at RC5 compared to Mac? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > How will it outperform it.. if a dual 1800+ AMD yields a poor RC5 benchmark score of half the speed of the dual

      He was talking about real world (tm) apps, not synthetic benchmarks like RC5.

    5. Re:New AMD is defective at RC5 compared to Mac? by Hoser+McMoose · · Score: 1

      The dual G4 1Ghz macs also have a L3 cache that might help with RC5 key cracking.

      L3 isn't going to do squat for RC5 key cracking. RC5 key cracking is a VERY small algorithm that fits entirely into the L1 cache of a processor. It uses only a handful of instructions VERY often. Basically it comes down to how well a processor is optimized at one or two very specific instructions.

      RC5 numbers tell you exactly ONE thing, how good the processor is at RC5 key cracking. It tells you exactly NOTHING about how good the chip will do anything else because no other code is at all like those d.net clients. It doesn't even relate at all to any other encryption type code. Similarly, Seti@Home isn't much better, since it basically just tests how good a chip is at doing FFTs, ie it tests how good a general purpose chip is at acting like a DSP. This might have a very minor relevance to things like AC'97 audio and stuff like that, but that takes such a tiny fraction of a modern CPU's processing power that it's not worth worrying about anyway.

      Long story short, Quake 3 isn't a very good benchmark to compare chips with, but it's a hell of a lot better then RC5 numbers are. Unless you buy a computer for the sole purpose of getting a high score on d.net's stats page, RC5 numbers are pretty much worthless.

  69. highly inefficient ? by CavemanKiwi · · Score: 1

    Which one uses more electricity / produces more heat? . Hence uses more fossil fuel AMD... which has worst price for performance Intel ... So what type of efficiency are you talking about?

  70. Re:Microwave my brains! by h3llphyre · · Score: 0

    Yes, the CPU does emit 2.4Ghz, but there is a HUGE difference between a CPU and a microwave oven emitting 2.4Ghz. Its the power. A CPU doesnt have the power that a microwave does, therefor, there is no concern of cooking anything by way of the waves themselves. Now, put something on top of the CPU without a heatsink and you will be cooking.

  71. Re:Not the best architecture Check out RC5! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I agree. The risc based Mac Dual G4 gets a sustained RC5 key rate of 21,129,654 while most AMDs with two current high end AMD CPUs get about half that rate.

    Surely CISC cant be the best solution anymore... Though the G5 has over twice as many opcodes as any cisc in history ever did, but RISC definition keeps changing over the years.

    nevertheless, the new macs asre cheap and astounding. Top500.org is heavy on representation of PowerPC clusters.

  72. some things to ponder about. by john_uy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    i just find it weird for the community to really compare the new hammer with the p4 product line of intel. if the main reason behind the hammer is to directly compete in the server line, then it should be the hammer vs itanium2 vs sparc vs pa-risc vs alpha vs powerpc. if you are going to compare it with p4, a professional will not even take you seriously.

    why use a some low form benchmark. although i understand that the current systems are in prototype, the benchmark should reflect something of the server world including but not limited to tpc, spec, etc. i would really love seeing the performance of hammer in a oracle/sql/db2 or other database benchmark. i would love seeing the hammer handling ssl transactions and others.

    with regards to amd using x86 with compatibility to 32bit, would it be dumb if you would run some non native applications? this means that amd anticipates that companies will not optimize their software to run on pure 64bit platform. this may be an indication that the initial design is not intended for the server product line. running 64bit does not make you compete in the server arena!!!!! the server market is a very different ball game compared to the consumer - cpu is not the prime reason.

    and x86 is obsolete. it is not the efficient out there so it is time for a major change in the hardware world.

    --
    Live your life each day as if it was your last.
    1. Re:some things to ponder about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This CPU IS for the consumer market - the Clawhammer is the DESKTOP CPU. Therefore, desktop applications are totally relevant

      The Opeterons are the Server versions.

      Get your facts strait.

    2. Re:some things to ponder about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > i just find it weird for the community to really compare the new hammer with the p4 product line of intel.

      No, the article compared the Clawhammer, which is going to be the next Athlon. It will replace the Athlon XP, and therefore will compete with the p4. It is not weird at all, and I don't see why anyone could see it as weird.

      What you are talking about is the Opteron (formerlly the Sledgehammer), which will be a server chip.

    3. Re:some things to ponder about. by Knobby · · Score: 2

      if the main reason behind the hammer is to directly compete in the server line, then it should be the hammer vs itanium2 vs sparc vs pa-risc vs alpha vs powerpc

      Not PowerPC but Power.. The PowerPC chips are nice low power chips that work well in embedded applications and desktop/laptop machines. The Power chips are the real server chips..

    4. Re:some things to ponder about. by Sivar · · Score: 2

      Please, do a little more research, or read messages which explain this several times, before criticizing.

      The Clawhammer is NOT designed for the server market, but for the consumer market (where the majority of income is derived from)

      Were this a comparison of a quad Opteron system, then a comparison with the Itanium would be a good idea.

      Also note that Intel markets the Xeon, which is a Pentium IV, as a server chip--and it outperforms the Itanium in nearly every benchmark.

      --
      Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
    5. Re:some things to ponder about. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The ClawHammer IS the 8th generation architecture that will be desktop oriented, so it precisely the rght CPU to be testing against the P4. There is some speculation on larger cache versions which may go up against Xeon's, and it's the SledgeHammer that will be going toe to toe against McKinley's. Note, even AMD themselves have admitted that for some applications, McKinley will be better suited than the Sledge`.

      However, given price-to-performance ratios, I think Intel will have to do some serious price-battles to compete.

      The REAL issue to ponder tha tI haven't really seen anyone address is whether AMD can actually manufacture these processors at a given speed. Although AMD has 6 months to play with, I wonder if they can crank up the raw clock speed? Look at how long it took Intel to get Merced up to speed (and still is). The same thing happened to AMD with the original K6...they had some serious manufacturing and process issues that made them lag behind in processor speed. I seriously hope this isn't the case.

      I think AMD's biggest question mark is manufacturing, not processor performance.

  73. Re: Reasons for 64 bits by Ayende+Rahien · · Score: 2

    6GB has table?
    You've better have a *really* big memory, or you'll suffer terrible performance due to pagin.

    --

    --
    Two witches watched two watches.
    Which witch watched which watch?
  74. Itanium is more an HP than an Intel processor by krynos · · Score: 1

    Look at this: Itanium back in '95 at the end of section HP Technical Briefing Report, and you'll see the talk about the PA9000 processor, a VLIW based processor. In fact the Itanium is much more similar to PA-RISC (could be called PA-RISC 3.0) than to the x86. PA-RISC developpement had been based on need while maintaining a clean architecture. There is also MIPS that architecture changes are apporved by a comitee as another way of design.

    1. Re:Itanium is more an HP than an Intel processor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is common knowledge that McKinley is an HP project. What happened is that HP thought up an idea for a chip, Merced, but didnt want to be a chipmaker, so they approached Intel to help design and create it. As that went along, 5-6 years, it became clear to HP that the chip was not going as planned, so they started a skunkworks creating a cleaner better version. Eventually that went well enough that they brought it too to Intel, and that version is what we see here as McKinley.

      Poor Intel, people are bringing it CPU designs to mess up and delay ;)

  75. Intel should have bought Alpha years earlier ... by BitMan · · Score: 5, Informative

    As a fellow ECE, I'll give Intel a mark in the "innovative" column on IA-64. But the concepts of predication, EPIC and compiler-time optimizations we're NOT good enough to even make the new architecture competitive when not considering x86 compatibility. And Intel needs to be smacked for all those stupid extensions -- it's funny to see AMD accomodating them with less effort than Intel.

    Alpha has always been the "64-bit RISC of RISCs" and they had binary translation techology c/o FX!32 so Linux/x86, NT/x86 and VMS/VAX apps could run on Linux/Alpha, NT/Alpha and VMS/Alpha, respectively. It was not only original, but using binary translation on the same OS, but different architecture, works far better for compatibility in software than general (any OS) architectural compatibility in hardware/microcode! With Alpha 364 at 0.13um would be kicking IA-64 butt. I mean, 3-year old Alpha 264 0.25um processors beat IA-64 at the same clock speeds!

    Anyhoo, as a fellow EE/ECE, please read this post I made a few weeks ago and let me know what you think. It is entitled "How AMD and its partners are putting x86 back on the right track ... ". IA-64 was an ideal and novel concept, one that is not so good based in reality where good branch prediction is better than predication, and run-time optimization is just as important as compile-time. The Alpha 364 team predicted the "problems" with IA-64, which came true.

    --
    -- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
    Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
  76. Tiny Skillet by simetra · · Score: 1

    This would be cool. Get a really tiny skillet, remove your heat-sink/fan whatever cooling device, put the skillet on the cpu, put a drop of pancake batter in the skillet, and cook yourself a genuine CPU pancake.

    Make about 1000 of these, and you'll have a nice breakfast.

    Now That Would Be Cool.

    --

    "Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
  77. Re:Microwave my brains! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's hammer time!

  78. Not True (price details enclosed) ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not True (your claim that pc can be much cheaper than this 1ghz dual mac)....

    ClubMac,.com has a rebate and apple has a second rebate : $2598 and thats with the 330 dollar DVD-R 2x burner for the 2598 price.

    I went to http://www.monarchcomputer.com and TRIED to get the cheapest desirable dual MP system a couple nights ago with same features as a mac.

    Price now is 2067.75 for a 512MB dual system with 4 64 bit PCI slots (same as macs PCI):

    194.00 Case : 1000135 - FS-710 PW Enermax BB-1030 ATX 460 Watt NMB (for Tyan Tiger S2460)
    168.00 Motherboard : 110533 - Tyan Tiger S2460
    262.00 CPU : 120605 - AMD Athlon MP 2000+ 266 FSB
    262.00 CPU : 120605 - AMD Athlon MP 2000+ 266 FSB
    32.00 CPU : 132969 - AOC EC -CUC-610 Copper base CPU Cooler
    32.00 CPU : 132969 - AOC EC -CUC-610 Copper base CPU Cooler
    134.00 RAM - 140826-2 - 512MB Corsair DDR 2100 [if they have in stock, otherwise 189 elsewhere]
    15.00 Sound Card : 180201 ESS Maestro-2 3D PCI
    159.00 Hard disk : 152509 IBM 82.3 GB Hard disk 7200 RPM (apple uses 7200 rpm)
    159.00 OS Installed : 210103 Windows 2000 Pro OEM (allows Multiple CPUs)
    99.00 Video card : 190623 ATI Radeon 7500 Dual Head 64MB AGP 1920*1200 (same as apples)

    47.00 GigE card : Ark Soho-GA2500T 64 (only 610 Mbps max, but cheapest 64 card using dp83820)
    [the latency is 10 times slower than a 416 dollar .000025 second 938.7mbps Syskonnect SK9821 ]
    ($47 with shipping from http://shop.store.yahoo.com/elementsources/)

    389.00 Superdrive : Pioneer DVR-103 (DVD-R/CD-RW) + Shipping = www.nxgenstore.com
    56.00 Firewire : Belkin 3PORT PCI (Retail) All ports powerred (6 pin ports) + ship. = cruxworks.com
    11.00 USB Keyboard : MACREX SG-2000 USB KEYBOARD + shipping = mypccity.com
    24.75 Optical Mouse : Logitech Optical Wheel Mouse USB/PS2 (Bulk) + shipping = Alvio.com
    24.00 USB card : 1.1 4 PORT PCI adapter RETAIL BOX (Tyan tiger usb defective still?) + ship =
    www.pcbay.net, (if tyan not buggy still, then drop the 24 dollar card)

    ====================
    2067.75 dollars , latest May 14th prices.

    Apple is only 2,598 as of May 14th, and is worth almost every penny of the higher price.

    The mac is not much more money than a high end dual AMD at all! And performs almost twice as fast in certain benchmarks such as RC5.

    Anyways, Thats slightly more than 500 dollars more for the mac. And does not require ordering from seven
    different sources to buy it... just one source , club mac.

    Other than cutting out the cost of the pc's OS (which also entitles proper setup and warrantee), what else
    can you shave off? Not much. I used the best prices I could find.

    Plus Apples lowlatency to its non-PCI GigE chip is probably only bested by a 416 dollar Syskonnect
    SK9821 which has one tenth the latency of other PCI GigE cards.

    Of course you would need to buy TWO of those PeeCees to beat the RC5 key cracking speed of Apples
    Dual G4 computer.

    The mac is still the fastest sub-7000 dollar computer for RC5, and its only 2598!

    Macs offer a generous high speed 2 MB level three cache while AMDs are cheaper and have no level 3
    cache at all. That might be why macs are nearly TWICE as fast as high end dual AMD systems.

    The temperature of the G$ 1 Ghz ia cool enough to put them in pairs in standard airflow rackmount... AMD cannot safely do so because of tremendous heat problems. Apple chareges extra for the DDRmemory rackmount with its dual Gige. Not worth the bucks for that configuration.. even for the cool blue led cpu meters.

  79. Re:Not the best architecture Check out RC5! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Though the G5 has over twice as many opcodes as any cisc in history ever did, but RISC definition
    keeps changing over the years.


    NO. RISC's definition isn't changing. RISC's definition, by those who grokked the concept as opposed to those who learned of the concept from marketing material, has never meant low number of opcodes. ( that may have been somewhat of a side effect characteristic of the design philosophy, but merely a side effect if instruction set's domain was limited.).


    RISC was philosophy of having a non baroque set of opcodes (polynomials, every addressing mechanism under the sun, etc.) , minizming wierdo registers, and minimizing to a set of "first principle operations". The last does NOT mean there is a small number of first principle operations. The PowerPC has SIMD operations along with more usual operations. Those are orthoganal to each other, so "more" does not necessarily more "complex".


    In short, "Reduced" is in contrast to "Complex" not "Number". RISC suffers more from being a clever acronym that marketing found appealing, not from a changing definition.


    Go to google groups.... look in comp.arch for John Mashey about the early 90's ( back when comp.arch had a substantially higher signal to noise ratio).
    Or read an Hennesy and Patterson book.

  80. Re:Server Chips or not by Raffzahn · · Score: 1

    I realy don't care if a CPU is supposed to be used in a Server or a Wrist Watch. If it gives me the power I want, I buy it.

    Gruss
    H.
    (And after all, there are wrist watches around with a higher price tag than servers :)

  81. More AMD FUD by TheAwfulTruth · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Great. Compare the latest generation AMD processor with a first generation P4.

    Let's see the the thing benchmarked against at least the latest p4 2.53/512/533/1066 system. (Available TODAY) and then lets benchmark it against the latest Intel system when the thing actually ships which by then may be a p4 3.0/512/600/1200 system.

    This is pure smoke and mirrors by a few AMD zealots. The Mac benchmarks that "prove" that a PPC chip is 4x faster than a p4 have continuously been shot down by anyone actually taking a look at the results with a little perspective. Now here we go with AMD...

    --
    Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
    1. Re:More AMD FUD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      have you paid no attention to anything said?? this was done quickly, it is a locked speed, and it was one benchmark on quake3. while it is nice to get an idea of it's performance, this is by no means a thourough set of results. I am sure it will be tested against Intel's latest and greatest poorly optimized chip eventually. sure the chip was only 800Mhz but what does that say for your P4 ?? all along amd has outperformed faster pentiums with lower clock speeds so it wouldn't surprise me that this is tue as well

    2. Re:More AMD FUD by TheAwfulTruth · · Score: 1

      That's EXACTLY what I meant! It means nothing and yet it's being reported everywhere that it kicks the p4's ass and everyone is beliving it. No one else in this thread has bothered to look at the test objectively and say "Wait a minute, why were these two things even compared?". But I did and got knocked down to 0 for it.

      An as for what is says about "my" p4 is that yes, last years first gen P4 wasn't so hot. But this is NEW tech, it should have at least been compared to the latest p4 tech if it was going to be compared at all.

      --
      Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
  82. Hey Stoopid! by Alan+Partridge · · Score: 1

    I was J O K I N G

    --
    That was classic intercourse!
  83. Re:Microwave my brains! by kesuki · · Score: 2

    Apparently you haven't been reading the intel 'roadmap' for CPU performance/temperature. they've estimated that within ten years heat dissipation requirements on a CPU will be in the 1000 watt range. Already a modern CPU is almost double the heat displacment of an Easy bake oven. We've all laughed at the guy who cooked an egg on his Athlon, but you do have a good point. the case on a computer would provide more than adequate shielding, not to mention the heat sink. However, even if a 2400 mhz CPU was kicking out 100 watts of microwave energy it still would be barely enough to defrost a chicken. Most of the wasted wattage is converted to heat, not radio or microwave, so truly this is a non-issue.

  84. Re:(insult I won't repeat) by caca_phony · · Score: 1

    me too :P

    --
    ...and this lie crawls out of its mouth: 'I, the state, am the people.'
  85. 64-Bit Windows XP?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I mean honestly, will anyone pay for this?

  86. keeping x86 might not be optimal, but... by The+Wooden+Badger · · Score: 1

    AMD hit the nail on the head (sorry, no pun intended, really) by keeping it around. Intel basically said screw everyone; buy new everything. AMD basically said we're going to ween you. Rather than making the chip with the best absolute architecture, they made one that gives us a giant step toward a better architecture without really delivering a big financial hit. I love it. Strategically giving a lesser product to set us up for a better one down the road when were all on 64 bit processing.

    --
    Heroscape, it's like legos combined with anachronistic wargames.
  87. definition of beowulf cluster by IndependentVik · · Score: 1

    By the way what exactly is a beowulf cluster?

    Read this.

    --
    I'd suggest you don't use Slashdot as your only news source, or you will suffer permanent brain damage.
  88. This is why I'd buy Intel by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I agree with the original poster. I'm a regular guy who is up on tech to the degree that I knew I wanted a tbird 900mhz, but not so much that I had trusted sources for anectodal information about system reliability. So I surfed the web, read review sites and chose the components for my system. It included a Gigabyte MB using a VIA chipset.
    Nothing but pain. Took a few weeks to finally give up on all the driver fixes, AGP bios tweaks, bios updates, 4-in-1s, etc and just exchange the MB. First problem was solved (lockup during d3d). Next problems include IDE data corruption (on the order of 1 byte per 600 MB burned to a CD), spontaneous reboots with their subsequent data corruption, and various other flakes.

    I spent literally at least 60 hours over the last year and a half researching fixes, installing new drivers/tweaks, and reinstalling my OS and programs every time my harddrive took a fatal dump (missing hive files).

    Recently, I said "fuck it" and bought a Dell. Not very "hard core", but I never had problems with Dells before (likely because of the Intel CPU and chipset). For this reason, if features or price ever prompted me to build a system again, I would be very very sceptical of not going the Intel route. My time is too valuable. Maybe the Asus MBs are good, but then again the Gigabyte MB was supposed to be good. Maybe the new VIA chips are OK, but the chipset I used was supposed to be good. Sometimes I think any computer that will run Quake long enough to get a benchmark is "good enough" for the overclocker fanboy types.

  89. Re: Reasons for 64 bits by Rebar · · Score: 1

    Yes, you are so right. 8GB on that particular machine. That's my entire point -- you just can't do that on a 32 bit platform (without segmentation schemes that for all I know don't exist).

  90. Le ameure??? by nortcele · · Score: 1

    Wasn't that where they had the Olympics a while back. Dave's mom was there. I'm sure of it.

    So AMD named their new chip after an Olympic city... hmmm who woulda thunk it.

    1. Re:Le ameure??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Almost. I think you are confusing the 92 games in Albertville (France) and the 94 games in Lillehammer (Norway)

      By the way. Lillehammer means Little Hammer, so maby they'll use it to name a laptop edition of the chip.

  91. Ludicrious! by Timmeh · · Score: 1

    That would be ridiculous, no one could claim rights to a generic word like 'hammer', I mean, that's like claiming no one can use the word 'door' or 'windows'. Oh wait...

  92. RISC is not 'pure geek' IMO. by vovin · · Score: 1

    I disagree. From a pure geek perspective I never bought off on the idea of RISC. It's a damn stupid idea. CISC is by far the best performing architecture. With RISC you push the complexity into software, which means that your programs are larger, and therefore put a larger stress on IO. This is the opposite of what you want. You want to limit the number of and the redundancy of your instruction set. Use IO to move data, not instructions. This is what vector computing is all about. MMX/SSE/3D-Now et. al are a limited implimentation of vector instructions.

    1. Re:RISC is not 'pure geek' IMO. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At least you have a good sense of humor

      "CISC is by far the best performing architecture "

      eddie murphy could use you for a writer

    2. Re:RISC is not 'pure geek' IMO. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You almost sound like you know what you are talking about...

    3. Re:RISC is not 'pure geek' IMO. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let me summarise your argument: RISC is slower then CISC because it has to spend so much of its IO bandwidth fetching instructions.

      This isn't true overall, mainly because instructions cache so well. Each instruction typically executes many times and doesn't have to be fetched from memory each time. Memory accesses for data typically outnumber those for code by an order of magnitude, even on RISC.

      RISC really is faster. For example, Alpha's always been the fastest processor. The main reason Intel's processors have been competitive is that they have the best fabrication plants (because they have the most money). On the other hand, the instruction set has become much less important to overall performance in recent times and x86 processors have begun to resemble RISC internally, so the RISC v CISC debate is largely moot.

  93. give credit where it's due by DietFluffy · · Score: 1

    The benchmarks were not done by Ace's Hardware. Ace Hardware merely provides a summary and link to the actual article at tecchannel.de. These were the ones who got their hands on the chip and did the benchmarking.

  94. Hammer talk on Linux Tag by thorsen · · Score: 2

    This is slightly off-topic and a shameless plug, but it might be interesting to people visiting Linux Tag.

    I'm giving a talk saturday at 14.00 about the hammer (a.k.a. x86-64), talking about the machine and whats in it. I will also tell a lot about how the port was done, how we worked with AMD and so on.

    I worked on binutils, gcc and all sorts of other porting for SuSE over the last 18 months.

    If you have any questions related to the hammer on Linux, come talk to me at the show or send me an email.

    Bo Thorsen,
    bo at suse dot de

    1. Re:Hammer talk on Linux Tag by Sivar · · Score: 2

      Sure, sounds great:

      A) How difficult was it to port the software? What was the most difficult? The least? Why?

      B) How fast does it compile compared to an AthlonXP?

      C) Does it look like GCC will be reasonably good at optimizing for the Athlon64 such that the actual performance increase is reasonably close to the theoretical (whatever the theoretical might be)?

      D) Need any help? ;-)

      --
      Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
  95. Re:Intel has a Big Problem (umm.. no) by JPriest · · Score: 2

    Difference being that the ClawHammer will come out at about 1GHz and the Willamette will then be at the 3Ghz mark, and soon be replaced by the 90 nanometer Prescot introduced with a 667 FSB and a 3.2GHz clock speed. AMD has recently run into some performance and heat problems with their next line of .13 micron 32 bit CPU's despite the smaller die and reduced power requirements. The processor (x86) offers little performance gain over its additional Athlon XP line that is at its max potential (as opposed the 10GHz max potential of the existing P4 line). The Itanium 2 benchmarks show a great deal of potential as well. I wouldn't say AMD has Intel's processors beat. I think Intel will pull a sufficient lead on AMD over the next 6 months.

    --
    Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
  96. I wish you leaved your contact by lingqi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think it is very honorable (can't find a better word) that you are supporting your company, and I am fully aware that yes, given the choice, AMD will over-charge for their processors too -- BUT:

    1) Intel's tactics, previously *and* recently, has not been too wise. one of the most important of this in RAMBUS: Intel basically said that (back in the first days when RAMBUS came out) we are going forward w/ RAMBUS. everyone knows that it's a M$-like move, everyone knows that it's b/c intel is getting a huge chunck of $$ from RAMBUS, and nobody liked it. Did Intel care? no; in fact, Intel stopped licensing VIA for making SDRAM / DDR chipsets; People like me looked around -- who is supporting DDR? well, AMD is...

    2) Technically, Hammer makes more sense: sorry but from a user point of view (user as in programmer, IT admin, etc) -- Hammer makes like easier than IA-64; i mean, if you are gonna make such a drastic move away from IA32 (which, i admit, sucks bad), then do it slowly! What is the difference between migrating from IA-32 to IA-64 vs. say, alpha / solaris / whatever? not a whole lot -- pretty much everything needs to be redone. i mean, i still get the Intel sticker, but what's the difference there?

    3) sorry but people has an tendency to cheer the under-dog; fact of life... i remember back then everyone cheered for NVIDIA when 3dfx was "king", now-a-days people still respects NVDA, but does not cheer for them anymore because they are now a status-quo -- they are expected to be one top -- but any move of the underdogs: ATI radeon / matrox paphelia (sp? heck, where they come up w/ this anyway) / Kryo(?) gets recognition. it's like a fight - will the new comer defeat the champion? we are geeks -- not much soap opera in our life, so this is the subsitute.

    So... yes given the opportunity, would AMD do the same as Intel (rambus, etc)? maybe -- but i actually think AMD CEO is wiser than that -- he is a cool guy, btw -- visit any AMD facility and you can see his indiana-jones parody poster -- it's pretty cool. but we never know; but one thing is for sure -- if AMD ever gets on top, there will be probabbly a lot of cheer for intel for making attempts at the "de-throning"

    last point, AMD is not TEXAS based. they are in SAN JOSE, CA. addr is something like 1 AMD lane or something.... get it straight people.

    again, I would like to see your counter-arguments, if there are any. it's not fun writing without knowledge that there would be some reply.

    -LQ

    --

    My life in the land of the rising sun.

    1. Re:I wish you leaved your contact by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is the original AC responded, and I appreciate your calm well thought out response.

      1. Seems you forgot that AMD did originally say they would support RAMBUS, then quietly rescinded when Tom Pabst stirred up a controversy. Most people don't understand that Intel has investments with almost ALL memory manufacturers. Not just RAMBUS.

      2. I guess this is a difference of opinion. Move slow and you all hate us...move fast and you'll all hate us. Intel made a decision and went for it.

      3. Agreed. But I wouldn't consider AMD, a company with a 3 billion dollar market cap, a underdog. Transmeta, now THERE is an underdog.

    2. Re:I wish you leaved your contact by Buck2 · · Score: 1

      > Transmeta, now THERE is an underdog.

      No, they are an alternate warrior in the background doing their own thing, like the green suits in GI Joe cartoons.

      They have to be pitching a battle with someone else directly before they're an underdog.

      --

      As my father lik@(munch munch)... ....
    3. Re:I wish you leaved your contact by lingqi · · Score: 1

      cool; thanks for the reply:

      Tom Pabst stirred up a controversy -- but I do not think he was the only one; sorry to say it -- but nobody in the memory business liked RAMBUS -- and i think pretty much the idea is AMD caught on the idea, and Intel got stuck w/ a contract; this sentence pretty much sums up RAMBUS:
      who (mem. manufactures) wants to pay 2% royalty when DRAM is a business w/ a 1% margin?

      Well... as for move fast / slow -- I agree that it's an opinion and nothing more -- but i still have faith that it is an opinion based on reason; yes the industry has called for the end of IA-32 since the beginning of, well, IA-32 -- but then, i think everyone pretty much hoped that the cut was done 10 years ago -- not in 2002-2004 time frame, when *everything* was already invested into it. i mean -- intel survived and choked on the golden handcuff of back-compatibility for so long, i don't really think anyone expected this sort of "cut it all off" strategy -- again, from a USER / IT point of view, hammer makes more sense because it gives the software more time to move away, instead of massive cold-turkey. the capital investment in the intel case (software) would be tremendous;

      lastly -- between transmeta and AMD -- hey i cheer for transmeta -- in fact i really wish there were more of their handhelds around so i don't have to carry 10 lb of laptop that only lasts for... i dunno, 1.5 hours; but as for AMD -- 3 bil is a small piece of the market pie -- and they have near zero penetration in the "low end server" segment; their desktop share is growing, but still much less than intel -- i would say (again, opinion only) that this would qualify as an underdog; Flash memory side -- maybe not, i think intel and AMD is on par -- but then nobody really looks at flash memroy and cheer their technological advances. ha. =)

      --

      My life in the land of the rising sun.

  97. its funny by Skuld-Chan · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But while temping at Intel I got the impression that AMD was no good, not even in giving Intel employees huge discounts on P3's (which at the time was their flagship product) - I even got into an argument with a technician who couldn't understand how AMD chips reduced the prices on Intel chips.

    Not to mention such discussions were met with violent disagreement. If you said you had an AMD system in an interview you could kiss that job good bye.

    I also got the impression talking to people that if Intel executives had this master button that said "get rid of amd" that no-one would even hesitate to push it. Despite the fact that AMD pushes Intel to move faster (and visa versa). Just compare all the time between the P90 (which I recall coming out in 92 and costing over 900$), PPro, and P2.

    Why the worry?

    There are geeks like me who have been screwed by intel's buggy processors (somewhere around here I have a 500$ P90 that has an fdiv bug in it - after much haggeling on the phone I never did get it replaced), and their high prices. But I still have Intel systems floating around here, as well as a few sparc, and a few amd machines.

    AMD is the underdog - they made X86 compatible CPU's without reverse-engineering (yes its true! do the research), they made intel's cpu's for a very long time and I for one think its kinda neet that a company like AMD despite all the flack Intel has given them has made chips that perform comparibly with Intel's chips - which is probably why slashdotians favor them in discussion boards.

  98. why i cheer amd by Indy1 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Quick background:


    I am a long time system designer /upgrader / hardware IT geek. I've been working on Amd /Intel boxes since the 386 days. One reason why I cheer for Amd is that in the past few years, Intel seems bent on dragging all of us back into the 286 days of hardware being propeirty. Slot 1, Rdram memory interfaces, etc. Amd seems to have more of a commitment to sticking to industry standards, like (at the time) socket 7, sdram, ddr, etc.


    Another reason why i tend to prefer Amd is the cynical marketing processor known as the P-4. The vast majority of benchmarks show that unless your running software thats heavily SSE-2 optimized, the Athlon's spank the P-4. Yet the P-4's are much more $$$$ due to all those wonderful Intel commercials with dancing morons in bunny suits, or some smucks painted up like a martian with a bad head cold. Instend of wasting all that money marketing, use it to improve your designs! Amd spends virtually nothing on marketing, and yet whenever they have a good design, their products sell extremely well. And dont get me started on intel's late ddr support, or the earily 845 chipsets that were sdram only, which had PATHETIC performace.



    I guess the point of my whole rant is......I use Intel or Amd, or whoever, as long as they give me a good value for my (or my customer's) dollar. Give me a nice industry standard design. Dont foist some new marketing propierty design on me. If its gotta be propierty, it better be for one of two reasons: Considerably cheaper, or considerably faster. Intel in the past few years has NOT focused on giving the customer value. Amd has. Give me a 1000 dollars, and I can build either an Intel box, or an Amd box thats 20% faster then the Intel box, and just as stable. (I dont buy the Amd isnt stable arguement, it all comes down to knowing your hardware and how to configure it properly for stable operation.)


    When Intel returns to delivering a product that is worth the price Intel charges for it, I'll use Intel again. Until then, I'll continue to laugh at ridiculous marketing schemes and do my research on which product is the fastest for the least money.

    --
    Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
    1. Re:why i cheer amd by scot4875 · · Score: 1

      I am a long time system designer /upgrader / hardware IT geek. I've been working on Amd /Intel boxes since the 386 days. One reason why I cheer for Amd is that in the past few years, Intel seems bent on dragging all of us back into the 286 days of hardware being propeirty. Slot 1, Rdram memory interfaces, etc. Amd seems to have more of a commitment to sticking to industry standards, like (at the time) socket 7, sdram, ddr, etc.

      I'm not exactly an Intel fan, but this is just a dumb argument.

      Want to upgrade your P2/P3 to an athlon? You'll need a new motherboard, new memory, new processor.

      Want to upgrade to a P4? You'll need a new motherboard, new memory, new processor...

      So who cares what standard they use? And how is slot-A any less proprietary than slot 1? It simply doesn't matter that much.

      --Jeremy

      --
      Jesus was a liberal
    2. Re:why i cheer amd by Buck2 · · Score: 1

      proprietary

      --

      As my father lik@(munch munch)... ....
    3. Re:why i cheer amd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slot A wouldn't exist if Intel hadn't patented the Slot 1 design. AMD chips and Intel chips would work in the same motherboards (like they did back in the days of Socket7 boards).

    4. Re:why i cheer amd by Jim+Norton · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I'm not exactly an Intel fan, but this is just a dumb argument. Want to upgrade your P2/P3 to an athlon? You'll need a new motherboard, new memory, new processor. Want to upgrade to a P4? You'll need a new motherboard, new memory, new processor...

      Let's expand on your counter-argument, shall we?

      Let's go back to when AMD was sticking to Socket 7 and Intel was moving away from Socket 7/Socket 8 and into Slot I/Slot II territory

      Let's say you had a P133 and you wanted to upgrade to a faster CPU. You could either get a Pentium MMX 233 (which I believe the P1 topped at, but they may have made a 266 MHz version) or upgrade your motherboard and get a PII CPU (if you absolutely had to have Intel.)

      AMD didn't do this. They stuck with socket 7 and provided an upgrade path to a much better CPU. Mind you the K6's had their flaws but I ran one for years and it wasn't all that bad. Nice stability. It was a bit on the hot side, but it provided acceptable performance in games.

      So what was the reason that Intel abandoned socket 7 anyway? At the time it was widely believed that Intel was doing it to move people away from AMD CPU's because they would not be able to use that architecture.

      In a nutshell, Intel has changed their architecture (Socket 7 -> Slot I -> Socket 370 -> Socket 420 -> Socket 478) FOUR times since the end of the P1 days. AMD has changed it twice, first going to Slot A and then to Socket A ... which currently has an upgrade path all the way from the low-end Thunderbirds to the Thoroughbred when it is released sometime before the end of the year.

      I personally think AMD provides a better upgrade path. Even if you upgrade your board to get a better chipset you won't need to scrap your PC2100 DDR RAM to do it. But what's going to happen when Intel officially drops RDRAM support from their product line? As far as i'm concerned standards DO matter, especially if they are open standards that every CPU maker can conform to which gives the consumer more choice. AMD decided to create Slot A to make it easier for motherboard manufacturers to create boards based on it since it was similar to the Slot 1 interface. They felt it would help them penetrate the market a bit more easily. I'm sure if they could have gotten away with it they would have only needed to stick with a socket-based interface (which has proven to be better in the long run)

      --
      -- Jim
  99. Where's the 'Mhz is everything' freaks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh, so when Apple and the PPC chip manufacturers say let's use a chip with superior architecture, bigger pipeline, cooler running, more energy efficient, and if we have to, move on and to a better platform while leaving behind ancient software and hardware, all for the sake of substantial performance, they are ridculed by the industry and the the ignorent people. It pisses me off that many of the same people are now jumping on the bandwagon with AMD for the same argument. Granted I like AMD's products, have a new AMD system in a UPS truck on the way now, but again Apple and their camp are way ahead of the game.

    1. Re:Where's the 'Mhz is everything' freaks by roca · · Score: 2

      Er, AMD have *not* "left behind ancient software and hardware". DOS will still run fast on Hammer :-).

    2. Re:Where's the 'Mhz is everything' freaks by Sivar · · Score: 2

      Er, AMD have *not* "left behind ancient software and hardware". DOS will still run fast on Hammer :-).

      "Nobody will ever need more than 18,446,744,073,709,551K of memory!"

      --
      Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
  100. 32-bit apps on a 64-bit chip by smartfart · · Score: 1
    IANACD (I am not a chip designer), but it seems to me a way out of this dilemma is for ia64 to run 64-bit code, period, end of discussion, with a built-in 32-bit virtual machine for legacy apps. It works for vmware to run apps for one OS on a totally different host OS, so why not?

    Ok, stupid idea... but what about doing this on the OS level, with a virtual machine available to run legacy code. AFAIK this is how users run MacOS9 apps under OSX.

  101. PR rating equation by sundling · · Score: 1

    If we take two points of performance data, we
    should be able to extropolate hammer performance
    as far as PR rating.

    So if we take the quake score listed and assume
    that means a 800 mhz clawhammer is a 1600+ and
    combine that with earlier projections that hammer
    would be release on Q4 at about 2 Ghz as a 3400+,
    that gives us the following:

    y+ 800x = 1600
    y+ 2000x = 3400

    Solving the equations gives you:
    y=400 x=1.5

    So clawhammer mhz versus P4 mhz could be along
    the lines of:

    400 + 1.5 clawhammer mhz = P4 mhz

    1. Re:PR rating equation by Sivar · · Score: 2

      That's a bit oversimplified, though. As clocksped increases to modern numbers, like 1.5GHz, other factors come into play in a large way besides just CPU speed. What if the memory bandwidth is great for an 800MHz Clawhammer but is a huge bottleneck with a 1600MHz Clawhammer?

      For a good example, compare an AthlonXP 2100+ in a KT333 board and then in any 133MHz SDRAM board. There will be as much as a whopping 30% overall performance difference, and that's with the exact same CPU!

      Life will be very interestng for Intel if the Clawhammer/Opteron scale that well, though. ;-)

      --
      Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
  102. Re:Intel should have bought Alpha years earlier .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Intel should have bought Alpha's !design team! years earlier ...

    The two principle Alpha architects, Meyer & Witek, work for AMD - sorry Intel!

  103. Fab on a ethnically cleansed viilage by DABANSHEE · · Score: 3, Informative

    Because Intel went & built their P4 fab on illegaly expropiated land belonging to Palestinians ethnically cleansed from a village near Gaza .

    & have made no offer to compensate those villagers even though as far as the Geneva Convention, the Hague Convenention, the IDHR & the UN are concerned, they (the former villagers) still own that land.

    1. Re:Fab on a ethnically cleansed viilage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe they're just getting some practice so can do the same thing to all their Superfund sites.

  104. Ace's is pretty good, actually. by Rui+del-Negro · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You're probably thinking of [someoneelse]'s Hardware (cough*tom*cough)...

    To judge real-world performance, Quake is at least as good as any synthetic benchmark. Personally, I'd like to see benchmarks for 3DS MAX, TMPGEnc or Photoshop (because those are some of the programs I use daily). But between Quake and WhateverMark2002, I prefer Quake (and I don't even play Quake).

    RMN
    ~~~

    1. Re:Ace's is pretty good, actually. by ealar+dlanvuli · · Score: 1

      Running Q3 on my p4 I generally have about 75% idle cpu when pulling 60fps.

      Yep, it's a great benchmark..

      --
      I live in a giant bucket.
    2. Re:Ace's is pretty good, actually. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're running at a fillrate limited resolution. The benchmark was at a low resolution that _does_ stress the CPU. Benchmarkers can use Q3A to test CPU or GPU by varying the resolution. (btw, if you get a faster graphics card, you can get up to 4 times the fps on Q3A with your current CPU and resolution)

    3. Re:Ace's is pretty good, actually. by ealar+dlanvuli · · Score: 1

      I have a radeon8500, I just renice it and I think I set a framerate cap once upon a time (I don't play often -- read ever).

      I've found I generally can't see anything above around 35fps, so there is really no point in wasting my computer to pump frames out I can't see.

      --
      I live in a giant bucket.
  105. Interesting times are ahead by l33t-gu3lph1t3 · · Score: 1

    According to all the reports I've read around the 'net, this seems to be the most likely situation concerning AMD and Intel in the coming year:

    Q2 2002: Amd is set to announce the "thoroughbred" AthlonXPs , at 2200+ (1.8GHz) and possibly up to 2500+ (2.0GHz). This seems to be confirmed by some European/Asian online vendors now listing these speed grade Athlons for pre-order.

    Sometime later during 2002: Amd is set to discontinue the morgan (duron) CPU, and replace it with low speed AthlonXPs, under the Duron moniker.

    Q4 2002: Amd paper launches Clawhammer, probably named as Athlon Pro64, as well as Sledgehammer, under the name Opteron. Both CPUs will be made at the Dresden FAB, using 130nm with SOI process and the metal die slug, and should have impressive thermal performance compared to the AthlonXP cpu. The Clawhammer cpu will possibly start at 1.6GHz-2.0GHz for a PR rating in the range of 3000+ to 3400+. This cpu will have an ondie 64bit DDR333 bus and memory controller. It will also feature Intel's SSE2 SIMD extensions, and utilize a 700ish pin socket (not certain as to exact pin count). As for Sledgehammer, this CPU will have the aforementioned features of the Clawhammer, but use a 900ish pin socket, and have a dual-channel (128bit effective) DDR333 memory controller. Due to the packaging complexity and the dual channel memory controller, this CPU should command a higher price than the Sledgehammer.

    Amd is also releasing a new chipset with Hammer. The Amd8000 series chipset will include an AGP3.0 (AGP8X) "tunnel" as well as a PCI "tunnel" and a conventional southbridge "tunnel". The reason for this naming convention is that the Hammer bus is a point to point protocol, and that the conventional "northbridge" does not exist in this platform, as it's main purpose of serving as a RAM controller, is now taken by the Hammer cpu.

    Expect the Hammer CPUs to not become widely available until Q3/Q4 2003.

    Now, as for Intel...

    October 2002: Intel is expected to launch the last of the P4 "northwood" cpu series processor steppings, at 2.8GHz, utilizing a 533MHz QDR bus, much like the new 2.26GHz and 2.53GHz P4s.

    In early 2003, Intel should paper launch the "Prescott" Pentium 4, with widespread availability of this cpu no earlier than late early Q4. This cpu will utilize a 667MHz bus (166MHz quadpumped), and will be produced in 90nm process, using the metal slug that the current P4 is equipped with. This cpu will have "Prescott new instructions", possibly named SSE3, but otherwise known as Symmetric Multithreading. Basically, the cpu behaves as if it were 2 independant processors, and can execute different threads and instructions simultaneously (this is a very poor explanation of SMT I know).

    "Prescott" will be paired with a new motherboard chipset, utilizing Dual channel DDR333 for an effective 5.3GHz/s bandwidth. As well, this chipset should support Serial ATA as well as USB2.0, and (possibly, unconfirmed as of yet) AGP3.0, aka AGP8x support.

    Whew, that's pretty much all the info I have on the near future of Amd and Intel.

    --
    ------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
    1. Re:Interesting times are ahead by l33t-gu3lph1t3 · · Score: 1

      comments, anyone?

      --
      ------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
    2. Re:Interesting times are ahead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your take is wrong!

      By H1 2003, Opteron will destroy IA-64 and Mckinley and all successors will be quietly dropped. Prescott comes out and is found wanting. It is behind performance of Opterons and AXP64s and it costs too darn much. AXP64 ships 2 million copies and is widely available. Barton (AXP32) is shipping 4 to 6 million units per quarter. AXP (Tbred as Durons) is being fabbed by UMC and shipping 4 to 6 million units per quarter. This forces Intel ASPs to $140 or so. AMD's rise to $110 or so.

      H2 2003: Opterons are shipping about 1 to 2 million a quarter taking 33% of the workstation/server market. AXP64 ships about 6 to 8 million a quarter and is king of the desktop. Durons (Bartons) are shipping about 6 to 8 million a quarter still from UMC. AMD starts sampling 90nm (0.09u) Copper SOI mobile AXP64 and Opterons. Intel ASPs fall again to $120 and have big losses. AMD ASPs increases to $120 and with flash booming makes a few dollars per share profit.

      2004: AMD Opteron takes most of the server market. AXP64 0.09u now shipping more than 10 million per quarter. Durons (AXP64 0.13u) now at UMC ship more than 15 million per querter. AMD with 40% of desktop market and 60% of notebook market. UMC and AMD joint 65nm fab sampling Opterons at 5GHz in a dual core dual channel configuration with 2MB unified L2 cache. I do not know what Intel will do as its roadmap will have completely changed by now as management was forced out by irate stockholders.

    3. Re:Interesting times are ahead by l33t-gu3lph1t3 · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, but I doubt that Amd will be able to capture 40% of the world's desktop market, and 60% of the world's notebook market. With Dresden at full capacity producing AthlonXPs, Amd would have enough for about 30% of the world's desktop market. However, Dresden is not up to full capacity yet, and Amd is scaling down their K7 production, getting ready for Their AthlonPro64 (Clawhammer) and Opteron (Sledgehammer) CPUs. Amd still has a problem with the heat production of their CPUs. I don't know about their new mobile AthlonXPs with Small Form Factor (SFF), but Amd laptops are still a rarity, atleast in the North American market. Hopefully that will change, but I don't see it. Where did you get your info about 90nm process Athlons? To my knowledge, Amd just partnered up with UMC and some other companies to research 90/65nm fabrication technology, but I would say it's far too early to speculate as to when that will go into full production. It is going to take UMC quite some time to work out the kinks and get their Athlon CPU lines in full swing. Don't expect too much from them until the second half of 2003. I sincerely doubt that Intel's management is going to be forced out by irate stockholders. And as for IA64. I hope that Intel continues researching and developing processors for this technology, as I really want X86 to die. Amd's X86-64 will hopefully provide say, 5-7 years more life for the x86 architecture, and hopefully by then the elegance and beauty that is EPIC will have matured enough to be realized fully in the mainstream market. I do not know enough about the flash market to speculate on Amd or Intel's fortunes with it. However, I do hope that it returns to being the cash cow for both Intel and Amd because they need more revenue in order to develop and sell processors :)

      --
      ------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
    4. Re:Interesting times are ahead by l33t-gu3lph1t3 · · Score: 1

      I did not say anything in my original post about marketshares, I only posted the technologies and products that Intel and Amd would be rolling out in 2002/2003, and likely, when these products would be launched.

      --
      ------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
  106. Re: Reasons for 64 bits by Ayende+Rahien · · Score: 2

    IIRC, they do exist.
    I don't know about Linux, but I'm certain that some Unixes has those on 32bit.
    For Windows, apperantly it has it from Win2K onward.
    Here is the info I dug after a quick search:
    http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default .asp?URL= / ibrary/backgrnd/html/awewindata.htm

    --

    --
    Two witches watched two watches.
    Which witch watched which watch?
  107. Is everyone at Intel an anonymous coward...? by Rui+del-Negro · · Score: 2

    I'll start this by saying YES, I work for Intel. Hate me...whatever.

    We should we hate you? You don't even say what you do for Intel. Do you design processors? Do you clean the toilets? Do you work in marketing? Are you director of the Department of FUD? I have nothing against Intel, and I'm sure neither do most people here. But I do have a lot against the P4. It's a fraud. But that doesn't mean Intel can't make good products. Personally I'd love to have a Hammer system with an Intel chipset.

    Last week Intel dropped the prices of its processors. AMD was forced to follow suit, dropping their prices about 2 days later. Did the Slashdot community cheer Intel?

    Why should we? Intel CPUs are still more expensive, they are still slower and they still can't run in SMP (except for the Xeons, but those are priced in the "hilarious" range).

    So along comes this news...AMD Opteron 800 MHz beats a Pentium 4 1.6 GHz by one frame pre second. I guess I fail to see why everyone is so excited?

    How about... because it's faster while running at half the clock speed?

    I'll wager ANYTHING that when it ships, a 800MHz Opteron will sell for at LEAST twice the price of a Pentium 4 1.6Ghz.

    I'll wager anything that you'll never see an 800 MHz Opteron on sale. o_O

    RMN
    ~~~

  108. Re:Intel has a Big Problem (umm.. no) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Da Nile is not just a river in Egypt.

  109. They were very specific in saying they.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...only benched 32 bit software!

    "Moreover, we only could run our tests with 32-bit software. The test does not give any results about a performance with 64-bit software."

    http://www.tecchannel.de/hardware/937/2.html

  110. WHAT??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No one wants a Beowulf cluster of these???

  111. Re: what's next: Thor's Hammer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject

  112. What about PowerPC? by Rob+Y. · · Score: 1

    I know IBM/Motorola haven't kept up in the MHz race, but I was under the impression that the PowerPC architecture was pretty nice and had plenty of headroom for growth.

    Is that not true? Only IBM makes the 64-bit version, and only in thier pricy RS/6000's, but in theory at least...

    As for the Alpha, I tried to port my application to Alpha when it first came out, and there was a problem. It seems the Alpha processor could not access memory at the byte level. All byte writes had to merge the byte in question into a 64-bit word to write back into memory. PowerPC has no such problem.

    Not the worst thing in the world until you have an application that stores byte-aligned data in shared memory. Since I didn't want to have to use a mutex every time I accessed this shared memory area (which was constantly), I gave up on Alpha. Was I wrong?

    -Rob

    --
    Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
    1. Re:What about PowerPC? by CTachyon · · Score: 1
      As for the Alpha, I tried to port my application to Alpha when it first came out, and there was a problem. It seems the Alpha processor could not access memory at the byte level. All byte writes had to merge the byte in question into a 64-bit word to write back into memory. PowerPC has no such problem.

      My understanding of it is that the hackery required to access non-aligned data requires a substantial cost in terms of either silicon or performance, on any processor (including x86). The Alpha designers (and most RISC designers, for that matter) chose to leave it unimplemented in the hardware, leaving it to the compilers to align everything to the native word size like they should be doing anyway.

      The "correct" response to that situation would be to store each byte in its own machine word. Yeah, that wastes a lot of memory, especially if you have a lot of boolean flags, but -- more often than not -- it's not nearly as expensive as the performance tradeoff, even if the memory is owned by a single thread. A lot of the comp.lang.c newbies (and a fair number of non-newbies) who first see automated alignment get confused and want to know how to pack their structs, not realizing that it will probably make their program run slower unless they are doing some very specific things (e.g. their code's performance is dominated by calls to memcpy(3)).

      --
      Range Voting: preference intensity matters
    2. Re:What about PowerPC? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah. That's what the DEC guys said at the time. But this was a long time ago, and memory wasn't nearly as cheap as it is today.

      I was talking about a big array of shared memory which was being used to emulate the memory system of a defunct old 16-bit processor that we were emulating in order to run a large application under unix. Each process in the emulated machine got its own unix process and was constantly peeking and poking into that big shared array.

      Anyway, we went with the RS/6000, and were very happy with the hardware (and the AIX system to boot).

  113. In a dark interrogation room..... by Captain+Smooth · · Score: 1

    me: I swear! I didn't say anything! editors: We heard otherwise... me: I didn't say anything about a beowolf cluster! editors: But you were THINKING it! me: AHHHHHHHGGGGGGGG!!!

    --


    The ability to monopolize an industry is insignificant, next to the power of the source.
  114. Not the point. by Rui+del-Negro · · Score: 2

    The point is, Quake is something people actually run (BTW, 60 fps? Even on my (poor old) Pentium III I find it hard to have less than 75...). A synthetic benchmark is just that. Good for testing individual aspects of the hardware, but not really useful in terms of judging how the CPU (or graphics card, or whatever) will perform in normal use.

    As I said, I wish they'd run some 3DS MAX tests. Even with the "Intel optimizations" added in R4.26, most tasks are still faster on Athlons. With the improved FP units of the Hammer and support for SSE2, it should be very interesting indeed...

    RMN
    ~~~

  115. Re:Not the best architecture Check out RC5! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    WRONG!

    All the earliest papers on RISC concur about one of the six criteria being a REDUCED INSTRUCTION SET

    And all risc papers in the first two bound books on RISC research concur.

    RISC does indeed stand for reduced instruction set computer.

    check a lot of the earliest stanford papers.

    I admit one of six criteria is not a lot, but it is an important sixth.

    They keep changing the definition.

  116. Actually, K5 was superscalar by Chris+Burke · · Score: 2

    K5 was the first superscalar x86 processor. And it had extremely high IPC. However the resulting clock frequency was horribly slow, and the overall performance was bad as a result. Which just shows that ignoring frequency for the sake of IPC is as bad as ignoring IPC for frequency. :)

    --

    The enemies of Democracy are
    1. Re:Actually, K5 was superscalar by turgid · · Score: 1

      Of course it was! Thanks for reminding us! I have one sitting in a box somewhere at home. O'll have to dig it out and have a go on it some day :-) The K5 was AMD's own design, and they had a design for the K6, but bought NexGen instead and used theirs, which was better. How times have changed. In those days it was Cyrix who posed the main threat to intel. Then they lost the plot when the Pentium II came out (intel's first superscalar RISC x86 implementation)

  117. Competition is important by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Intel is way way way more powerfull than AMD in so many ways.

    Its important to the computer industry in the long term that there be competition.

    Untill AMD Corp is aproaches the power of Intel Corp i think everyone should be biased towards AMD. Its in everyone (except intel's) best interest

  118. Re:Intel has a Big Problem (umm.. no) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Da Nile is not just a river in Egypt.

    I don't get it.

  119. Laptop edition? by be-fan · · Score: 2

    I remember hearing that due to its tiny die size (104 square millimeters) Clawhammer would be a desktop/mobile part. If that's true, I can't wait to get a high-performance 64-bit notebook!

    --
    A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
    1. Re:Laptop edition? by l33t-gu3lph1t3 · · Score: 1

      Remember, AthlonXP thoroughbred core is 88mmsq i believe. small formfactor athlons are better suited to the mobile market. However, as the voltage and heat properties of Hammer are not yet public knowledge, I do not know how suited Amd's new processor is to mobile computing.

      --
      ------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
    2. Re:Laptop edition? by be-fan · · Score: 2

      True, but the Athlon 4 mobile core is 128 square mm, significantly bigger than the Clawhammer. Also, they managed to fit a Pentium 4 into a laptop, so a clawhammer chip should be a cinch!

      --
      A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
  120. Linux making x86 passe? by be-fan · · Score: 2

    Is it just me, or could the rise of Linux (and thus open source software in general) make x86 significantly less important? On my system, there is only once piece of software (NVdriver) that isn't open source. Thus, in theory, it would be easy for me to move to another architecture with no more pain than simply recompiling my distro (which I'm doing ATM on my other machine anyway ;) Now, if only there were some cheap alternative arch chips that actually outperformed x86!

    --
    A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
  121. not trying to troll but... by hikeran · · Score: 1

    ok so it handles 64 bit.. but to the averagce consumre (aka gamer) Biig woopdey do .. i mean it has to "back down" to 32 bit mode so i can play counterstrike and other games....

    Games and software are writen: to the lowest common dinominator.. i'm not saying there wont be ports of some games to 64 bit but... come on ..

    let me remind you of a presidence set many many years ago...

    Commodore 128 .. oh yea rember this baby? well how many games did you have to reboot to c64 emu bc they would not work in 128 mode? about 80-90% of em ... same thing will happen to the claw...

    She may be great for server .. and heavy workload .. but i dont expect it to make sweepeing changes in the gaming industry... only way that would happen if intel also rose to the challenge and put out a comparable proccessor...

    then most gamging companies would goahead and write for 64 bit ....

    1. Re:not trying to troll but... by l33t-gu3lph1t3 · · Score: 1

      the performance that the 800mhz clawhammer 256k l2 cache had...that was in pure 32bit mode. The hammer cpus can run in pure32, "compatibility" mode where both 64bit and 32bit registers are utilized, and in pure 64bit mode, doubling up some of the 32bit registers. All programs need is a recompile to use the 64bit instructions. That's it. Actually, the inclusion of 64bit space in the cpu does not do much to improve its performance. The performance boost of roughly 40% (so far in quake3) comes from the ondie memory controller and some other tweaks, like better branch prediction. Games are NOT written to the lowest common denominator. Quake, Quake2, Quake3, Doom3, Max Payne, Giants, Black & White, etc etc. Some games are written to the lowest common, most aren't. The inclusion of 64bit space was meant for servers, and future programs which could effectively utilize the registers. It also gives AMD bragging rights over Intel (hey, we have a 64bit desktop cpu, you don't, nya nya!) just my 2C

      --
      ------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
  122. Again, Alpha was the most anal of RISC designs ... by BitMan · · Score: 2
    "As for the Alpha, I tried to port my application to Alpha when it first came out, and there was a problem. It seems the Alpha processor could not access memory at the byte level. All byte writes had to merge the byte in question into a 64-bit word to write back into memory. PowerPC has no such problem."

    As I previously mentioned, Alpha was the most anal of RISC designs. RISC is all about minimizing cycles and maximizing number of operations executed -- even if they are simplified so you must do two, three or even more ops per typical CISC instruction. Data alignment is crucial to RISC performance -- especially in designs like the Alpha or 64-bit SPARC. No Alpha has 8 or 16-bit operations, just 32 or 64-bit. Even the original Alpha 21064 could NOT load/store 8 or 16-bit values, only 32 or 64-bit. They changed this in the 21164 and later after extensive requests, but not lightly. When A/V instructions were added, only 5 were added.

    IBM-Moto had a design failure in their first 64-bit PowerPC 620. They had to chuck it and refocus -- resulting in a not so efficient/compatible 64-bit PowerPC from its 32-bit siblings. Of all the RISC designs, only Alpha was designed as a 64-bit processor from the get-go. I'm sure this is why the 32-bit PowerPC was "easier" to accomodate 8/16-bit loads/stores/operations than the 64-bit Alpha. At least until Intel IA-64, which introduced EPIC as a "successor" to RISC. But as Intel has found out, Itanium has fallen victim to all the "great ideal, poor reality" predictions Digital's Alpha ream made of it, almost to the letter. And even "McKinley" (now Itanium2) still cannot match a 3-year old Alpha 264 design at FPU.

    --
    -- Bryan "TheBS" Smith
    Independent Author, Consultant and Trainer
  123. Do _I_ need 32bit x86 compatibility? by hokanomono · · Score: 1

    I use GNU/Linux and all of the important to useful software is free software and already portable to many other architectures. I think moving to a 64bit architecture sounds a nice plan over the next yeears. I expect that Linux and the gcc will support IA64 as well as x86-64 anyway, so what does the move to IA64 cost more than:

    1. installing a new version of gcc
    2. recompiling my software

    I don't know much about processor design, so please correct me, but i think IA32 compatibility is only interesting for those who use closed source software, that is not maintained anymore, and is just a needless load for others.

    --
    This sig is a true statement, but I cannot prove it.
  124. Norway Court: Man Can Bark Too by MSN!+Messenger · · Score: 1
    OSLO, Norway - A Norwegian court has ruled that it is legal to bark in public even for human beings.

    The case, which made national news on Tuesday, came up after police arrested a father of seven because he barked in public.

    Trond S. Hansen, 57, was walking home from a dinner party in downtown Oslo with two of his children, ages nine and seven, in early May, according to the ruling.

    Along the way the children quarreled and the youngest started crying. The father tried distract them by barking.

    A witness who feared that a dog was mauling a child called police after looking out the window to find that it was actually a man barking, the ruling said.

    Police arrested Hansen and charged him with disturbing the peace, public drunkenness and child neglect. They jailed him for the night and turned his children over to welfare authorities.

    In court, police said Hansen smelled of alcohol and his speech was slurred. Another witness said he was not drunk and Hansen said his slurred speech was due to his false teeth coming loose.

    The Oslo preliminary court found no evidence of drunkenness, neglect or illegal barking.

    "The court finds it proven that the defendant barked in a public place at night. The court, however, is in doubt that the barking was so loud that it disturbed the peace," the ruling said.

    The defendant was awarded 4,000 kroner (dlrs 500) in legal costs. Prosecutors admitted that the case should never have gone to court and did not plan to appeal.

    "The whole thing seemed unreal," the man was quoted as telling the Oslo newspaper Aftenposten. "I feel like I've been subject to an abuse of power."

    The ruling was released in late May but did not make news until now because of a journalists' strike.

  125. Back to Compatibility by fm6 · · Score: 2
    All of which is 100% true. Thing is, it's been true for a long time. Even the basic 8086 design is dictated by the need to maintain assembly-level compatibility with the 8080.

    Backward compatibility is an unfortunate fact of life. If it weren't we could have gone to flat address spaces 20 years ago, we wouldn't have these noisy and power-wasting AT-compatible cases, and it wouldn't be so hard to break away from Microsoft platforms and applications.

    In point of fact, Intel didn't simply ignore backward compatibility with the Itanium. They just thought that they could build a processor powerful enough to maintain it through emulation.