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AMD Introduces the Athlon XP 2200+
NevDull writes "AMD introduces the Thoroughbred core in the Athlon XP 2200+. Tom's Hardware Guide has a review of the new CPU based on the 0.13 micron core, and subsequently declares the current CPU war to have been won by Intel." Update: 06/10 12:48 GMT by T : DavoHH writes "To add to the list of reviews and benchmarks around the net for the new Athlon XP 2200+,
HotHardware.com has one and also
and also Anand's
and AMDMB." Update: 06/10 13:45 GMT by T : One more: Johan contributes a link to an Ace's Hardware review which tries to answer the question "Does the 0.13 Athlon XP run well an on older motherboard, and does it provide good value as an upgrade?"
Another report can be found at tech-report.
Personally, I'll just wait for the price cuts to take effect, then buy an XP.
This is a winning war for both Intel and AMD. The only ones who lose are us, standing in line forking over 180 bucks for the XP 2000+ and still ready to roll out whatsoever needed to get the new Thoroughbred because it can squeeze out couple of more 3DMark points.
:)
I would have posted more, but I need to run to the local computer shop to check whether they have arrived yet.
Rapid Nirvana
review at Ace's hardware
Much info about upgrading older boards to the new AMD.
At least here the reviewer make sure that both CPU work with the same memory.
Tom's gives the P4 PC1066, while 95% of the P4 systems are sold with DDR.
Review at Anandtech
My 1.1ghz processor is plenty fast enough for me, and will remain so for quite some time.
In terms of tech nuts, AMD has a strong, strong following and lots of brand loyalty - as much, if not more, than Intel.
In terms of people who shop at Staples/Best Buy/etc... They buy what's in the box and tend not to care what's inside. Last time I was at either of those stores, there were more AMD-based boxes on the shelves than ever before.
If we're talking technology alone, it depends what facet you're looking at. Intel processors do better in some areas, AMD in others. With AMD, you always get more bang for your buck, so to speak, as well.
declares the current CPU war to have been won by Intel.
(-1, Ad-impression Seeking Flamebait)
--saint
to see that Intel has viable competition.
In spite of AMD "losing" the so-called CPU wars, they're still a winner in my eyes.
Geek life would be much different if we had only one viable CPU vendor (shades of Micro$oft, Batman!!!).
I've been using AMD chips in my x86 boxes since early days of the K6-2 and I've been very satisfied. The only reason that CPU prices are anywhere CLOSE to reasonable is that Intel has real competition.
Don't anthropomorphize computers, they don't like it.
You see, in the middle of the article there is a list of comparative prices ($ per chip when buying 1000). The prices for a xx00 P4 are almost exactly the same as for a xx00+ Athlon, except for the highest end chips ($600 for the P4 2500).
So it seems as if Intel is finally challenged enough by AMD that they actually have to have the same prices for the same 'PR' in the mid-range. In my view that is a win for the consumer.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1635
Their conclusion in short:
Thoroughbred is more of an evolution to the Palomino core than a revolution. In other words, nothing new except minor speed increases to the end user. No special architecture changes, except decreased transistor amounts to allow higher clock frequencies and perhaps a bit lower prices as well.
After attempting to overclock their Thoroughbred @ 1.8 GHz, they observed there was almost no overclocking potential at all, leading to some doubts to whether AMD will keep up with Intel that well until their Hammer processors is ready.
So the Thoroughbred core seem to extend the Athlon XP lifetime with perhaps a few more 66 MHz jumps from the current 1.8 GHz, but will probably never get more than a 10-20% performance increase above the Athlon XP "Palomino" 2100+. From Anandtech's analysis, I'd think the best Thoroughbreds will end around a "2600+" performance rating.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I'll bite.
The numbering scheme currently used by AMD for their Athlon chips reflects the speed of the equivalently-performing Intel chip. ie the Athlon XP 2200+ performs at the same level as the P4 2.2GHz, despite running at a lower frequency.
If AMD just quoted the raw GHz figures, everyone would assume that they are significantly slower than they actually are. They would also lose out on price comparisons - on dabs.com, the Athlon 1900+ is only about £8 cheaper than the P4 1.5GHz. The P4 1.9GHz, however, is almost £60 cheaper, a much larger difference (just over a third of the total price of the P4, in fact).
(Note that I am in no way affiliated with dabs.com - they're just the first website I think of when looking at PC component prices.)
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Smaller memories are always faster (when comparing similar technologies). Registers, being the smallest memory, are the fastest. Followed by the L1, then L2, then main memory, and then disk.
AMD's huge L1 cache probably contributes to the difficulty in ramping up the clock rate. An L1 cache must be able to respond to a data access within usually 1-2 clock cycles. Many computer architectects believe that the size of the L1 cache should be less than 10% the size of the on-chip L2 cache. AMD's chips have L1 caches on the order of 25% the size of the L2. Such a large L1 probably cannot keep up with increasing clock frequencies.
Intel chips have very small L1 caches as compared with AMD. T
It's false advertising in the sense that saying 'Our All New Ford Pinto 500HP can do 0 to 60* in under .1 seconds!' with the fine print at the bottom noting that the '500HP' does not refer to horsepower, and 0-60 is measured in repair costs, not velocity.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Intel P4 2.53Ghz: $535
AMD Athlon XP 2200+: ~$250
Intel price is from Pricewatch, AMD is a guess based on two sightings here and here, and past release prices.
The 'throttling' solution has existed for some months now. In the BIOS (build 1007) of my Asus A7V133 motherboard I can select various actions for when the CPU temperature passes a (user-selectable) threshold: 1. Audio Alert on PC Speaker, 2. Do nothing, 3. Shut Down, 4. Throttle the CPU to a lower speed.
HardOCP got theirs up to 2025MHz (which they say would be a 2500+ part)
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Both AMD and Intel regularly release new silicon rated at higher clock cycles. This isn't really that big of a deal. Tom's Hardware likes to make a statement rather than pull their punches, so it doesn't surprise me to see something meaningless like "Intel has won the CPU war". Many gamers now swear by AMD, and the damage to Intel's reputation will need to be repaired over time. Intel's deaper pockets may be churning out CPUs which are beating AMD's recent releases in Tom's comparisons, but the trust issue with consumers will lag behind the realities of comparitive performance, just as it used to in Intel's favor. AMD is winning the popular war even with their losses in specific battles.
It may not matter if Intel can deal with heat more effectively than AMD. The AMD CPUs are much cheaper and those with big concerns over heat will drop over $100 on a heatsink/fan.
The CPU war isn't nearly over. Even if Intel continues to win these individual skirmishes, they will still have to demoralize AMD's faithful. Intel may have bigger "weapons", but AMD has something that Intel doesn't to the same extent: trust, loyalty, and support as an underdog.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
I spend more of my time trying to make my computers quiet than worrying about performance. To be able to upgrade from my 1GHz thunderbird to a 1700+ thoroughbred and see a 9% decrease in heat dissipation is good news.
The only time I am soley conserned with performance is when upgrading my server, and for that I will be waiting for the hammers. A recent hammer review at THG showed an 800MHz hammer out-perform a 1600Mhz pentium 4, and that was just for 32 bit tasks.
As soon as the hammer is available at a decent frequency (AMD might start with a ~1500 model) the race for performance will be on again, so for now I am not too surprised that AMD arn't doing that much to keep the XP on the bleeding edge (more cache will help, but it is hardly revolutionary).
Right now VIA are winning more of my CPU money for their excellent C3, but that is purely a heat thing. Unfortunately they aren't suitable for my server or games box.
Still, with all these companies comming to market with different viewpoints the choices have never been so good, I think these are interesting times for CPUs and as much as I like AMD, I am glad that neither they nor any other company is at the top for too long because complacency always puts a damper on things.
Now, IANALOEVS (I am not a lawyer, or even very smart) but I can't see how these two are the same. Nowhere in AMD's literature to they claim that the number after XP is a measurement of Mhz, only a measurement of it's performance relative to other AthlonXPs. I have a Hewlett Packard 4500 laser printer, but I don't expect it to print 4500 pages per minute, print at 4500 x 4500, or give me $4500 USD for the privelege of being my printer. The number is marketing, and unless they claim that it's something it's not, I can't see calling it false advertising. But again, IANAL...
do not read this line twice.
But x86 has more than a 20-year history, and Windows (in one form or another) has been around for 10+ years. There is a huge library of Wintel x86-compatible shareware and freeware, not to mention old business software.
Many companies still use older business software with their newer computers, and a change in architecture would involve a tremendous effort in converting/reproducing documents.
This is also a huge financial burdern. Normal cost of system upgrade, plus cost of new software to replace the defunct SW, plus cost & lost time of learning the new SW, plus cost & lost time converting old documents. It adds up, especially for smaller companies who barely afford new systems.
Presumably Intel has considered this. Any architecture change will have slow acceptance. COnsider the Macintosh; the change over from 680x0 to PowerPC was slow, and I can still run old 680x0 apps in MacOS X through Classic mode.
Maybe they'll make a P4/Itanium dual processor board that won't have the compatibility problems, just twice the price.
Linux, with it's ease of portability and open source could really help adoption of Intel's new architecture, actually. Microsoft will need emulators like Apple did or risk leaving many faithful users out in the cold.
All considerations aside, leaving x86 isn't really a bad thing. For all the speed we squeeze out of this silicon, it still has one foot firmly in the early 1980's.
--
Of course, if occurs to me now that it probably won't be an issue of any sort...
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
In the mean time AMD and Intel are really talking about two completely different markets for their wares. Intel want to make a serious pile of money out of selling new (and hence overpriced) Itaniums for use in multi-way servers for bespoke applications where compatability is not such an issue. AMD on the otherhand looks to be targetting the consumer who wants to squeeze every last frame out of their Quake sessions and other (less important) "legacy" 32 bit code. Both companies will probably make a big pile of cash out of their respective sectors, so no problems there.
In the long term though, unless AMD is going to make a seriously brave (or rash) departure from Intel compatability, ultimately they are always going to be playing catchup with Intel for compatability. There's a long history of that too, and in that context, I'm just amazed that AMD has lasted as long as they have when other ventures have long since come and gone - best of luck with giving us all a choice I say!
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
I think it would be better for the BIOS to signal a shutdown to the OS to permit a graceful shutdown.
If you lose your heatsink, there isn't time for the OS to shutdown before the chip fries. If just the fan fails, there might be. But what if the OS fails to respond to the signal? Oh come on, don't tell me you've never seen a Windows box that has the power saving features enabled but mysteriously doesn't go into sleep mode every other Tuesday?
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Gee, tell that to the simulation folks I work with! We've got a good half-dozen recent-vintage Linux servers also in use as desktops. At least once a week someone comes by to ask why my machine is running so slow. The answer is that I have a genuine Intel 2GHz processor. The "1.7+" and even "1.6+" AMD machines kick my Intel's butt. These AMDs have clock speeds at least 25% slower than my Intel's, but their throughput is 20-40% better. I never really believed in "clock equivalence" bullshit before, but I do now!
If people think Intel has won the CPU war, they've kind of deluding themselves.
Remember, the AthlonXP 2200+ is essentially a shrunk-down CPU core based on the current Palimino core design. That means it still has the same 256 KB of L2 cache. What happens when AMD's new Barton CPU core with the 512 KB L2 cache arrives later this year? I think AMD CPU performance will take a major jump once that happens, and will become competitive with the Intel Northwood-core Pentium 4's with their 512 KB L2 cache.
Is it small wonder why Intel is spending large amounts of money to develop the Prescott core Pentium 4 on the 0.09-micron process and 1024 KB L2 cache? At 1024 KB L2 cache, that's reaching Xeon-class server CPU territory.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Hm.. Looks more like a paper written by an Intel fanatic by me. :)
:) Why does he think they stopped at 1.53 instead of proceeding well into the 2 GHz domain when the P3's are sooo good?
After skimming through it, I immediately noticed a few weird things:
"...developers won't write 64-bit code if customers aren't buying and if 64-bit OSes aren't out there..."
Huh? What about Windows XP 64-bit Edition?
And what does he mean with "developers won't write 64-bit code"? Uhmm.. Well, they don't usually write direct 32-bit code either, unless they program on assembly level. Isn't all this the pretty much transparent job of the compiler? I guess new compilers adapted for 64-bit platforms will start having stuff like 64-bit int:s and such things...
"My advice to AMD: drop the 64-bit hype, add the Pentium 4 SSE2 support,"
If AMD will follow their roadmap, they will have SSE2 support later this year. And, again, what's wrong with 64-bit? Intel is doing it too, should AMD just stay away from it and hope there will never be good 64-bit compilers? Where's the logic in that? Apparently, the author sees something great about this idea since it's repeated throughout the article, but I don't get it.
"Since an Athlon XP 1900 loses to a 1.53 GHz Pentium III, shouldn't AMD now give the Athlon XP a lower part number in order to reflect this development? Fair is fair!"
AMD's performance ratings may be stupid, but they was always meant to compare against Pentium 4's. And I seriously doubt that part about a 1.5 P3 being better than an XP 1900+. That would imply Intel is doing a bad job with their Pentium 4's, since an 1900+ is comparable to a P4 1.9 GHz, something the author of course doesn't mention.
"It is just a shame that Intel's marketing people keep trying to kill off the Pentium III in order to promote Pentium 4 sales."
Did he ever even take into consideration that P3's doesn't scale that well anymore? Heat, my friend.
This is just another proof of the author's lack of insight in processor architecture.
"My last 4 Athlon systems have now all either died or failed to work properly"
My first Athlon I've installed worked instantly. The first Athlon a friend installed worked instantly. And it was even one of those super hot Thunderbirds. Cool huh? I'm successfully running an (non-replaced!) Athlon at work. Are we super lucky then?
Nah, this is just a bad attempt on creating some sort of Athlon vs Intel debate...
I'm sure you'll find more weirdness in that article - he even shows of his big ego with this excellent line:
"Intel caught up as expected"
Actually, you only need to read the first paragraph to see where the entire article is heading (and he get to show off his bias too):
"AMD freaks cheered and went back to playing their video games."
Rating: -1 Troll
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Starting with the Athlon XP series, AMD's strategy to deal with extreme heat conditions is to simply have the information available but leave it up to the motherboard and ultimately the user to decide what action, if any, to take.
The P4's thermal diode will automatically trigger some throttling if excess temperatures are generated. The Athlon XP's thermal diode will simply alert the motherboard as to what is going on so that some action will be taken. Ultimately, the Athlon XP can still have the same kind of protections as the P4 but the processing power and logic necessary is offloaded to the motherboard.
Perhaps this is actually a cost-cutting measure and it is part of the reason why AMD chips on the whole seem to cost less than intel. Either way, if you want to build a good desktop around one of these chips, you will pay for good thermal protection in the CPU if you get intel or in the motherboard if you buy AMD.
go watch star wars again and them come back and complain about the mpaa.
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