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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
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.
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
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.
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)'
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
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!
You assume too much, and I don't think you accurately read my post either.
1) I never said that the 2200+ was 2.2 GHz. AMD has made their point about NOT comparing clock speeds, and I did not. What I said was that the 2200+ was meant to compete with P4s running at 2200 MHz, and thus the labelling as "2200+" by AMD. This is it's approximate speed according to AMD, not me.
2) I did read the articles. Tom has repeatedly shown himself to be biased against Intel in the past year, and that is not going out on a limb. I much prefer AnandTech because he is somewhat more objective -- in favor of AMD when they are on top of speed, and in favor of Intel when they are winning. This is moot, however, because:
3) The 2200+ consistently placed itself in speed around the range from the 2.0 GHz P4 and the 2.4 GHz P4, even on Tom's Hardware. Compare it to the P4s using the 533 MHz FSB in the benchmarks, not just the 400 MHz. If you claim otherwise, you are not looking at the benchmarks carefully. I don't count the overclocked Athlon at 1.9 GHz, because that's no longer the "2200+".
Thus, I think splitting the difference between 2.0 and 2.4 is fair, and calling the 2200+ a competitor with the 2.2 or 2.26 P4 is fair.
No matter what, comparing prices to the 2.53 P4 clearly is not fair. I believe what the original poster intended was that the top of the line athlon is priced much lower than the top of the line p4. That is true.
That being said, I love the fact that AMD is doing well, and I want them to keep doing so. Real competition makes both companies produce better products at lower prices.