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New AMD Athlon 2600 Processor Released
Ertai writes "Looks like the latest AMD processor is out today, and is taking it right to Intel! Running at 2.13 GHz, the Athlon XP 2600+ is reviewed at Amdmb.com. The benchmarks show that the new Athlon on a 'revision B' Thoroughbred core with the frequency increase is able to beat out the Pentium 4 2.53 GHz processor on almost every test. Not only that, but it is a good overclocker as well! Check it out." AMD's press release on the topic also notes a Athlon 2400 was released as well.
Old school hackers everywhere rejoice.
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
Now I just need to buy one of these badboys along with a new motherboard that will support it...
;)
Then switch to scsi so my hd can keep up. Change from PC133 to PC150 ram, might as well get a raid system, a new video card, and toss on a gigabit network while I'm at it
I had to double check the date to make sure it wasn't April 1. This should cause some hysteria on the Intel side.
"Fighting terrorists with millitary might is like killing a mosquitor on your Dad's forehead with a rifle."
Anandtech has some alternative review links over here including the more in-depth (and perhaps more objective?) review, at Tom's.
Slow down!! All you young whipper snappers in such a hurry! Back in my day all we had was a Commodore 64, and we were *thankful* to have it!
My poor Pentium II 333 Mhz just can't keep up
*sigh*
"Genius may shine aloof and alone, like a star, but goodness is social, and it takes two men and God to make a Brother."
But can the 2.1 Ghz Athlon run in SMP mode like the 2.5 Ghz Xeon?
One thing that the Pentium 4 still seems to hold over the Athlon is operating temperature..
My 1.5GHz Athlon(1800 XP) still churns out a fair whack more heat than my 2.2GHz Pentium 4.
And no, a liquid nitrogen cooling system is not the answer to my problem..
If you read the review of the new processor by Anandtech you will find that the processor hasn't hit mass production yet. This is more of a paper launch much like what Intel did with the 1ghz P3 back when the 1ghz Athlon was released. It still won't be another month or two until we see mass production and then commericial avalibility. But the numbers sure do look nice :) Good to see AMD can still get some higher speeds out of the .13 process!
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
All my hardcore AMD convert friends were starting to get pissed when AMD was slacking behind, so they said they were going to go P4.
:)
Thank God I can rub it back in their faces again. Hopefully Toms Hardware will have a benchmark comparason before the day's over
Hallelujah!
- tristan
...downloading Athlon2000 and now they release Athlon2600. Looks like I'll be hitting the FTP servers all over again.
:P teehee.
Oh shit - force of habit
The marketing of these new chips I still find is a low blow ment to take advantage of the stupid minded. AMD, I beleive, will never admit that their new naming scheme is supposed to make it seem like their new chips are equal in clock speed to the P4 counterparts. Sure you get the more operations per cycle, but people want bigger numbers
This was the same struggle that destoryed the Mac platform, people dont care about "What its supposed to do" I just want the fastest, biggest number I can get.
The advance release almost seems to cry "Intel is winning so we're going to release a chip so far ahead of schedule we can't sell it right now"
My ignorance is a perfect shield against your logic.
Of course, Intel just announced it's 2.8GH due out next week.
One thing never noted with amd processor reviews info on the fan it takes to cool them and the temperature they run at.
As far as i'm aware (correct me if im wrong) intel processors are running a lot cooler than the amd competing processors these days. Higher temperatures often translate to louder fans which can be a big disadvantage to those with sensitive ears.
Mr. Pabst has a review too.
Wait about 6 more days until the Pentium IV 2.8Ghz comes out....
2.8Ghz...my first computer didn't have that many MHz
in other news :
RIAA sues AMD because this new cpu allow to people to convert their CD to MP3 even faster!
my poor old 1 GHz AMD sounds like an aircraft taking off with all the fans... hope the new ones run cooler. (yeah, right.)
Will this be a powerful enough chip to run Cinelerra?
:)
Semi-serious question -- Cinelerra's site advises a minimum setup of dual 1.6GHz Athlons, but c'mon -- if this chip beats a 2.5GHz P4, isn't that enough to do a little movie editing?
Tim
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Uh.. I don't know about you but now days as long as the processor is faster then 400mhz I really don't care that much. Cause word will load in 2secs. instead of 3, doesn't really affect my computing ability. I'm still running a Celeron 600, sure something faster would be nice for gaming but it doesn't affect my daily work on it.
I do remember when the cpu speed did make a huge difference.. a 486 vs. the p/90 and that sort of stuff, the computer was noticably faster, but now it seems that other items like disk and video are what speed up the realtive use of a pc, long as you have a realtitly fast P3 core, it runs well. This could be the problem with the computer industry, people don't need to replace those 2yr old P3's anymore cause everything works just fine on them.
my 2 cents.
Saw the same thing over at Toms Hardware Guide. And it was overclocked to 3100+
Remember: If you buy anything from spammers, you have a small penis.
This looks like a great chip but I am bummed that it is not supporting a 333 mhz front side bus! We have mb's w/ 333 mhz FSB's but we still can't take advantage of it. BTW- is there any significant advantage in running PC 2700 (at 333mhz) when the processor is only running 266 on the FSB (basically asynchronously)?
On the positive side, I hope this means a price drop on the 2200's, because I'm building a new system soon and want to take advantage of the thoroughbred (.13 micron) core.
I wonder up to what frequencies the Athlon will scale. It seems to take AMD longer and longer to add a few Mhz, whereas Intel seems to have fewer problems pushing their P4 design onto higher clockrates.
So, where will the Athlon reach its physical limit?
AMD's 2.1ghz running better and faster then Intel's 2.5ghz. I wonder how Intel's marketing department is going to spin this?
Running at 2.13 GHz, the Athlon XP 2600+ is reviewed at Amdmb.com. The benchmarks show that the new Athlon on a 'revision B' Thoroughbred core with the frequency increase is able to beat out the Pentium 4 2.53 GHz processor on almost every test.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Finally, a use for those old joysticks.
How does Combat look on these babies?
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
There wouldn't be a need for cool cases like this. I guess there's still the point of overclocking, but in reality, why wouldn't you overclock? Pay less, get more. It's the perfect solution for all us cheapskates.
-Tolerate my intolerance
Ars Technica is stating that the P4 2.8 GHz will launch on Monday. Its looking a little pricy though.
An optimist believes we live in the best world possible; a pessimist fears this is true.
...has Athlon come up with a way to deal with heat issues yet? I have an 1800, and the heat problems are almost unbearable with it, so I can't imagine what they'd be like with a 2600. Is there anything that can be done on the processor side, or is it really just a question of ventilation, fans, and/or water cooling? I have four or five fans in my computer now, and it's just not enough. I have to have the case open and an external fan pointing inside, and I certainly don't like having to do that.
--Matthew
"If the lights of Broadway blind me, I won't mind..."
Games? Video compression/editing? You say a Celeron doesn't affect your daily work, even if it could be nicer for gaming. What about the millions whose daily "work" is gaming?
There are still customers who have reasons to continue upgrading their computers.
Heck, if I had to, I'd upgrade my computer to play NWN on. I don't need to, but I *would* have to if I only had a Celeron 600.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Seems like amdmb.com could use a few more of those 2600+ processors.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
http://athlonxp.amd.com/overview/quantiSpeedArchi
Anyone who has taken an OS course (ugh, NachOS) knows the pains of TLB management -- I really would like to see the 'voodoo constants' they used. (Background: the clock-hand approximation of LRU is one of those "voodoo constants" -- most of physics is filled with "voodoo constants" -- likewise...programming an OS is filled with them. If you've ever looked at SPRITE and LFS, the i/o data burst rate suggests that the time-slice should be ~8 seconds -- etc etc. I'd _really_ like to know AMD's voodoo constants.) =)
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
The link timothy posted (to the Cinelerra story) is broken. This link will take you there.
Intel would be releasing their Pentium III 800Mhz right about now.
When the Athlon 2200 was released, one of its bragging points was that it ran flawlessly on the ECS K75SA board, by far the best board for the money.
Has anyone tested the new 2600 on the ECS? I'd like to hear if it runs, and if there's any issues.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
Now if we could get AMD processors and motherboards with a faster front side bus ....
... <begin cheap shot at Bill> it is bloated anyways! :) </end cheap shot at Bill>
.... and I wouldn't think about replacing them with Intels, but for server apps, Intel still seems to have the edge .... but I PRAY they loose that edge soon! I love seeing the "untouchable, big guy" go down ...
.... w00t!!! I can't wait to see one in action .... way to hang in there AMD!!!
...
The problem for some of the applications I am running (mainly DB apps) is the lack of bus speed and the inability to access information fast enough. We have PLENTY of processor speed (in fact, my processors probably spend more time spinning their wheels doing nothing than working), but they need information to process. That is the case for most people. The fact is, most people are getting choked at the information transfer rate, not how fast they can proces information. Like mentioned earlier, who cares if I can load MS Word in a few less seconds
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Athlon processors for playing War Craft 3 and Everquest (along with a GeForce4 video card), but for REAL applications, they need a faster bus! A faster bus would begin putting Intel's PC market six feet under! I have 3 Athlon machines right now
As for the new processors
Just my 2 cents
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
Intel to Debut Faster Pentium 4 Next Week
I think its time Intel and AMD called a truce and begin developing somthing useful for consumers. Adding 100Mhz at a time and re-releasing doesn't help me at all. It costs too much for too litle gain. Why don't Intel and AMD spend a little of their expensive man hours on developing a way around the hard drive bottle neck? I have this great IBM A20 laptop that hums along at 700Mhz but runs like a dog because the HDD transfers at 4bits a second.
I haven't purchased 2 processors in 4 years. And I play all the latest games with no problems.
This race to be the fastest grows old. My brain is hampered by this ocular input and muscular output...where are the wetwires?!?!
--Should work--
When did your sister and mom change their names?! :)
Imagine a beowulf cluster...
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
www.hardocp.com mentions the temperature, as well as the fan they used.
They also mention that the 2600+ runs remarkably cooler than the 2200+.
I wonder if the Dresden fab where these are made is under water.
I guess one of AMD's engineers finally noticed that Intel had passed them in performance, so they put the Hammer CPUs down for 5 minutes to slide back up to the top of the performance charts. Pity that Intel is supposedly releasing the 1.8's next Monday. Personally, I'm all for AMD coasting along with Athlon, so long as they're really throwing all their efforts into Hammer.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
When AMD engineer's figure out how to add thermal protection into their cores like Intel does, THEN I might consider them.
e at video-01.html
http://www17.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q3/010917/h
This announcement is very important for one reason. Competition. Intel has had the CPU lead since the April release of the 2.4 GHz Pentium 4. The June release of the Athlon 2200 had to be a disappointment for AMD, since it not only was slower than the Pentium, but also had very little overclocking possibilities, which should have been possible due to the move from .18 to .13 micron production process. The only thing that the 2200 had going for it was price.
This was a serious problem for AMD and for competition in the CPU market. The Athlon line has always promised leading edge performance. It was key to legitimizing AMD as not just a low cost knock off of Intel, but competition where the margins are, at the top end.
Now AMD has regained if not a lead, then at least parity with Intel. And what is more important, several reviewers are saying there is a large overclocking potential with the 2400 and 2600 (The 2600 runs by default at 2.13GHz, and AnandTech overclocked to 2.4 and Tom's hardware overclocked to 2.6GHz, but only for a short time). What this means is that there is headroom in the design for much faster processors.
One thing to remember is that this is not only important for the desktop (where one could successfully argue that all this speed is overkill). This also effects the Linux server market, where this speed is needed.
Without serious competition at the top end, Intel produces slower, more expensive products. Competition is the key force driving the CPU market, and we have all benefited. Except maybe Intel's profits.
This is really great news, and looks like a great CPU (anand has some nice stats on it as well). What this means is cheaper power performance for the end user, that's always welcome. With the P4 3.0 *supposedly* coming out later this year (which I doubt), I wonder if the P4 3.0 will be any better than the 2.53 -- enough to justify the normal Intel prices. Either way, things are getting better and better. ... Only wish I had a newer system.
My G4 Tower runs at 733MHz and I have not noticed any serious speed difference between that computer and my Athlon XP 1330MHz (1500+).
.net framework FIRST.
Although I just bought VS.Net and the damn thing wont install on Windows! Lol, by MS for MS (Won't run on MS).
If anyone else has this problem here is the solution:
Go to windows update and install the
Then install the service pack (2 now i think).
Then install the software it'll work fine.
Piece of shite MS QA. I thought they were supposed to be a professional development shop?
Go by your local apple store and notice there is no fan on their heatsink for the dual G4 1.25GHz Tower.
...)
I love linux but switching to Mac (not to be a commercial or anything) was the best move I've ever made. It's like Linux with a decent GUI and excellent applications not available for linux (Photoshop, Flash MX, Dreamweaver MX,
Server side: Linux (x86) & Solaris (SPARC)
Client side: OS X (PPC) & Windows (x86)
Until you've used OS X you have no idea what you're missing (assuming you go in with an open mind). Plus you can get a G4 for 800 to 1200 on eBay right now.
Ok, stupid rhetorical question, because some gamer with far too much time on his hands is just yearning for a few more fps, a few more Mhz, and that will make everything in his pathetic life okay. Until the next new processor.
But for the rest of us, who really needs it? I'm running dual-processor PIII-1Ghz in all of my machines. Why? Because they are dirt cheap and good enough. I can slap two PIII's on a dual m/b for around $300. And it screams (loud enough for just about anybody except Joe MegaGamer). I can do office work, CAD work, design work, run a server, etc, etc.
People talk about the "Mhz myth", but I think a lot of them miss the point. It isn't whether a 2.53Ghz P4 is faster than a 2.1Ghz Athlon. It's whether or not you even need that much processor speed in the first place. Does a web browser run any better on a 2.53Ghz P4 than on a 500Mhz PIII? I doubt it.
A friend of mine had his workstation (1.7Ghz P4) burn out on him, so I loaned him my laptop (700Mhz PIII) to use until he got a new board. A short while later, he asked me how I upgraded such an old laptop to a P4? I told him I didn't, it was a PIII. He was quite surprised because he didn't see much difference between it and his old workstation. If it hadn't been for the fact that he was heavily invested in DDR memory (which won't work in older PC133 SDRAM sockets), I think he would have opted for a dual PIII when he bought the replacement.
yes but you can't deny sometimes you get a low framerate when watching american movies from your chicken coop.
I've had similar issues in other threads. I think that when your posts are modded you should be able to see who modded them. That should happen automagically with no user intervention possible. The only question I have is should everyone see who modded a post, or only the poster who was modded?
"Like fire and fusion, government is a dangerous servant and a terrible master."~RAH
The need for "The biggest number you can get" would be happily satisfied by the AMD CPU's if you were to look at the number of Operations per Second that the AMD and Intel CPU's are capable of Completing.
Of course, Intel will never rebrand their CPU's on this basis whilst AMD would still be beating them on performance!
Though all the average user understands is "A bigger number must mean that it runs faster", any self respecting geek will look at the CPU's OP/s and FLOP/s ratings to make up their minds!
Disclaimer: I meant what I thought, not what I wrote! What? You can't read my Mind? Oh dear!
c'mon...when you install VS.Net, it has a series of prereqs that the installer program installs, including the .net framework. Did you completely bypass that setup and go right to the vs setup?
Seriously. Now, when I'm randomly accessing large volumetric datasets, my CPU can stall for a few dozen more cycles on a cache miss. Woo-hoo!
Someone tell me when they start putting around 32 MB of level-three SRAM cache on the motherboard. Then maybe I'll be more interested in CPU speed improvements.
Hopefully they can undo the damage that Cyrix did, releasing a "PR400" part that was 400 only when compared to a theoretical Pentium with a FSB of 66MHz running Doom, but only had about the performance of a 266Mhz P2 running Quake, which would have made a much more reasonable comparison for the time period.
For a much better discussion of the subject, check out JC's.
Bryan
I'd like to see AMD produce the Thoroughbred at IBM's new 2.5B plant. That might give Intel some real competition.
-Thomas
AMD's processors require 1 degree for every megahertz.
... so this processor runs at a whopping 2.8 billion degrees.
Let's see
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
"FREE NELSON MANDELLA!"
"He's already BEEN freed..."
"Oh."
Does the 2600 play my Atari cartridges?
-- We live in a world where lemonade is artificial and soap has real lemon.
See subject.
this new cpu allow to people to convert their CD to MP3 even faster!
MP3 and Ogg encoding at archival quality already run faster than realtime on my old PIII 866 MHz. If the encoder can compress the audio faster than the CD drive can read it reliably[1], then what's the point of being able to encode faster?
[1] CD drives typically rip audio CDs slower than data CDs because Red Book audio carries less error correction coding than data or MP3 audio.
But do you even really need the encoding to run faster? I typically put a few CDs into CDex and then encode them in the background while I read /.
Will I retire or break 10K?
... For development work, for example, builds are often CPU-bound, so a 2.4GHz machine will compile six times as quickly as your 400MHz machine. That's a big deal when a build takes 5 minutes instead of 30.
Builds are CPU bound?
6x processor speed -> 1/6x compile time, 30m -> 5m?
Total BS. Disk I/O is a compile bottleneck. RAM I/O is a compile bottleneck. Have you actually compiled non-trivial programs?
Several issues. First off everyone knows how hard it is to measure the performance of a chip. All they can do is measure certain applications, much like schools can only test you on a few things (writing, reading, floating point addition ;-) thats a joke)
However, there is little advantage gained by adding more instructions per cycle (IPC) that they refer to past oh say... 4 or 5 per cycle. Going from 1 to 2 is the biggest improvement, and past there you start to run into so many hazards you need TONS of specialized hardware to get any improvement from it. For example the pentium 4 has a big chunk of its core dedicated to completing operations first (sometimes several) and then checking them, and then making the ones that were supposed to happen graduate into reality... if that makes any sense.
In any case, high IPC and a long pipeline is nothing without the hardware to avoid hazards, whether they are branches (control hazards) or out of order execution hazards (write after read - WAR, RAW, etc)
It is hard to get branch prediction to better than say... 95% using current techniques, no matter how much hardware you throw at it. So say you have 9 issues per cycle, 1 out of every 4 instruction a branch, and a 15 stage pipeline (i don't know the actual length for the hammer, that's just a guess) then you'll have 9*15 = 135 instructions executing at the same time, 25% of those branches = ~35, and 1 out of 20 of those will fail... that means without multiple speculation, like predication in the itanium, you would have to clear at least part of the pipeline twice before an instruction gets from start to finish, due to branch mis-predict. Of course that would most likely only result in 3 or 4 cycles being cleared, which means about 40% of the core isn't utilized during regular execution.
Now all of that is just back of the envelope calculation, but it gives some insight on the workings of a processor.
oh and also -
""Superscalar, fully pipelined Floating Point Unit (FPU): Completes more floating point operations per clock cycle than competitive x86 processors and permits high operating frequencies. The end result is a processor with the computing power to tackle the most computation-intensive software applications. ""
The FPU is an easy section to speed up - you just have to throw more hardware at it. This isn't useful for stuff like word processing, but since more of AMD's customers are gamers percentagewise than intel, they are willing to throw more silicon at it to give a few more fps's, which do rely very heavily on the FPU.
Games?
All my NES, Super NES, Game Boy, and Game Boy Advance games run just fine on my old Dell with a PIII 866. Games != bleeding edge 3D games. Besides, nowadays, bleeding edge 3D performance depends more on the video card than on the x86 CPU.
Video compression/editing?
Without training, most budding directors will make crap even worse than that movie Dana Carvey just starred in. If I had enough money for a cinematography class, I would probably also have enough money for a box with the new processor in it.
Will I retire or break 10K?
for example, builds are often CPU-bound, so [build speed will scale linearly with CPU clock]
Wrong. Building a large project is highly disk I/O bound. Normally, GCC on my PIII 866 MHz compiles the one source file I have changed within about two seconds. Linking takes the most time because it has to retrieve dozens of .o and .a files to produce a .exe file.
Only the builds on "Clobber" tinderboxes, where the system does a "make clean" before rebuilding the software, are CPU-bound. Builds on customers' machines are CPU-bound, but they can run while the client is reading some web comic (I/O and user bound).
Will I retire or break 10K?
Soon, 1.5 V Thoroughbreds should be available at 1.4 - 1.6 GHz (1700+, 1800+, 1900+). These run at around 50 W, compared to about 65 W for the 1.75 V Palomino.
And also, speed is really important if you play games.
One month ago, I ran Super Mario Bros. 3 at full speed on an NES emulator running on a Pentium 100 computer owned by a school. My current sub-GHz machine runs Game Boy Advance games at full speed. Games != bleeding-edge 3D games.
Will I retire or break 10K?
If I'd known this magic numbered processor was coming out, I would have waited before buying this DeskNote with an Ath XP 1800. But at least it runs linux, and there's no Microsoft tax for it, unless you want to pay one.
How does Combat look on these babies?
Mortal or non-Mortal?
Will I retire or break 10K?
FUCK THIS 2 minute limit, 20 second limit, no-whitespace-limit, too much white-space-limit, ASCII-art-limit ALL ON THIS n/t POST!
BTW in the install you cannot bypass the reqirements (framework). The framework that shipped with VS.Net (original shipping version) is a piece of shit. We got it at work in the MDSN subscription and had nothing but problems.
.Net development at my current place of employment. I was just frustrated to run into the same problems at home (having spent $465 on it with my own money).
So, as I stated the workaround is to install the framework NOT from the VS.Net disks but from WindowsUpdate first, then the service pack from windowsupdate, THEN VS.Net.
BTW We do
I could see holding back on multiproc systems when the big manufacturers were preloading Win98/ME, but doesn't Win2kPro and WinXP support multiproc systems? I, for one, will likely make my next PC a multiproc machine.
2600, is that the temperature in Celsius, or Farenheit?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I believe there where different batches of Althon 1.2Ghz. The first one I got ran high, very high even when it was not doing anything (in the 75-82 C range). In colaboration with my hardware dealer, we tried a few different processors from the same batch and they where more or less in the same range. We sent them all back to AMD. And got a new batch three weeks later that where running about 15-20 C lower. So when I read you're Althon is so hot and someone else runs around 40 C, I'm not surprised. At the time we tested these processors, the cpus where made in two different FAB's, one in germany and one is asia. I don't recall now which ones where running hotter.
According to Toms Hardware Guide, the Athlon performance is severly reduced by VIAs bad memory handling.
Now wouldn't it be a good investment for AMD to help VIA getting an improved memory handling? Given that most Athlons are used with VIA chipsets, it would make Athlons perform much better, and VIA probably wouldn't be opposed to free help.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
They don't make decent motherboards for $50. They do, however, make PCChips garbage for $50.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
There are several more 2600+ reviews, and these are much better too.
AMDZone.com
Hot Hardware
Tech-Report
Overclockers.com.au
Ace's Hardware
Firing Squad
Hexus
xbit
Anandtech
Van's Hardware
VIA Hardware
The Inquirer
I thought that the 2600 was released years ago!
The main problem with the AMD CPUs is that they are resigned to live on motherboards with sub-par memory throughput (if you look at the memory benchmarks, the AMDs always come out on the low end, even when the P4s also have DDR instead of RDR).
VIA needs to find out a way to increase their memory performance out of their NorthBridges so that these results won't show up.
I just upgraded from a Pentium to a dual Athlon MP 2000+ system at home. It raised the temperature in the 11x11 foot room by 8 degrees.
Myth/rumor: The Athlon XP is a furnace of unimaginable heat! I'm getting a Pentium IV! Even though they are slower and more expensive, at least they won't dim the lights then melt them!
The fastest Athlon XP chips dissipate less than 5% more heat than the fastest Pentium IV chips. They can, however, handle more heat before cooking.
Myth/rumor: Tom's Hardware guide is "more objectvice" or even "Tom's Hardware guide is reliable"
I can't believe I read this, even in a Slashdot comment.
Tom's Hardware Guide is infamous among forums such as those at StorageReview.com and among people that actually know what they are talking about for being little more than a hardware review tabloid. Read the reviews! They come to illogical conclusions and sensationalize most of their reviews.
Read the Athlon review in question:
This is AMD's admission that the previous performance scale was set too high, especially when it came to the higher clock speeds.
Umm... Could it be that because the CPU is advancing where the other components such as memory and FSB are not, that it is possible that AMD added another 66MHz to make sure the rating system was still accurate? It isn't like system performance scales linearly with CPU speed when everything else sits still. Whoever thinks that Tom's Hardware is a good place to get hardware reviews doesn't have a clue about hardware!
Read Tom's glorious review of the KT266a vs the Nforce where despite there being less than a 5% difference between the chipsets and despite the Nforce outperforming every one of the many KT266a that outnumber it greatly in some tests, their "conclusion" was Conclusion: KT266A Trounces nForce 420D - Soltek is Front-runner
Tom's has had some good reviews, and most of the reviews BY TOM HIMSELF are pretty good, but most of the reviews are from his editors, and the proof is in the reviews--they are making Tom's Hardware more of a tabloid than a legit hardware review site, riding on the reputation that Tom made for the site years ago. I know, I was once an avid Tom's reader and am disgusted how the once clear and thoughtful reviews have turned into manic drivel.
If you want reviews that are actually well thought out, intelligent, and have sane conclusions based on mere facts, try Ace's Hardware, Ars Technica, and Anandtech.
Ace's Hardware reviews are clearly the best and most researched, but they are few and far between. Want an excellent review of current and future memory technologies written with the help of actual engineers? Read Ace's Hardware.
Ars rarely has hardware reviews, but when they do the reviews are good.
Anandtech is a good all-around major review site that as far as I can tell has never been biased, but is a little bit too PC for me. (that's Politically Correct, not the other one)
Is Tom's biased? Read the reviews! They aren't biased in a classic sense as far as I can tell, that is, they don't "always favor Intel" or "Always favor AMD"; rather they are often biased against one or the other. They will post stories that are clearly opinionated bullshit from ignorant tech writers that tend to have a bias against one or ther other. This is a mystery to me as they surely piss off both AMD and Intel all the time, and don't make any friends in the process. Overall, I wouldn't say that bias is a big problem at Tom's Hardware as much as stupid technical writers that don't know what they are talking about is a problem.
Want more examples? Point me to a review at Tom's and I'll tell you what's wrong with it (if there is anything wrong with that particular one)
At Tom's--read the reviews by Tom, but everyone else is not trustworthy.
Myth/rumor:
When you hold a seashell up to your ear, you can hear the sea.
Fact: You can hear the same sound reflections by holding a drinking cup up to your ear. It has nothing to do with the ocean. The question is, if you hold a Unix shell up to your ear, can you hear the C?
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
> he asked me how I upgraded such an old laptop to a P4? I told him I didn't, it was a PIII.
I bet if you ran Adaware on his old machine you would have your answer. It's not that your computer was running just as fast as his, it's that his computer wasn't running as fast as it should. I love going to client call that says his/her computer is running much slower than it used to. Adaware plus a few minutes waiting and you have yourself an easy $75 service call (and they think you are a genious for fixing it so fast). Thank you spyware and thank you Lavasoft.
There is the possibility he had a slow hard drive too. A slow hard drive can affect performance greatly. I know Dell and Compaq seemingly love to throw 500rpm drives in their machines to lower the price. Dude, you're getting a slow piece of shit.
I run office 2000 just fine on my athlon 700. No way is openoffice faster.
The quote was: "2.8Ghz...my first computer didn't have that many MHz"
Yes, it is true. GHz != MHz. No shit Sherlock.
But because GHz is equal to 1000 * MHz. His sentence could be validly interpreted to read: "2800MHz...my first computer didn't have that many MHz".
And to which I reply, "thank you captain obvious" since up until CPUs reached 2.8GHz, nobody's first computer had that many MHz.
THINK!
Celsius or Fahrenheit?
Free Kevin!
I know this is /. and all but the only reply i have to your post is: GEEK
See, I just bought my 1700 XP processor, now I want this one..... All hail the AMD Gods.......
Come up with some other dumb gripe.
Ive built tons of Athlons and P4's.
And never had a problem with heat on neither.
I think you fools are just plain stupid computer geeks or something. Get a brain, life, etc...
AMD's better, its cheaper. Exact same thing as Intel pretty much.
I think generally, if your computer is primarily used for business software and web surfing, even an Intel Celeron A 400 MHz will suffice.
The big bottlenecks nowadays are insufficient amounts of system RAM and a too-slow hard drive. Given the price of hardware nowadays, going to 256 MB of RAM and getting a modern hard drive that is ATA-33 compatible (today's ATA-100/133 drive can run in ATA-33 mode) speeds things up quite a lot, mostly because 1) you don't have to do hard drive memory swapping and 2) data read/writes on the hard drive is so much faster.
For example, a system using the Intel 440LX chipset and a Pentium II 266 MHz CPU actually runs quite well (even with Windows XP Home Edition or a contemporary Linux distribution with everything installed) with a memory upgrade to 256 MB and switching to today's fast hard drives.
NERD!!
I'm not sure why you claim that I'm wrong when you provide a number of examples of CPU-bound build enviromnents. In fact, your post states fairly clearly that only incremental builds are disk-bound
Only building the whole package is CPU-bound. A developer typically does not sit for x hours a day in front of any of the machines that build the whole package; she mostly sits at her own workstation, which builds the software incrementally. And often, in lower-profile projects, she doesn't run clobber builds except on a branch, right before a release.
(Or do your files really take more than 2 seconds to load from disk [during the link phase]?)
Yes. I don't always have the privilege of a RAID 5 array. I often hack on a laptop, and laptop computers' low-wattage hard disk drives are notorious for their slow performance. Opening several dozen .o (object code) and .a (object code library) files requires several dozen seeks across the hard disk. In addition, some cross-compilation target architectures use a post-link tool to add asset data to the finished executable. The disk hits add up.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Why don't we ever see Instructions Per Clock in these reviews? Isn't that the important part?
SCO (noun.)- A Slimy Corporate Ogre. Often seeks free money.
His sentence could be validly interpreted to read: "2800MHz...my first computer didn't have that many MHz".
Only by an complete fucking imbecile with no reading comprehension skills. Into which category you, apparently, fall. Dickhead. YOU fucking think. I know it's a pain to remove the shrinkwrap from your brain, but occasionally it's worth it. For example, you wouldn't have made it obvious to millions of people that you're a complete fucking imbecile with no reading comprehension skills.
Pardon my ignorance, but What is SMP?
Urgo: "I want to live. I want to experience the universe and I want to eat pie!"
Jack: "Who doesn't??"
You don't seem to have any qualms with making it painfully clear you're a retard, why should he?
Bah, when I was a boy, we did logarithms on abacuses! Naked! in the snow! And we liked it!
...that this thread will soon be bitchslapped.
This is what Alpha and others do for their heatsinks. Use copper for the base to efficiently spread heat to each fin. Make the fins out of aluminum so it doesn't weigh two pounds and cost fifty dollars to manufacture. What is the problem with this? Is an aluminum/copper hybrid worse than aluminum alone?
Or is overclocking half the fun of buying an athlon?
The variable no one, no reviews, no websites out there EVER test against is TIME. That's right! When was the last time you saw a review say XXXX Processor fried after X number of hours. We consumers have to live with this variable, Tom's hardware don't.
My experience shows that my Intel Pentium 1 has out lasted every AMD chip I ever owned. My current Pentium 4 offers solid stability no AMD chip ever showed. And I bought a generic motherboard for Intel, where as I shelled out one nice ass board for AMD.
So... Compile it from the source code, and optimize for P4 if you want to test with P4!
FREE HAT
When Tom actually writes something inteligent/useful or at the very least correct, THEN I might consider believing anythign from his page.
Seriously though, how often do you rip the heatsink off of your processor while it's running?
Finally a processor with so bus. Now all we need to do is get rid of Microsoft and AOL and the world will be perfect.
>Is an aluminum/copper hybrid worse than aluminum alone?
I'm not totally understanding of this, but I do know that (to a certain point) from what I can remember from physics this is less efficient. Not to mention that I only started thinking about this when a BSc in Mech. Eng. said everytime you bond two materials together you lose heat transfer efficiency (this was while I showed him one of those Cu+Al heatsinks) so he thought they were a silly design.
But I'm not the Uni. grad. here, so maybe I'm incorrect.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC