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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.
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..
Of course, Intel just announced it's 2.8GH due out next week.
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.
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!
I've been an AMD fan for several years because of the competitive pressure they put on Intel. I think it's one of the reasons we get the kind of bang for the buck in CPU's. So much so that CPU's are regarded as a mundane utility component of a computer, much as a power supply, a motherboard, or a copy of Windows XX.
Despite the nice price/performance ratio of the K7, it's got to be refreshed, because the fastest Pentium 4 chips can beat its top performance (after all the PR ratings and MHz are laid aside).
Conservative corporate IT buyers are quite willing to pay the relatively small extra price for P4 over a K7. Maybe a year and half ago when the K7 squeezed the PIII to the end of it's life and the K7 was the performance leader, AMD would have gotten some attention, but now it seems like the shoe is on the other foot.
Price cuts from Intel on the P4 and Celeron will keep the pressure on the K7 to where AMD really needs the Opteron."Provided by the management for your protection."
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.
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.
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
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.
I run office 2000 just fine on my athlon 700. No way is openoffice faster.
I thought Intel already had a 2.66ghz on the street ?.