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Athlon Xp 3200+ 400FSB is Coming
SoDaLaS writes "Athlon 3200+ Coming:
According to CNET The Athlon 3200+ with a 400MHz FSB is on the way in the next two weeks. It'll be interesting to see how well the processor overclocks at that high of a bus speed...it didn't seem to hamper the new 800MHz FSB Pentium 4, which many people were worried about too."
The Athlon chips have not been super-sensitive to changes in FSB. The performance impact of the Athlon XP moving from 2x133MHz to 2x166MHz was significantly less than the P4's gains going from 4x100MHz to 4x133MHz. The P4 gains have been incredible with the jump to 4x200MHz.
It seems that AMD is trying to squeeze every bit of performance out of an architecture that would be better squeezed by being optimized, i.e. Opteron. It's a shame that AMD's yields of Opteron have proven to be dismal, but if I was a motherboard manufacturer I'd be pretty mad at AMD right now. More motherboard manufacturers are going to have to qualify their boards and more chipset manufacturers will have to qualify their products as well, even if they can already meet 400MHz operation. Will the performance impact really justify the costs that all parties incur by moving to yet a new FSB in less than, what, 6 months?
Unless mankind redesigns itself
I would think that it isn't going to do much more than extend the Athlon's lead in some areas(business content) and close an already large gap in others(multimedia) between the P4.
But it is nice to see that AMD moved the Athlon to the 400MHz bus. Now hopefully they will give the Athlon64 the same support, along with a dual-channel memory controller like in the Opteron.
Beer Die is the game of champions Learning To walk my own path.
With faster processors we get less efficient programs. 10 Years ago you could do internet/email/word processing/spread sheets with just a 33MHz Intel 386 with 16 MB RAM. Today you need for the very same things a Pentium IV with 2 GHZ and 128 MB RAM. There are some niece applications which need a lots of CPU Power like Quake or Nurmerical Simulations, but must Joe Adverage apps don't really need it. The programs need it due to sloppy coding. And the faster CPUs gave rise to the OOP paradigm. While it primarily is a nice theoretical concept for safer and more secure program, it's used these days just for code-bloat and GUI overload. Inpedendent studies show that in fact 73 percent of all "OOP" code is just imperative with C++ class bloat added.
Further the higher compiler and debugger speeds introduced much more sloppy coding styles. In the 60/70ies the computers of the Apollo program hadn't a single computer crash, which is completely unthinkable these days. The reason why the NASA is keeping old 8080 Intels in their shuttles is that they won't get decent code quality form modern processors these days.
Personally I think that the whole CS community must rethink their position towards computers speeds. Instead of the todays faster-is-better point we need a paradigm change towards just-as-fast-as-necessary.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
Please, AMD, just get on with it and give us the Athlon 64. Consign the 32-bit chips to the bargain basement. The workstation and server market has been 64-bit for nearly a decade. It's time we caught up. I'm off to ebay to buy a second-hand alpha workstation...
Stick Men
I work from home, and have a network of 5 PCs of various specifications. You can tell when they are on because the floorboards in the hall vibrate, never mind the noise they make.
I have recently invested in a VIA EPIA-M10000 motherboard. It is very, very quiet.
Sure, it isn't as fast as the latest P4 or Athlon, but it plays DVD (with hardware support), DivX, and MP3 media without any problems. Quake 3 runs well.
More importantly, I can run all my business applications without any noticable loss in speed.
I'm going to ditch my other boxes and buy some more of these EPIA systems. It's the quiet life for me.
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
Your argument is flawed.
The reason many CPU's run at stock speeds far below their maximum is supply and demand. Intel and AMD can't sell all their chips as the fastest speed grade even if they all pass the tests! Not everyone is prepared to pay $800 for a CPU you know!
Also, buying a low-end CPU and running it at the same speed and voltage as a high-end model does not generate any more heat than the high-end model normally does and so does not require any more cooling, unless you are pushing the limits of the chip and need to keep it extra cool.
What's the real clock speed of this beggar?
It's the naming scheme. It is a 3200+ because that is what it's performance is relative to - a 3.2GHz Intel piece. The 400MHz FSB just allows AMD to take what would have been a slower part, and mark it as such.
Purchasing the right part WILL get you a massive overclock though. The prime example is the Athlon XP 2100+ Thoroughbred B part. This CPU is actually running at 1730Mhz, however many overclockers are getting these CPU's up to 2500Mhz on stock air-cooling and 100% stable. It's unknown why these particular parts are doing such a high overclock, but anyway you slice it a 44% overclock is pretty significant.
Also, my own CPU which runs at 1830Mhz and overclocks to 2200Mhz is still getting a 20% overclock.
I try to make everyone's day a little more surreal.
I keep hearing from people like you who have trouble with VIA/AMD systems, and I'm just perplexed.
For myself, friends, and family I've built 7 VIA/AMD systems and each have been rock solid. Absolutely no problems. And with the money I saved buying the VIA/AMD combo versus an Intel product, I was able to buy better graphic cards, more ram, and larger hard drives.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Of course, they don't want to risk hurting sales of the Hammer, but it would still be nice to have more than one option, for crying out loud.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Answer me this, where did this whole notion that P4s are somehow faster than AMD chips come from?
You might want to check this out. Find me a single benchmark that AMD took the crown in. You will soon discover that the closest AMD got to winning a benchmark was 2nd place on the Sysmark Office 2000 test. The rest of the tests placed AMD in 4th, 5th, and sometimes even 6th place (behind the slowest P4 in the test, the 2.53GHz).
This can all be explained if you consider Intel isn't so interested in making a great processor as it is making great fabrication processes
So basically, even though Intel isn't interested in making a great processor, they still make one that is superior to what you are promoting?
The only fair comparison would be a dollar amount comparison (a $200 AMD processor vs a $200 Intel processor), and Intel still takes the crown with that. An XP 2800+ is about the same price as a Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, and the benchmarks still show Intel ahead on majority of the tests. The only thing we have to thank AMD for is the fact that we don't pay $5,000 for a superior Pentium 4 now.
Since then, I've stuck to buying Asus and Shuttle boards and have had ZERO problems. Maybe that Abit board had a flaky chipset, who knows. I have an XP 1600 and a Thunderbird 1.33 running at home and they run fine. Never had a problem. They run just as stable as my PII@300.
I just can't resist the price/performance ratio of AMD chips when I go to upgrade my machine.