Slashdot Mirror
Current Processors Tested With Linux
Happy-Jollies writes "The team at LinuxHardware.org have kept us up-to-date on the latest in processors for quite some time now and they're at it again. With the latest release of the Pentium 4 'Prescott,' many Linux users will be deciding where to spend their money. LinuxHardware.org's round-up takes a look at the Prescott, Northwood, Extreme Edition, and the AMD Athlon 64."
the G5? It can run linux too, you know.
I know that this is a little off-topic, but does anyone know where the extra transistors in Prescott are coming from? There are 125 million in that baby. Even with alleged 64-bit extensions (hidden, at this point), SSE3, improved branch prediction and the extra large cache, there should be under 100 million, no?
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
But we won't know if we don't look.
That's why I still buy Intel.
The owls are not what they seem
example of the megahertz myth. The chip with the largest cache won. Hands down, no contest.
Unfortunatly AMD not being 100% compatable with the standard causes problems.
Good old FUD -- when Windows crashes on an Intel box, it's because of Microsoft. When Windows crashes on a AMD box, it's because the AMD "isn't 100% compatible". Uh huh. I'll buy either AMD or Intel without a hesitation (I'm not a fanboy) where one is the clear winner, but I still see FUD when someone spouts it.
Here's a clue for you -- neither AMD or Intel are x86 processors, but rather both have a converter that converts x86 to their own internal microcode. The x86 standard that they're converting is EXTREMELY well known and standardized (I mean -- other people have to write the software that runs on it). AMD is 100% compatible with core x86.
Intel also has much more R&D into making a chip that won't fry itself if it gets too hot. AMD? Naw, they'd rather make you buy a new chip than bother to make it prevent a problem before it occurs.
Tom, is that you? Firstly, Intel and AMD chips are comparable in heat levels (actually the Prescott sets all new levels for heat generation, making Intel the clear winner in the egg cooker category), but secondly you are correct -- Intel has been more fervent in putting heat protection on their chips, though it is arguably over-engineering. It's like having guidewires "just in case" around all of your high rises. It's generally unnecessary as, apart from Tom's Hardware PR stunts, heatsinks don't fall off processors in regular use. My car doesn't have a special fuel purge if I decide to fill it full of ketchup.
AMD only also is just brand blindness.
I will always use the best priced solution. While I agree that right now that is AMD, Intel is welcome to tempt me -- I can be convinced.
For my day-to-day activities, I'm much more affected by the speed of my hard disk and the amount of memory I have installed. IMHO one should spend the minimum amount on a processor that they feel comfortable with, and then use the savings for the rest of the system.
Buy brand name components, a decent 7200 or even 10K RPM hard disk, and a GIG of memory. Don't forget input and output either! A cheap monitor, keyboard, or mouse will ruin your experience. Don't skimp on where it counts so you can simply brag about having one processor vs. one that's slightly slower.
"My car doesn't have a special fuel purge if I decide to fill it full of kethup"
That's not really a relevant analogy. Something more analogous would be 'my car won't explode if I don't put any coolant in the radiator'. Your car will show the temperature steadily increasing and it may well let you get it hot enough to start a fire or seize the engine. A Pentium engine OTOH would turn itself off after the temperature threshold reached a certain point, thereby saving itself.
What Intel fanboys don't realize is that AMD left it up to the motherboard manufacturers to add proper thermistors beneath the ZIF socket where the cpu goes. While some believe it was irresponsible and some motherboard companies just forgot to add this altogether, most reputable companies have done it for awhile.
You could take issue with the fact that any AMD chip will self-destruct with no heat sink or without adequate cooling, or you could figure you're a total moron for not putting coolant in your radiator and you reap what you sow. Many ways to look at this issue.
Does everyone forget the DEC Alphas?
Pretty much, yeah... unfortunate too, since they were such good chips.
For gaming? What, you need 64bit color and 64bit sound?
No, for content creation -- textures, maps, etc. You can't reasonably address >4GB with a 32-bit chip (yes, you can do it. No, it's not fast) and we're reapidly approaching that limit in content creation.
And while 24-bits of color may be adequate, you need more precision than that when doing blends and other operations. Of course, those are largely done by the GPU nowadays, so that's a non-issue as far as the CPU is concerned.
So what if you can linearly address 4TB? A 1 or 2 GB machine is top of the line these days so far as desktop boxes go. The barrier is mainly price, not the addressing capabilities of the CPU.
Actually you can linearly address 256 TB with the current AMD64 chips (48-bit addressing) and 16 exabytes with true 64-bit addressing. That's quibbling though.
The main advantage of a 64-bit CPU (or at least one with direct addressing of >32-bit) is that you can directly map permanent storage to memory. Right now trying to do that is a freaking nightmare and very expensive, since we've long outgrown 4GB of disk space.
And, really, that's not even the main advantage of x86-64. The real advantage is compiling 32-bit code to be aware of x86-64's extra registers, which can lead to a considerable speed up with no other changes.
As far as all the kids running out to spend their allowance on AMD64 chips, that's just them trying to fit in and show how computer savvy they are.
Yeah, by and large. My next PC will probably be x86-64 based though. Why? Because it's not that expensive. You can get a Athlon64 3000+ for just over $200 now. That's only a little more than an AthlonXP 3200+ or a little less than a P4 3.0C. If you're looking in that price range, then why not go for it? You'll get roughly the same price/performance in 32-bit and be able to upgrade to 64-bit when the time comes. If you don't need that kind of performance, that's fine -- save your money. But otherwise it's kinda silly to ignore the potential advantages offered.