Slashdot Mirror
AMD Takes Opteron To 2.4GHz
EconolineCrush writes "AMD has added a series of Opteron x50 processors to its workstation and server line that push the K8 core up to 2.4GHz. The Tech Report has tested the latest single and dual-processor Opterons against more than 20 other processors, including exotic Pentim 4 Extreme Edition chips, affordable Athlon 64s, and everything in between. Even if you have no interest in AMD's latest workstation chips, the review is worth checking out to see how two dozen of the fastest workstation and PC processors stack up in rendering, scientific computing, speech recognition, and even gaming tests."
They were lagging there for a while but the benchmarks depict a good story. Looks like the opteron is going to be yet another AMD chip that is great for gaming (and most other things). Hopefully a cheaper price than the p4's will really contribute to yet another dominating year for AMD.
Intel's apparent willingness to forego such enhancements in favor of adding ever-larger on-chip caches to the Xeon is puzzling"
Why is it puzzling? In their historic "Intel Inside" world, they were basically competing against themselves. Adding a bigger cache is not only easy, but a cheap way to rake in more cash without doing much R&D work.
It's not until recently that AMD has starting "schooling them" on what improvement really means. Just look at how Intel is going to use the AMD x86-64 method in the upcoming Intel 64bit platform. And now "If I were building (or, implausibly perhaps, buying) my ultimate workstation right now, I'd want a pair of Opteron 250s beating at the heart of it. The benchmarks speak volumes. For single-processor systems, the Opteron 150 looks like the fastest x86 CPU on the planet..." And this is at much lower mhz!
I believe Intel had thought they had reached monopoly status, which really they had, and the culture had become complacent. This did not happen at the underdog AMD, who has recently been able to quickly leapfrog Intel's offerings.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans