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New Intel Chipset and Extreme Edition CPU Tested
Steve writes "Today sees the launch of both a new CPU and chipset from Intel. The CPU takes the form of a 3.46Ghz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, running at 1066FSB, and the chipset is the i925XE, the first Intel chipset to support this new FSB. HEXUS.net have a review of both. It looks like AMD still have the lead when it comes to performance, despite Intel's attempts to counter the Athlon 64 FX-55." Hack Jandy links to more reviews at AnandTech, HardOCP, and ExtremeTech.
I think AnandTech summed it up nicely "So there you have it folks - the 1066MHz FSB does absolutely nothing for performance, [...], But with the move to the 1066MHz FSB we have a platform launch that, in the spirit of the 925X and 915 launches, does virtually nothing for performance."
However the real question is, how many decision-makers are reading these review/benchmarks, or do they just buy Intel because it's Intel, or that's what xx-business weekly says?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Great clock speed and all but is it 64bit?
"There's no set architecture in Linux. All roads lead to madness" -Microsoft
anandtech shows a 1% increase in speed over 800mhz fsb in most cases, is this really something to get excited about? will this difference open up in the future?
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
...I'd be twice the sucker I actually am.
:)
Thank god for the ponces and their fast stuff obsession making things cheap for me
Beep beep.
no matter how fast the clock speed the pipline is sooooo long for P4 chips causing a sever preformance degradement. This is why G5 and AMD chips are faster at lower clock speeds because of there shorter pipline. Intels high clock speeds just look good
AMD still have the lead when it comes to performance
And even more so when it comes to VALUE. Intel just seems to have a problem making the P4 fast but not expensive. I suspect they just need to toss it and come up with a completely new design. Like Pentium M, only better.
Just my sqrt(4) cents.
The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
It's hard to call someone an AMD fanboy when they're just doing it right. Intel has had quite bit of trouble with Pentium 4 for some time now. If you rememer when Prescott came out, you'll notice that most press noted it's longer pipeline and increased latencies. I'm not an AMD fanboy, but I don't seem Intel putting out chips that compete, espicially in the price range. And, where in the world are the 64 bit instructions?! I'm really starting to thing someone at Intel has gone off thier rocker. BTW, AnandTech was the first result on Google with a Prescott article : http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx? i=1956&p=2
"I do a grep for shit, bollocks, and tits before checking in code. I'm professional..." -RECURSIVE_META_JOKE, reddit.com
AMD all the way. Intel is alive just because of Dell (among others) and a large reserve of cash. They cost more, do less, and heat your bedroom to boot. But it has 'Intel Inside', so I guess it must count for somethin
I don't see this as true. To the people that read reviews it might seem obvious that AMD is currently in the especially for gaming benchmarks, but people will still buy intel because
1.they heard amd runs really hot
2.Wtf is amd?
3.Intel has way higher mhz and a bigger fsb it can't be wrong.
So i don't think intel is just relying on Dell sales.
No. They went off their rocker more than 3 years ago when they designed the P4 and went for GHz for marketing reasons and not engineering reasons. That said the P4 actually served them well for a number of years, but they didn't get off at the right station...
I remember Intel talking about 5-10GHz CPUs. They were probably taking a bet that the process and material engineers would save them.
I'm sure they realized they lost the bet when the Opterons/Athlon64s started spreading their wings and actually flying, but when you have multi-billion dollar fabs, commitments to partners, it takes a while to turn the ship.
If you observe, they've canned a lot of stuff and changed their product milestones/announcements.
They just can't tell Dell, forget the next bunch of P4s, we're going to go Pentium-M NOW (even though we haven't got it fully buzzword compliant)!
Any idiot can realize the Prescott was bad news ONCE it was testing. But by then it's just too late.
AMD has a window of opportunity till at least early 2006. As long as they don't screw up! They better use overwhelming force if they want to win. It's not an easy battle. Intel is no pushover.
I mean - what's there to prevent Intel doing the same stuff as AMD? e.g. Pentium-M with memory controller on CPU?
Meanwhile I'm really curious about the new Intel SMP server chips. What are the power consumption and cooling requirements like?
they sunk billions into itanic, thus wasting valuable company resources (engineers, fabs, marketing, etc) that could have been better put to use on their mainstream chips.
then they blew it by designing p4 to purely target a mhz goal, expecting that advances in materials and fabs would easily let them scale to 10ghz.
basically, intel was overconfident and then refused to abandon a ship (itanic) when it was obvious it was in trouble, instead desperately trying to save face and keep it afloat.
while they were busy mending their doomed ship, the popularity of amd64 completely caught them off guard. now amd is eating their core markets for lunch.
in the meantime, intel's itanic partners are beginning to abandon ship. this has to be really alarming to intel.
intel is trying to go too many directions at once, all of them wrong.
amd took the safer bet (amd64) while intel was pooh-poohing and ridiculing them over it. that decision has now come back to haunt intel.
The AMD 64 is covered by a heat spreader, just like the P4. In a nutshell, short of using a sledgehammer to install the heatsink, it's pretty damn impossible to crack the chip even if you wanted to.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
This just goes to show that people are more likely to go with the option they know, as opposed to the best ones. This is true with hardware, software (how many computers run Windows?), clothes, music, etc. Mod me Offtopic, Flamebait, Troll if you feel it is necessary.
I've handled hundreds of AMD chips, and I've never had one single DOA broken one, ever. The only broken AMD CPU I have owned was an Athlon 900Mhz chip, because I fucked up and busted the chip by putting too much pressure while installing the heat-sink.
I should mention that AMD not only replaced the thing for free, they sent me a 950Mhz chip, and sent it overnight delivery, no charge.
Since then, I have been a lot more careful installing heat sinks. The Pentium 3 "flip chips" were *EXACTLY* the same as the Athlons, and you could break them just as easily.
I call bullshit on you for that FUD. And not to mention, the Athlon 64's all have a heat spreader on them now, so your point is moot.
AMD Processors have always treated me very well. I never have problems with them, and they always run how I expect them to run, plus some. Intel makes good CPU's too, and I use them as well.
I'm not sure why you weren't fired after snapping the 10th CPU? Or the 100th?
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
AMD chips used to cost very little, yes, but nowadays they're pretty much on par with Intel.
... 899 Euro ... 849 Euro
... 174 Euro ... 184 Euro
... 189 Euro ... 184 Euro
E.g, since we're talking about the P4EE, a fair comparison would be the Athlon FX. A quick look at an online shop here (www.alternate.de) says:
Athlon 64 FX-55
Athlon 64 FX-53
Not exactly a budget chip either, eh?
But let's look at something more mainstream:
Athlon 64 3000+ (socket 754, 2 GHz)
Athlon 64 3000+ (socket 939, 1.8 GHz)
Pentium 4 3000 GHz (Northwood)
Pentium 4 3000 GHz (Prescott)
So it looks to me like they're very much on par, as price goes.
Now this isn't a scientific study or anything, and I didn't even try to find the lowest price or anything. I just stopped at the first online shop that came to mind.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Hey, who gives a flying fuck. The tests were all 32-bit apps. Like most apps that people will be using for a few years to come.
In effect, the FX was a 32-bit CPU in those tests, because none of the apps leveraged the 64-bitness. Of course the Intel came close.
It'll get interesting when we see AMD64 Athlons benchmarked against EM64T Pentiums in 64-bit apps.
It'll get really interesting when we see EM64T Pentium-Ms in those benchmarks... preferably dual-core... against AMD's dual-cores, of course.
But I agree, Pentium 4 did quite well for a dead product.
(However, expect a 30% boost from the 64-bitness, tops. I'll stick to 32-bit products for the foreseeable future, because I don't have any need for 64-bitness. And I'd hate to upgrade just because AMD/Intel Marketing told me it's kewl. I don't need a 30% boost with the associated software update-o-rama. My computers do their various jobs just fine and dandy as they are now.)
The 64-bitness doesn't matter yet.
:-)
:-)
The reason why gamers are now flocking to K8 CPUs is the integrated memory controller, not the x86-64 nobody (outside Slashdot) uses.
Intel can only counter that by adding tons of L3 cache like on the Extreme Editions. Even with the $999 prices, Intel isn't getting nearly as much profit as AMD gets from the FX line, because that cache is seriously expensive. And because of that, you won't see much of these new EEs at stores. It's a PR product, and larger demand would be undesirable for Intel.
It's a GOOD thing to AMD that Intel's desperate uber-chip can't beat AMD's perfectly regular offering. After all, today's FX-55 is tomorrow's Athlon 64 4200+
(FX-55 = 2.6 GHz, 1 MB L2, Socket 939 and dual-channel memory. 4000+ = 2.4 GHz, 1 MB L2, Socket 939 and dual-channel memory. In this vein, "FX-55" will become "4200+" when a 2.8 GHz FX-57 ships... Which will be a good time to buy a 4000+!
they tested 32 bit apps on a 32 bit OS, the 64 bit capabilities of the athlons were not used