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Intel/AMD Battle Rages On
An anonymous reader writes "The battle between Intel and AMD has broken out of the cleanroom and literally into public view with AMD's public display CPU speed challenge to competitor Intel. Should the competition take place, the infamous chip makers will battle their best 2-way and 4-way configurations for the latest title as speed king." From the article: "AMD's proposed dual-core duel would be a live, public performance evaluation between server platforms based on the dual-core Opteron 800 Series or 200 Series processors and the corresponding Intel product. Should Intel accept AMD's challenge, the duel would take place at a public venue to be announced in the coming weeks, with testing conducted by a neutral, third-party testing lab. "
This is just marketing by AMD. There is no way that Intel and AMD would come to agreement on the benchmarking software to use. Both companies know their weak points and their strong points. Neither company is going to agree to lose.
Finally an open match between two independent groups who compete to prove who has the best product available and competing in a leve where the rules are set and the process is (at least somewhat) clear.
This is what has been missing in the benchmark field. I hope that this trend picks up and that from now on we see the companies battling it out on the technical field instead of the marketing field.
P.S.:yes I know. This is marketing too. But still, it is a lot better than obscure references and funny and dubious charts which show vage and misleading numbers.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
If they start benchmarking then whose compiler will they use?2 6_QMD_%26_AMD64_%26_SSE2
http://fahwiki.fahstats.com/index.php?title=FAH_%
I don't see where Intel would enjoy any strategic advantage in participating.
Burger King has in the past been fond of touting its #2 status -- as has Pepsi.
But the big boys, McDonald's and Coke, generally like to pretend that #2 doesn't exist. After all, it would only publicly legitimize their fear of a threat by doing so. AMD gets positive publicity whether they play and win, play and lose, or if Intel refuses the contest.
Whereas Intel can only AT BEST hope to win the contest and essentially say "Hey, it's actually true that there are viable alternatives to our technology out there, but just remember that for the time being we outperform the competition by 1.23%."
I couldn't agree more.
AMD has *THE WORST COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT I HAVE EVER SEEN*
It blows me away that AMD doesn't run an ad campaign that says something like "AMD: Faster"
AMD's consumer messaging and advertising is hilariously bad. (Just look at their website, its like something some secretary did in Frontpage).
AMD continuously acts like they don't have the money to fight Intel's 170 Billion Dollar image. Its hilarious. AMD is an EIGHT BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY! I know 2 million dollar dot-coms that have a more savvy marketing department.
AMD should position itself as the more expensive, elite brand. Not the sucker underdog.
If you can't meet production numbers, be Mercedes. Be Ferarri. Don't be Saturn and charge a higher price for crying out loud.
My 2 cents.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Intel's Paul Otellini has already publicly refused to take up AMD's challenge. He said he prefers such things "to be worked out in the market."
That's Intel-speak for "we know we can't beat you in any fair contest, so we're just going to outspend you ten-to-one in marketing and make everyone think we're faster, just like we've been doing for the last five years."
Yup, that's the way to do it. If you can't beat 'em, FUD 'em to death.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
flops is just as stupid
Intel would clearly win the FLOPs because they have higher peak floating point execution bandwidth
Performance is measured in seconds, not flops or mhz. Pick a computable task - measure how long it takes each machine to complete it.
UH?
If Rate(Intel) > Rate(AMD) as you assert, then how in the world can Time(Intel) NOT be < Time(AMD)?
Time = Number of Operations / Rate
So, if the Number of Operations for each CPU is the really the same (what I assume you mean by "a computable task"), the comparison of FlOPS is the same as a comparison of total compute time.
I'm assuming we are using FLOPs for some specific calculation (say matrix inversion, or what-not), so that it is really an average FLOPs over several instructions in the ISA.
Computational Chemistry products and services.
In the end, they both sell more units to the piglets.
God, I detest corporate marketing.
I've been accused of being, 'Too Serious' and not allowing myself to just, 'Have Fun'. Fine. I can sort of see the argument. . .
After all, this is the only time in history, a window which will be open for only a few brief nano-seconds on the geologic time scale, where I can buy scratch-n-sniff stickers and scratch-n-win lottery tickets, and fizzy sugar water in a can, and pop a high-tech ecstasy pill and wear spandex and running shoes and play video games and watch movies and all of that other crazy stuff. Hey. Sure. It's all fun. This is a once in a billion chance of a lifetime to try all those funky toys out.
But pardon me for thinking there are FAR more interesting things in life than falling in line with some corporate promotional department's greedy wishes so that some millionaire can make another million off everybody's inability to resist their fascination with shiny plastic doo-dads and fake boobs.
Sure, perhaps I might seem, 'Too Serious' to the average burger-eating, cell-phone fashion zombie. --But I also have self-respect and an identity of my very own which I didn't buy at some death star mall. I take pride in not jumping whenever some corporate marketing shill tells me to get addicted to his ice cream.
And I DO NOT CARE whose microchip is faster.
But then. . , perhaps I'm just getting old. All that crap was fun when I was a teen, so to each his own. Live your life in whatever way suits you best!
-FL
Obviously your grandma and mine have vastly different idea's.
Yours went to dell and purchased the hype.
Mine came to me, told me what she wanted to do and I found out some prices based on slightly different components, eg crt vrs flat screen.
That aside, while the average consumer will buy a generic brandname, most businesses will seek atleast some advice before they go and start spending money. So if AMD manage to convince enough geeks (and can put together half good pr that we can use to sell it over all the "intel inside" hype) then their market share will go up.
Oh and one other thing, the last couple of reports have shown home users aren't currently buying pc's in the numbers they were a few years ago. seems like most of those who want a have got one and don't see the point in spending more money.