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Dual-Core Shoot Out - Intel vs. AMD
sebFlyte writes "The Intel vs AMD battle of the benchmarks continues. ZDNet is running its rather comprehensive-looking guide to a side-by-side test of Intel and AMD's dual-core desktop chips, the Athlon 64 X2 3200+ and the Pentium D 820. They look at pure performance, as well as the difference it makes to apps you might use on the desktop. In the end, AMD comes out as the winner. From the article: 'AMD currently offers the most attractive dual core option. The Athlon 64 X2 3800+ may cost $87 more than its Intel counterpart, the Pentium D 820, but the AMD chip is a much better performer. It also uses considerably less power.'"
The best price/performance deal is the $146 AMD 3000 chip.
It is an amazing little bugger that can git er done with ease but does not cost and arm + leg.
If you "get" pointers add me as a friend (116)!
It costs almost $100 more and is faster? What are the odds...
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
- Winston Churchill
Or, put another way, the bottom-of-the-line AMD 3800+ is less than 1/3rd the price of the top-of-the-line Pentium 840 EE ($328 vs. $999), yet it still beats it in most of the benchmarks.
Too bad they didn't compare the Pentium D 830 in the benchmarks - this is closer in price to the AMD 3800+
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Isn't this like the fourth time we've seen a Xeon-vs-AMD benchmark on the front page? It's old news.
The problem with the Xeons is they're totally throttled. The Xeon was like a V-6 engine under a VW carburetor; the dual-core Xeon is like a big-block V8 under the same carburetor.
The AMDs have better access to RAM and better (independent) cross-CPU communication. The dual-core Xeons were clearly rushed to market to answer AMD's offering, before Intel could get their own memory-access ducks in a row.
zdnet is usually fairly good, but not this time.
Ahh the AMD wins overall in performance but can it cook make me a sunny side up egg as fast as the intel :P
GL HF!
"A kernel compiled for a single CPU is faster than a kernel compiled for multipe CPU's, even when you only have one CPU. This is why OpenBSD has two kernels: 1) one cpu and 2) multpiple CPU's. The main developer of DragonBSD said that his preference is single CPU, performance wise (I'll leave that as a Google exercise)."
Dillon said he felt FreeBSD's focus on many CPUs to the exclusion of single-CPU performance was a mistake, not that single CPUs are preferable.
Also, most desktop workloads benefit from having two CPUs, it helps responsiveness quite a bit (even on OSes with good schedulers like Linux). There is overhead for the locking in the kernel, but the benefit almost always outweighs the cost.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Huh? No reason you can't use Intel's compiler for AMD64 it if you like the code it generates (AMD64 supports SSE/SSE2).
/ eng/compilers/clin/220007.htm
Intel themselves even point out that their compiler supports AMD.
http://www.intel.com/cd/software/products/asmo-na
Incidently gcc 4.0 does automatic loop vectorization using SSE/SSE2, so I wouldn't dismiss it too quickly either.
The AMD chip is more expensive and uses less power than the Intel chip? Isn't it usually the other way around?
AMD chips have been the "low power" leaders for quite some time now -- at least 2 years. Pretty much since the introduction of the Athlon XP models.
As for the price difference -- yes, the Athlon64 X2 chips are more expensive than their Intel "counterparts", but if you look at the benchmarks or the design you'll see why -- the Intel chips are a rush job and poorly (but cheaply) designed. You don't get anywhere near the performance of the AMD design though, and Intel's already stated that this won't change until mid 2006.
Trust me, Dell is screaming bloody murder over this -- since the superiority of the Athlon64 X2 chips is completely undeniable, more and more of the server market is now shifting to AMD. And Dell is still purely Intel. Thing is, even if Dell was willing to break their allegience, it's doubtful that AMD could fulfill the quantities that Dell would want. They just don't have the fab capacity. And unless that changes, there's little reason for Dell to anger Intel (and lose some of the vast discounts that they get from Intel in the process).
Okay. According to this page, at full-tilt the Pentium D 820 consumes 130.6W, while this page says the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ consumes 89W. So, how long would the Opteron have to run at full blast to make up the difference in cost of $87? Last month I paid $0.078 per kilowatt-hour. This seems to be reasonably average for the United States. 130.6W - 89W = 41.6W difference between the two. Some back of the Google-calculator math reveals: (US$ 87) / (41.6 W * ((US$ 0.078) / (kW * Hr))) = 3.05871582 years. A not-insignifigant amount of time. If you're in an area where electricity is more expensive like New York or California, the amount of time is even less!
Feel free to correct my math!
It's also worth noting that Intel's marketing machine has been an enormous success. For many average-joe computer users, AMD is in the same category as Linux and Firefox -- something nerds get excited about, but (they think) will destroy their computer or break the intarnets.
Even some of the more tech-savvy people I've run into aren't aware that an AMD will be essentially transparent to the user, except in that it has historically been more bang for the buck, especially for the gamer. And even when you tell them of a personal preference for AMD, or certain AMD chips, for whatever reason, the vast majority will still assume that since everybody (even Apple, soon) has "Intel inside," Intel is the way to go. Even if you convince them that AMD is a processor and not some kind of nerd voodoo magic, they won't be compelled to switch unless a computer salesman tells them it's cheaper and better while they're at the store.
By way of analogy: Every time I see a Dodge commercial for some HEMI-powered truck, I think "Oooh, it's got a HEMI. That must mean it's better than my poor HEMI-less Chevy." Do I know what the hell HEMI even means? Not at all. Which is why I'll have to ask one of my car-nut friends if I ever (god forbid) truck shopping. It's pure marketing and name recognition. People trust Intel becuase they think it makes the world go round. AMD is some communist revolutionary nerd chip from hell. (OK, that's exagerrating. But you get the idea.)
Why wait?
The term 'Hemi' is short for 'hemispherical', which describes the shape of the cylinder head's combustion chamber. From Wikipedia:
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack