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The Mother of All CPU Charts

||Plazm|| writes "Tom's Hardware has an entertaining read on the latest offerings from processor makers Intel and AMD. Not only does it contain a plethora of benchmarks on the latest Dual core CPU's, but it also includes benchmarks from over 60 other legacy processors. Better yet, they let the benchmarks speak for themselves and let you draw your own conclusions. You may want to fill up your 44oz mug before sifting through this one, though."

135 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. AMD wins every result except... by strider44 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Summary: AMD wins every single result except the synthetic Sandra benchmarks, which Intel wins quite convincingly (all except one test). Something tells me there's something slightly wrong with that benchmark.

    1. Re:AMD wins every result except... by ciroknight · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This seems very odd to me. Intel's usually at least competitive, now it seems that Intel has almost stopped competing in raw performance entirely. This isn't because they can't build fast chips; everyone remembers how heated those battles used to get (both metaphorically and physically).

      But in all seriousness, where is Intel? Parts of me think they've almost entirely abandoned the race with AMD simply out of spite the Pentium 4 didn't work out as well as they had hoped, or that they're trying to move everyone into Mobile computing mode with their new chips which have been on the burner for the better half of the new century.

      When were the latest chips released by each company? It seems Intel's gone into hibernation mode kind of like they did right before releasing the Pentium 4 in the first place. (Allowing the P3 [and now P4?] market(s) to stagnate and die off?) Come on Intel, what are you up to???

      Not that I don't love AMD winning; it just seems AMD does their best when they're pushed excessively by Intel to produce. Now AMD doesn't even make chipsets and their mobile offering is still quite the joke in the face of the Pentium M.

      Eagerly awaiting the speed wars to start back up.. I'm ready for some bargains!

      --
      "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
    2. Re:AMD wins every result except... by macshit · · Score: 5, Informative

      Now AMD doesn't even make chipsets and their mobile offering is still quite the joke in the face of the Pentium M.

      From what I've heard, the new AMD mobile chip ("Turon" I think) has pretty much caught up with the Pentium M, and is far better than the old AMD mobile junk.

      The Pentium M has a much bigger L2 cache, but the Turon has AMD's typically better memory interface, amd64 mode, etc.; the reviews I saw seemed to basically call it a wash (i.e., the results can go either way depending on which benchmark you use). In any case, AMD's clearly back in the mobile game.

      --
      We live, as we dream -- alone....
    3. Re:AMD wins every result except... by Logicdisorder · · Score: 5, Informative
      Have a read of this
      http://www.mobilityguru.com/2005/08/30/the_turion_ 64_inside_story/index.html
      http://www.mobilityguru.com/2005/09/06/the_turion_ 64_inside_story_part_ii/index.html

      It gives a good handle on the AMD chips for laptops. All in all it holds it own with the Pentium M, where the Pentium M has a good lead is in power saving.

      Also the AMD flagship laptop chip is 64bit so you would see a big jump in performace if you were to run a 64bit OS/Apps as you would except.

      I like the look of the AMD chips over all and feel that Intel has drop the ball on the x86 market and put the eggs in the Intamin basket. And that ship is going down faster than Kate Mose can do a line :P

      --
      "The most dangerous creation of any society is that man who has nothing to lose." - James Baldwin, American author
    4. Re:AMD wins every result except... by krygny · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Isn't it a violation of the DMCA to publish benchmarks? Intel will just sue.

      --
      Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
    5. Re:AMD wins every result except... by KingSkippus · · Score: 1
      According to the article regarding the Sandra benchmarks:
      "Part of its draw is that users receive a performance rating for their computers within seconds. Since this is a synthetic benchmark, it sometimes yields results that seem out of touch with reality."
      I'm reading that as Tom's Hardware's way of saying, "Look, we know that these results don't match up with every other real-world test we conducted, and we suspect that it's the test that's wrong, not the real-world results. The only thing that confuses me is that if AMD's processors are cheaper, faster, and run cooler, how is Intel still selling any processors at all? Are that many people diehard Blue Man Group fans?
    6. Re:AMD wins every result except... by toddestan · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I would agree. Have a look at this page. Scroll down, and notice that there is a group of about 14 AMD processors essentially got the same score. These processors range from a Sempron 2500+ all the way an Athlon 64 3700+. Go up a bit an there is a simular group of about 18 Intel processors that get essentially the same score, where the processors range from the P4 2.4Ghz to a P4 EE 3.4Ghz. What gives?

    7. Re:AMD wins every result except... by Trepalium · · Score: 2, Insightful

      One word -- Dell. Dell sells nothing but Intel chips, and they're the biggest PC manufacturer. Plenty of manufacturers got a bad taste in their mouth after the K5, K6, and K6-2. The chips/chipsets were not stable, and prompted a lot of returns. Some of them are starting to sell AMD chips again, but it took a long time to regain their confidence.

      --
      I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
    8. Re:AMD wins every result except... by Wolfier · · Score: 2, Insightful

      My guess is, it is probably compiled with the Intel ICC compiler...

      http://www.swallowtail.org/naughty- intel.html

    9. Re:AMD wins every result except... by LarsG · · Score: 2, Insightful

      While there are a lot of problems with the DMCA, I don't see how it can be used to suppress publishing of benchmarks.

      I know that some software EULAs have contained a 'do not benchmark' clause, but whether such a restriction would stand up in court is, as far as I know, not been tested yet.

      --
      If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
    10. Re:AMD wins every result except... by mennucc1 · · Score: 2, Funny

      But Intel has a special feature: The die of the 600 series Prescott processors takes up 135 square mm^2 making it the first 4-dimensional chip around.

    11. Re:AMD wins every result except... by TheLink · · Score: 1

      The chart says _memory_bandwidth_ somewhere. Go figure.

      --
    12. Re:AMD wins every result except... by empvirus · · Score: 1

      Well, I'm not entirely sure about the whole thing. Last I checked, Intel and AMD were going at it head to head and coming out relatively even. I'm not biased toward either company since I've used processors from both. Not trying to flame here, but I'm really wondering about this benchmark.

      --
      Sometimes I comment just to hear myself typing.
    13. Re:AMD wins every result except... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      t seems Intel's gone into hibernation mode kind of like they did right before releasing the Pentium 4 in the first place. (Allowing the P3 [and now P4?] market(s) to stagnate and die off?) Come on Intel, what are you up to???

      Their processor roadmaps are hardly secret. The Yonah chip comes out in January. It's the first of their 'cool/cheap/multicore' strategy. IMHO it marks the death of the Marketing Department's control of Engineering (NetBurst/GHz,GHz,GHz) and the Pentium-M strategy starts to become the desktop strategy for Intel. Fortunately we all run multitasking OS's these days and care more about cores and threads than clock cycles.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  2. Re:Why is this still news? by ||Plazm|| · · Score: 1

    If you're interested in seeing how the newest technologies, dual core CPU's in this case, stack up to the rest of the bunch, then I suppose its news.

  3. The floppy by afaik_ianal · · Score: 2, Interesting

    From TFA: "One stalwart component has survived through all of these innovations: the 3.5" floppy. [...] The floppy is the only component that still remains in use today".

    Do people actually still have floppy drives in their PCs? I haven't owned one in many years, and wouldn't have a clue where to get floppy disks even if I had one.

    1. Re:The floppy by ReformedExCon · · Score: 1

      1. Yes.

      2. Office Depot

      --
      Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
    2. Re:The floppy by Leroy_Brown242 · · Score: 1

      Oddly enough, people do.

      The school I work at requires all students have a USB thumb drive of at least 512MB though. It's nice to see a school environment devoid of floppies.

    3. Re:The floppy by unbeatable73 · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Hell yes. Ever tried to copy some 1 meg network drivers from your networked computer to your test machine? Can't burn it(you could, if you were rich, but then you would have to burn one disc everytime you discovered your previous driver wasn't the correct one), so you use a floppy disk. Thoguh I now prefer USB keys for that job, sometimes the driver you need is FOR the usb, so obviously that wouldn't work. Floppys are still handy little buggers.

    4. Re:The floppy by -kertrats- · · Score: 1

      Every college bookstore I've been in has had floppy disks. Any electronics store (Best Buy, Circuit City...) has them easily. And the vast majority of pre-packaged boxes (anything from Dell or Gateway, the ilk, not homebuilt ones and possibly not the $300 Walmart special) have drives. It's still by far the easiest way for technologically illiterate people to transfer files-easier than burning to CD, doesnt use a different system like email, and less expensive than a USB drive.

      --
      The Braying and Neighing of Barnyard Animals Follows.
    5. Re:The floppy by joe90 · · Score: 1
      Can't burn it(you could, if you were rich, but then you would have to burn one disc everytime you discovered your previous driver wasn't the correct one)


      Enter the CDRW - problem solved!

      --

      Fast, cheap & reliable. Pick two.
    6. Re:The floppy by afaik_ianal · · Score: 1

      Hmm - I didn't need to. Are you sure it wasn't the Raid drivers that you needed (In which case your point still stands)? I can't remember which chip my Sata runs off, but XP Pro installed no problems

    7. Re:The floppy by rkcallaghan · · Score: 1

      If you indend to install Microsoft Windows to a SATA drive you must install the drivers from a floppy disk.

      This got modded up solely because it says something bad about Windows.

      I personally have a recently (well, a year ago, I know that is a lifetime in the computing world.) built machine that contains a SATA drive and I installed Windows flawlessly without anything other than the legit Windows install CD.

      Relavent System Stats:

      Proc: AMD Athlon 64 3000+
      Mobo: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI
      HD: Seagate Barracuda SATA 150 (Model: ST3250823AS)
      SW: Microsoft Windows XP x64 Edition

      There isn't a floppy drive in the whole house, and it didn't take any goofy net configuration or reburning the disc, either.

      ~Rebecca

    8. Re:The floppy by weapon · · Score: 1

      not all sata drives require the floppy disk, i know from expericence that nForce4s dont need the disk but the via 8237 southbridge (comes with the via 600 northbridge) does

    9. Re:The floppy by InvalidError · · Score: 1

      I did not need a floppy to install on my 200GB SATA drive with my i845 chipset... so I guess that requirement depends on circumstances.

      Worst case, many modern BIOSes can map flash readers or a USB Flash drive as the floppy. My PC came with a multi-format reader but other than BIOS flashing, I have little to no use for flash memory so I temporarily plug a floppy drive whenever I need to flash since my desktop's case has no external 3.5" bays... I even had to buy an HDD-to-floppy power splitter because the PSU had no FDD plug. Can't have everything in an SFF-style micro-ATX case.

    10. Re:The floppy by aetherspoon · · Score: 1

      No, you don't. Throw them on the install CD to begin with like most Windows Admins [should] do, using something like nLite.

      --
      --- Ãther SPOON!
    11. Re:The floppy by ajpr · · Score: 1

      I still have my 9 year old floppy drive in my current desktop. I've upgraded over the years from a cyrix 200 MHz to a p4 3.2 GHz via a p3 700 MHz and a Athlon 1700+. It works like new! Best thing I ever got!!

    12. Re:The floppy by kesuki · · Score: 1

      I actually have about 5 or 6 floppy drives in my house but 2 of them are 5 1/4" ;) now in my current desktop PC i have none installed.

      not to mention that if you perform the install from 'within windows' you can go online to check for an 'updated installer' which should copy over drivers, but that's probably a moot point since if you have windows, you might not need to install windows.

      btw, if you're the R K Callaghan i think you are i know where you live ;)
      but i could be wrong, and it's no big deal..

    13. Re:The floppy by game+kid · · Score: 1

      I haven't used one in months; the classes in which I use PCs let me use a USB drive too, and my PC has no floppy drive. It does have a floppy-drive-sized space, but I have a digital cam that uses the small SD cards, so I might fill that space with a card reader (or not, and buy a Dell 2405FPW with its readers, since I seem to read at least 2 more good reviews of it every day and I'd like me some flat HDness anyway).

      --
      You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
    14. Re:The floppy by ZakuSage · · Score: 1

      I still have a floppy, but then this PC is a few years old now.

    15. Re:The floppy by rkcallaghan · · Score: 4, Funny

      btw, if you're the R K Callaghan i think you are i know where you live ;)

      That just might be the creepiest reply I've ever gotten on Slashdot. Though, all the same, feel free to send your guess to my userid at gmail.com :) ~Rebecca

    16. Re:The floppy by syousef · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You seem to have fallen prey to the alpha geek mentality. The implication of your post amounts to:

      "It works for me. If it doesn't work for you, you must be stupid".

      There are people with drives out there that have had to install hard disk drivers using a floppy drive. A floppy drive is a very cheap piece of equipment to add to your PC, even if it's just as a contingency. It makes no sense to save $10 on a computer that might cost anywhere from $400 to $4000, when there might be situations you might need that $10 piece of equipment.

      For the record I've also seen mouse drivers and other hardware come only on a floppy disk. Granted most of the time you can download from the net, but compared to pushing a disk that came with your product into a drive it's more work.

      What I'd like to see is all hardware and software manufacturers stop distribution of their drivers and software on floppy. It really is an ancient piece of technology that should be dead by now. Sadly it's not.

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    17. Re:The floppy by baryon351 · · Score: 1

      Sessions is exactly what I use too, and have done exactly that onto CD for using with machines that need certain drivers.

      On top of that, blank CDs are WAY cheaper than blank floppies here, and have been for the last few years.

    18. Re:The floppy by Fujisawa+Sensei · · Score: 1

      Book publishers and agents still require you to snail mail your book on floppy. (I'm not talking AW or ORA, I'm talking publishers who do novels, and such.-

      --
      If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
    19. Re:The floppy by afaik_ianal · · Score: 1

      Is there any reason why they would not support CDs? It seems to me that CDs would be a lot safer to mail (CDs tend to be more resiliant to environmental effects than floppies).

    20. Re:The floppy by plover · · Score: 1
      This got modded up solely because it says something bad about Windows.

      Negative. This got modded up because it's true. SATA drivers are the only thing I've had to use a floppy for since installing Windows XP. The reason you had success is that you were installing a newer version of Windows (x64 edition is much newer) and it already included the SATA drivers in the distribution.

      I remember the exact same situation was true trying to install SCSI drivers under Windows NT 4.0. We had to interrupt the installation process to insert a floppy to load the SCSI drivers. XP64 may even have a similar pause-point in its install.

      XP was released in 2001. SATA wasn't available in the consumer world when these discs were cut. I haven't tried it with a current retail box copy of XP SP2 -- it's possible they've included updated SATA drivers in the latest shipped versions. Remember, people don't run out and buy a new copy of XP everytime one is released, or when they build a new box, or even upgrade an old one. They carry the old CDs and licenses forward to the new gear. It can't magically add drivers for new hardware to the old distro discs.

      --
      John
    21. Re:The floppy by ottothecow · · Score: 1
      My friends slightly-smaller-form-factor computer currently has the floppy drive installed inside of the case facing backwards in a harddrive slot.

      You need a floppy to install windows onto a computer with an SATA drive and we decided it might be needed again...it was an ugly-assed drive without a bezel that was going into a fairly pretty case so we stuck it in backwards. All you have to do is slide off the side of the case and you can insert a disk (if it is ever actually needed again).

      --
      Bottles.
    22. Re:The floppy by ottothecow · · Score: 1
      The guy up there said that it was XP-64 which I would assume included the SATA drivers (I own the very first retail Athlon-64 board and it definately has SATA...and it definately came out a LONG time before XP-64)

      Every time I have had to install windows with a SATA drive, it has definately needed the disk. Even my slipstreamed SP2 disk (created not to long after SP2 so it IS missing updates) wont install without the driver wich HAS to be on a floppy disk

      --
      Bottles.
    23. Re:The floppy by ShaunC1000 · · Score: 1

      I used floppies to image PCs at a elem. school I used to worked for. The majority of the machines were older and couldn't boot of a thumb drive... and not all of them had CDROM drives.. and many of them didn't work :)

    24. Re:The floppy by toddestan · · Score: 1

      This got modded up solely because it says something bad about Windows.

      Well, its also true, especially for those people who run the mcuh more common 32bit version of Windows XP.

      Don't get me started on trying to install Windows XP on a laptop without a floppy disk where the Windows installer needs those drivers. It took the good part of a night and several coasters before I managed to get a working install disk with the drivers slipstreamed in.

    25. Re:The floppy by toddestan · · Score: 1

      Book publishers and agents still require you to snail mail your book on floppy. (I'm not talking AW or ORA, I'm talking publishers who do novels, and such.

      I'm surprised. I'm sure that most books or novels written in a modern word processor would very quickly exceed the 1.44MB that a floppy disk holds. Or do they make you send the novel as a .txt file too?

    26. Re:The floppy by whoever57 · · Score: 1
      I suggest that you read this page on SATA support. Quote from the document:
      Note: There is no such thing as a distribution or its installer (generically) "having SATA support" (or not). Please send anyone speaking in such terms to this page. (Some SATA chipsets have been supported since practically forever, as their programming interfaces are unchanged from PATA predecessors. Others are brand-new and require new drivers from scratch.)
      So, just because the XP installer supported the SATA chipset on your motherboard, does not mean that the XP installer will support some other, newer SATA chipset. Hence your experience may not be duplicated by others.
      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    27. Re:The floppy by rkcallaghan · · Score: 1

      You seem to have fallen prey to the alpha geek mentality. The implication of your post amounts to:

      "It works for me. If it doesn't work for you, you must be stupid".


      No, it doesn't. The OP made a claim, I provided a counterexample, that's all. You may be correct, that some, or even many, might require a floppy disk, but it is not all.

      This is the same logic commonly used in discussion about P2P Software and networking protocols. The Slashdot Community (which may or may not in this instance share the same view as yourself) is always ready to reply that P2P helps them get their Linux ISOs faster and at less cost to the host which is almost always a non-profit organization. In that case, they have made one example to the **AA-driven crusade that all P2P must be banned because it is only used for piracy. Again, Some or even most of P2P traffic may indeed be copyright violations; but a single legit use proves the claim of the **AA invalid.

      ~Rebecca

    28. Re:The floppy by WuphonsReach · · Score: 1

      You can still buy floppy disks from office supply stores.

      I still add floppy drives to all of the systems that I spec (order from a company) or build myself. They only cost $9 or so and it's cheap insurance against the day that you really need a floppy drive.

      Mostly I use them for flashing BIOSs (motherboard, RAID card, etc). Some of the motherboard BIOSs now let you put the BIOS image on a CD-ROM, and there's a tool built into the motherboard that will read the BIOS image from the CD-ROM and install it (without needing a boot disk). But add-in cards with BIOSs don't have those sorts of features.

      --
      Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
    29. Re:The floppy by Knara · · Score: 1

      I installed on an MSI Neo Platinum-whatever board not a month ago using slipstreamed 32-bit WinXP sp2. It detected it fine.

    30. Re:The floppy by syousef · · Score: 1

      Using your own line of logic, a single instance of new hardware requiring a floppy drive means that it makes sense to add the $10 cost of a floppy drive to your system in case you need it.

      You're right. Many systems can function without a floppy. You're wrong not to add one anyway in case you need it.

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    31. Re:The floppy by ottothecow · · Score: 1

      nforce4?

      --
      Bottles.
    32. Re:The floppy by Fujisawa+Sensei · · Score: 1

      These people know floppies, their computer's have floppies, and they aren't tech people and they don't necessarily like technology.

      --
      If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
  4. Re:Why is this still news? by Leroy_Brown242 · · Score: 1

    I guess I have more of a problem with old being presented as new then.

    But, I also like to gripe. :)

  5. Sorry, 44oz doesn't cut it by TubeSteak · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I personally use an Extreme Gulp.
    At 52 ounces, It convienently holds 4 x 12oz sodas + ice
    and it will stay cold as long as you could want.

    Even long enough for you to click through Tom's Hardware un-printer-friendly website.

    and i thought this was funny too:
    I Am Extreme
    Yesterday at work I drank an Extreme Gulp while doing some Extreme Programming, and then I went home and ate Extreme Duritos while watching Extreme Sports on cable.

    Today every muscle in my body aches.

    Posted on May 01, 2002
    http://www.defectiveyeti.com/archives/000192.html
    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
    1. Re:Sorry, 44oz doesn't cut it by Buddy_DoQ · · Score: 2, Funny

      That's not Xtreme enough. You're not really Xtreme until you lose the E.

      --
      -Buddy of DoQ
    2. Re:Sorry, 44oz doesn't cut it by TubeSteak · · Score: 1

      lol, true nowadays, but the Extreme Gulp came out 6 or 8 years ago. I've had mine since it came out, which was well before you had to be 'Xtreme' to be extreme.

      On a side note, you can get away with filling up it from the Slurpee machine.. talk about your brain freeze.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    3. Re:Sorry, 44oz doesn't cut it by FuturePastNow · · Score: 1

      That's not bad. But, I once worked with a man who drank from a 128oz "Big Gulp," with a straw, no less. Every morning, he would fill it halfway with ice, then pour in a 2-liter of Mountain Dew. It would last him all day.

      --
      Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
  6. Re:Why is this still news? by ciroknight · · Score: 1

    In all good fun, go read Digg. Their "news" is super-up-to-date and all their users know how to do is gripe and moan and spit around incorrect information. It's a lot like slashdot used to be ;). Thank goodness for mature readers.

    --
    "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
  7. The utility of the floppy by Wilson_6500 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    We had a little optics lab "image processing" computer with: no active ethernet connection (within reasonable cord distance), no usb ports, and no CD burner.

    Aside from bodily moving the CPU (don't want to do that when it needs to be near the microscope), there wasn't really any other convenient way to get modestly sized images and text files off it than through floppies. The next challenge was to find a machine in the department that: was connected to the school's intranet, had a floppy drive, and wasn't behind a locked door.

    Of course, when we started needing to move movie files, well, we had the shop techs wire us up a very long cord. Just one more thing to trip over in the dark.

    Sure, they're not fast, but for just one or two small files nothing really beats them in price and ease of use, especially when you have some machines that are still running Win 95 or 98. Besides, the FDD chunking sound is soothing.

  8. Soon to be released.... by woja · · Score: 1, Funny

    Toms Hardware chart that compares CPU's which double as heaters!! Wow - that will be great for those cold winter nights reading slashdot.

    1. Re:Soon to be released.... by dookus · · Score: 1

      Don't laugh, I overclocked my Athlon to heat this room.

    2. Re:Soon to be released.... by lotrfan7007 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You laugh, but this is how I keep my dorm room warm....

      --
      To be or not to be: There is no maybe.
  9. Re:If that's the mother of all CPU charts by TubeSteak · · Score: 1

    It's daddy? That'd be [H]ard|OCP

    (Tom's Hardware and the [H] have a rivalry that goes pretty far back
    Its funny if you remember their mini-flame wars)

    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  10. Re:Why is this still news? by TubeSteak · · Score: 3, Funny

    It's a lot like slashdot used to be

    You must be new here

    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  11. Dual cores slower than single? by boingyzain · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Does anyone else find it odd that in practically all the benchmarks, the single core processors beat out the dual core processors? Each core in the dualies has the same processor as a single core, so why would that be?

    1. Re:Dual cores slower than single? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Because the benchmarks are pretty much single threaded, so only one core is actually being used, so on these particular benchmarks a dual core CPU won't show any benefit, it might even suffer a little, if the fact of it being dual core allowed a small background task that might have otherewise stalled to run and was therefore fighting for the cache.

    2. Re:Dual cores slower than single? by dirtyhippie · · Score: 1

      Simple: Dual core processors are clocked slower so that heat dissipation is manageable due to having two cores in the same physical space.

    3. Re:Dual cores slower than single? by NanoGator · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Does anyone else find it odd that in practically all the benchmarks, the single core processors beat out the dual core processors?"

      No more odd than say a pickup truck beating a sports car in a race to move from one apartment to another.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    4. Re:Dual cores slower than single? by meridian · · Score: 1

      A seperate core would not be fighting for the cache as they both have their own seperate caches. Shared caches which should actually speed up eficiency will possible be added to the newer AMD chips due out Q2 next year but it has not been announced if they will or not. It is possible on the intel chips that one process may chew up some of the available memory bandwidth from the CPU, but this is not an issue on AMDs as each core has their own 6.4G pipe to the memory controller while on intel each core shares the one single 6.4G pipe. The AMD memory controller is on the CPU while Intel have theres on a seperate chip.

      --
      meridian at tha.net
    5. Re:Dual cores slower than single? by arkhan_jg · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I was looking at this very recently. First, most of the tests are single threaded, so the dual core is of limited use. Secondly, and more importantly, the individual cores run slower on the X2 processors than the single core does. For example, the AMD64-3800+ runs at 2.4GHz; the X2-3800 runs two at 2Ghz. For single threaded apps, like current games or benchmarks, the single core chip will beat the dual core hands down. The AMD64 3800+ is cheaper too.

      For general heavy use on a non-gaming rig, you're still better off with an X2, as the dual core really comes into it's own as one core can concentrate on say, rendering or encoding, while the other core is available for other high-CPU apps.

      --
      Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
    6. Re:Dual cores slower than single? by Xurbax · · Score: 1

      I doubt this has anything to do with 'small background tasks'. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that Windows likes to pick a random core to run the task on for each timeslice. I see this behaviour when running a single-threaded game for instance. Instead of one core being pegged at 100% cpu, the task manager shows each core running at 50%. I think this must have some bad cache effects...

  12. Price comparison too needed by Barkley44 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'd like to see a comparison of average cost against the speed, since the real question is what's the fastest speed I can get for the money.

    --
    KeepTrackOfIt.com - Find the lowest gas prices in your area graphically
    1. Re:Price comparison too needed by griffster · · Score: 1

      Sometime in the 2006 there will be the first benchmarks posted of the IBM Cell Processor running a "distributed" system "benchmark" like protein folding or SETI (RIP) - this will make headline news and I assure you, people will be impresesd.

  13. Moore's Law by dirtyhippie · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Processor speeds haven't increased much in the past 2-3 years... Are we hitting the end of Moore's law, or just taking a detour as CPU makers decide dual-core is more important? I've been wondering about this for awhile, but haven't seen much discussion of this. Do we have to wait for quantum computers before we can get more single-thread performance?

    1. Re:Moore's Law by cide1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Processor throughput has increased tremendously. Clock speed has not increased. Issue widths are wider. Larger, faster, and more effective caches are being used, in addition to the introduction of trace caches. Branch prediction continues to gets better, along with speculation techniques. More physical registers and larger lookahead windows allow modern CPUs to pull more parallelism out of single threaded programs than ever before.

      Features like hyper-threading and dual cores give a much greater system wide speedup than simply raising the clock rate, and avoid all the problems of power consumption. Even on single thread performance, having another core to run the OS, so your not constantly context switching, can make a differance.

      Reading this article made me sick, because they equate speed with clock rate. This is patently false, as the last two years of computer architecture have shown us.

      --
      -- the computer doesn't want any beer, no matter how much you think it does. NEVER, EVER feed your computer beer.
    2. Re:Moore's Law by joelito_pr · · Score: 1

      IIRC, Moore's law is about the density of the processors, not necessarily the clock speed, so, this Multi Core trend is part of Moore's law.

      Just a differernt approach. And we also have 64bit registers(Or is it registrers, oh whatever english it's not my main language) wich I think are part of the Law...

    3. Re:Moore's Law by dirtyhippie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I didn't say that clock speed = performance, however, an increase in clock speed on the same architecture does indicate a probable increase in performance. I'm also sure you know that it is arguable at best that hyperthreading increases performance.

      I'm also not sure where you got the impression that the article equated speed with clock rate - if they did, why did they bother with all those benchmarks?

      As an example of the stagnation of the past few years, I have some code whose critical loop is unparallelizable (each instruction relies on the result of the previous instruction). My dual core Opteron running in 64 bit mode performs only about 15% better than my dual Athlon MP system from about 3 years ago. Synthetic benchmarks show a little more improvement, but largely only when memory access becomes a factor.

      I'm not talking about servers, where parallelism is a necessity, or even general computing, I'm talking about unparallelizable, single threaded code. In this area, progress has been very slow. I'll grant you that the market is not as important in the scheme of things, but it is still there. Given how obsessed Intel in particular has been with clock speed to this point, it makes me wonder if they have gone to dual cores and such because they couldn't get more clock speed, which raises the question of whether we are hitting the physical limits of miniaturization.

    4. Re:Moore's Law by dirtyhippie · · Score: 1

      Heh. Nothing is part of Moore's law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_Law . It's just an observation that's generally held true - clock speed tends to double every 1.5 years. What is "more of a law" is that there has to be a point when Moore's observation stops being the case, as we hit the hard limits implied by a single atom, electron, etc.

    5. Re:Moore's Law by timeOday · · Score: 2, Interesting
      No, the last 2-3 years have been a disappointing let-down in cpu development.

      Dual core processors cannot be equated with single core. You can always make highly parallel tasks faster by throwing more CPUs at them, so what? There's a reason we didn't go to multi cores until single-core development stalled. If you want to compare dual-core, compare them to an SMP single-core system.

      Now look at the benchmarks. For instance, on the 3dMark05 Futuremark, the fastest single processor is the Athlon 64 FX 57 with a score of 6058. Now scroll down to the P4 3.0 with a score of 4613. That's a lousy 30% improvement in the last 3 years! Awful. And the fastest dual core system is a mere 10% faster than that.

    6. Re:Moore's Law by bit01 · · Score: 1

      I have some code whose critical loop is unparallelizable.

      What is it? Is that unparallelizable in theory, or practically speaking unparallelizable? I've yet to see a real world problem that couldn't be parallelized, at least in theory ;-), and I'm curious to see one.

      Not implying this is the case here but it's been my experience that non-CS scientists (e.g. physicists and chemists), while they are programmers, sometimes don't have a good grasp of just how much computation can be parallelised. Not surprising since it's not their primary area of expertese.

      Agree with the other comments in this thread (sic) (sick!) about CPU performance.

      ---

      Don't be a programmer-bureaucrat; someone who substitutes marketing buzzwords and software bloat for verifiable improvements.

    7. Re:Moore's Law by ookaze · · Score: 1

      I disagree with you, except for the dual core part.
      Primarily because you base your thoughts on shaky grounds.
      You cite a benchmark where the Athlon 64 X2 4600+ is rated higher than the Athlon 64 X2 4800+, which has more cache. This is nonsense for these CPUs.
      And obviously, these benchmarks have lots of problems, they surely are compiled with Intel ICC versions which produce slower code for AMD procs, as the benchmarks are completely out of touch with reality, putting Intel processors on top of AMD's fastest, completely out of touch with all the other benchs.

      So the lousy improvement you cite probably is completely out of touch with reality too.

      What makes me think that further, is that these benchmarks are not even done on a true 64 bit OS, with 64 bit compiled apps (like you would have on Linux).
      So I would say that Windows OS have let down CPU development, which explains why Intel and AMD now show what their proc can do on Linux.

      I would have loved to see how my bi-Athlon MP machine rate too, but unfortunately, they did not review any, perhaps because the motherboards are now very hard to find.

    8. Re:Moore's Law by timeOday · · Score: 1

      Well, the article contains a pretty wide range of benchmarks besides the one I quoted. Do some of them support the assertion that CPUs have continued to speed up at a rapid pace?

    9. Re:Moore's Law by timeOday · · Score: 1
      What is it? Is that unparallelizable in theory, or practically speaking unparallelizable?
      "This new processor will run your apps faster" is a who lot different than "this processor will run your apps faster if they're completely rewritten it in a much more complicated and error-prone fashion." It used to be, when you upgraded your P3 500MHz to a P3 1GHz, you got a big boost in all your cpu-hungry applications automatically, no ifs ands or buts.
    10. Re:Moore's Law by Chandon+Seldon · · Score: 1

      Right... and it's looking like it's not going to work that way any more. Sorry.

      --
      -- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
  14. Re:Cute chart, but... by interiot · · Score: 1

    Where are my PIC and Scenix chips, eh?

  15. Re:Cute chart, but... by AHuxley · · Score: 1
    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  16. Re:Why is this still news? by TubeSteak · · Score: 1

    I read my comment again and it doesn't really make sense.
    I think i tried to hard at being Funny.

    Anyways, I think the main difference between /. now and then is that the not so good folks from TrollKore and GNAA have gone away.

    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  17. The floppy you wish you never had. by OneArmedMan · · Score: 1

    this is correct for most 3rd party disk controllers, im talking IDE / SATA / SCSI and all the RAID subsections of.

    oh and even if you think that your nice new W2k3 server install has all the right drivers just cause it detected your SCSI card fine ...

    it doesnt.

    just try and install a SCSI tape drive and watch it fail to detect the device. you still have to get the latest drivers from the manufacture ( for both the controller and the tape drive ) .

    The single best thing MS could do to facilitate the installtion of their OS, is make it so you can have 3rd party drives on a CD / network share / Flash disk ANYTHING!

    just give us a God Dam option that isnt a fkn floppy disk!

  18. Certainly not ALL by msbsod · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It looks like the author has a bit of a limited focus. This chart hardly covers all CPU's. Where are the Alpha processors? Someone else mentioned Motorola. Or take the Cray processor. People would be surprised to see how slow PC processors are! This chart even does not cover all AMD and Intel CPUs. For example, processors like the AMD 29K, Intel i860, i960 and the Intel Itanium are missing. But maybe the narrow view of Tom's Hardware Guide is what PC users want, no?

    And how about the good old Intel 4004? January 1971! :-)

    1. Re:Certainly not ALL by toddestan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      his chart even does not cover all AMD and Intel CPUs. For example, processors like the AMD 29K, Intel i860, i960 and the Intel Itanium are missing.

      You missed a big one: The Celeron. How come not one single processor from Intel's budget line was tested?

    2. Re:Certainly not ALL by Kadin2048 · · Score: 1

      Actually, given that I'm not really in a 'buying mood' right now, I'd love to see some more interesting/exotic processors thrown into the mix. The one I'd really like to see are some SPARCs, although I don't think they'd do very well on the benchmarks that are being used (they seem to favor single-thread performance). But some big iron -- especially old big iron -- would be fun for comparison value. We always hear glib comparisons between modern desktop computers and the mainframes of the past, but I've never seen any hard evidence of how they would stack up.

      I guess the place to start would be with these guys' Cray YMP ... they even have gcc and GNU make installed, so I don't think it would be too hard to get the SPEC CPU benchmark series running on it, although I'm not sure whether to get the fairest score if you'd want to use the Cray-supplied optimized C and f77 compilers, instead of gcc.

      Somebody has to have done this before... but searching on the spec.org site didn't turn up anything for Cray.

      --
      "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
  19. perhaps it's time for an upgrade... by mumrah · · Score: 1

    when your newest cpu isn't on any of the lists.

  20. wow, only 55 comments so far by Rellik66 · · Score: 1

    people must still be reading that monstrosity of an article.

    --

    Too many zeros, not enough ones

    1. Re:wow, only 55 comments so far by msbsod · · Score: 1

      It's the turkey's fault.

    2. Re:wow, only 55 comments so far by rdoger6424 · · Score: 1

      uggh... pie... why did you betray me...?

      --
      "Hello 911? I just tried to toast some bread, and the toaster grew an arm and stabbed me in the face!"
    3. Re:wow, only 55 comments so far by Serilkath_Montreal · · Score: 1

      You must be new here, Slashdot readers NEVER READ THE F...ing ARTICLE(tm).

      --
      malheureusement la stupidité n'est ni curable, ni mortelle.
  21. Benchmars by toetagger1 · · Score: 1

    I'm in the process of building my "media center" PC, and I know that processors can become a bottle neck if there are more than 1 or 2 capture cards running, as well as live playback or other activity.

    Is anyone up to speed with which processor to go with for this, but more importantly, which capture cards to use?

    Thanks.

    --
    who | grep -i blond | date cd ~; unzip; touch; strip; finger; mount; gasp; yes; uptime; umount; sleep
    1. Re:Benchmars by sznupi · · Score: 1

      Usually in such a setup I/O performance determines whether you can do anything at all with the system, especially PCI implementation. Practically the only ones workable with one PCI hungry capture/editing cards are Intel and SiS, I wouldn't be surprised if the case was the same with few "normal" capture cards.

      Of course only if you'd want to do few things at one time.

      Honestly...I don't see a reason, so not much of a difference if you'd have only one capture card.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
  22. You call that a list? *this* is a list. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Heh, you call that a list?

    SPECcpu beats this hands down. THG is great and all, but SPEC are a non-profit organization *dedicated* to measuring the performance of computing systems. Believe me when I say their "CPU 2000" benchmark is not only the standard benchmark, but the *best* standard benchmark out there. It's cross-platform: Windows, Linux, HP-UX, AIX, whatever: you name it, it's been tested. It's cross-compiler: GCC, Intel ICC, AMD/Pathscale, IBM xlC, they're all here.

    Here's the list. It's big.

    Enjoy.

  23. Re:CPU's by dirtsurfer · · Score: 1

    And in form befitting a true grammar nazi, I spelled "apostrophe" incorrectly.
    Uh, yeah. I meant to do that.

  24. Re:Why Toms Hardware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    are you kidding me?! Tom's actually got blackballed by Intel before for publishing stuff that didn't make Intel look good, and Tom's was pretty much the guys which demonstrated the flaws in the first 1+Ghz P3s, leading to Intel being forced to recall the chips!

    Not only that, Toms were the first guys I read that actually went to TIME the FSB frequencies on various motherboards, thereby discovering some manufacturers were cheating by "pre-overclocking" their boards so they'd look better on benchmarks against others!

  25. Re:Why Toms Hardware by TheHawke · · Score: 1

    Actually turn that around.. It's Slashdot being Tom's mouthpiece. The way I see it, things were slowing down and they need the holiday dough, soo they spammed Slashdot with this little compilation.

    Why do I get the feeling that they have put out similar comparison charts about the same time of the year?

    --
    First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
  26. The same for GPU's? by blankoboy · · Score: 1

    What I'd like to see is the grand daddy of benchmark comparisons going from the present day Geforce 7800 series/Radeon X1800 all the way back to the Voodoo1.

    Mostly I would like to know how my Radeon 9700 Pro stacks up against the current series and the Geforce 6x00 series. They stop at 9800XT =(

  27. Reminds me of Bill Hicks by noz · · Score: 2, Funny
    "You may want to fill up your 44oz mug before sifting through this one, though."
    Station operator> Do you want the 32oz or the large?
    Bill> How big is that large?
    Station operator> You're gonna wanna pull your truck up out back. I'm gonna go start the pump.
    Bill> Shit that sounds like a lot of coffee man. I don't know if I wanna be awake that long in Tennessee.
  28. Re:CPU's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Damn! And I had my "Hey Doap, Karnt U Spel?" line ready to go...

  29. Re:Why Toms Hardware by timeOday · · Score: 1

    Why don't you direct us to a more comprehensive CPU benchmark comparison then.

  30. Re:Why Toms Hardware by Frogbert · · Score: 1

    If they were really a mouthpeice for Intel why do the AMD processors come out on top in nealy every test they run? And why do they recommend AMD as a gaming processor?

  31. No Pentium-M?!? by Nelson · · Score: 1


    It's a nice list. Seems really lacking without the Pentium-M line though. THat's where intel is going.

    1. Re:No Pentium-M?!? by illusoryphoenix · · Score: 1

      That's because Tom's Hardware is a bunch of AMD fanboys. Check out this article that started it: http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/200008281/index.ht ml I haven't read an unbiased review from them in a long time. Every piece seems opinionated and biased, it's really puzzling...

  32. Re:Why is this still news? by Leroy_Brown242 · · Score: 1

    Slashdot needs more Grub too!

  33. Re:Flash BIOS by afaik_ianal · · Score: 1

    Most BIOSes I have had in the past few years let you flash the bios from windows. For linux boxen, I just make a bootable freedos cd.

  34. Mobile processors? by brogdon · · Score: 1

    How is this the "mother of all CPU charts" when it leaves out all the dedicated mobile processors? I'd like to know if that Turion 64 laptop I've been looking at will outperform the P4 unit sitting next to it, or what clock speed of Centrino or Pentium-M will beat my two-year-old desktop.

    Does anyone know where I could find a chart that compares mobile processors to their desktop equivalents? I really am about to buy a laptop, so it'd be quite helpful.

    --


    This tagline is umop apisdn.
  35. Re:Where is the F--KING CHART? by HeroreV · · Score: 1

    Five hundred and twenty pages later

    Liar. It's only 50 pages long. What kind of person could grow tired of uber exciting CPU charts after just 50 pages?

    http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20051121/the_mothe r_of_all_cpu_charts-50.html

  36. Yet... by joey_knisch · · Score: 1

    It doesn't include such processors as the Opteron 165. The least expensive dual core offering from AMD. What gives. Since Intel has basically faded off the performance charts entirely we should at least be able to find out how AMD will stack up against its self.

  37. Re:If that's the mother of all CPU charts by rdoger6424 · · Score: 1

    Did they have angry sex
    *ducks*

    --
    "Hello 911? I just tried to toast some bread, and the toaster grew an arm and stabbed me in the face!"
  38. Where's the Pentium? by Teemu+Alviola · · Score: 1

    No 386/486/Pentium CPUs tested there, no Sparcs of any kind, no Motorola, no IBM/Freescale's CPUs etc..

    Oh well, maybe it's time to upgrade the old pentium anyway. :-)

  39. AMD Space Heater by Kadin2048 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I used to have oil heat but with the price of petroleum, now I just use SETI@Home.

    --
    "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
    1. Re:AMD Space Heater by c4ffeine · · Score: 1

      Joke all you want, but I actually do currently use an AMD64 3200+ as a heater. It's 30 or so out there, my dorm heater's broken and it's Thanksgiving break so I can't get it repaired. So, I just leave my laptop on at night. Believe it or not, it's getting warm enough that I just decided to open a window. Either I'm missing something, or this thing runs way too hot.

      --
      "73% of quotes on the Internet are made up" -Ben Franklin
  40. Re:Why Toms Hardware by bstempi · · Score: 1

    Maybe you'd see less testing on a Microsoft operating system if there were nearly as many graphics intensive games/applications for linux.

  41. maybe not, but still helpful and useful. by tloh · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm probably not the only one on slashdot who tends to accumulate old hardware. As I think many of the collectors here might sympathize, often the pieces are obscure/generic brands for which not much information is available. In fact, even some of the brand names often no longer have any documentation. Locating drivers has become an easier task, but performance features and such are still hard to find. I have an old 486 class motherboard which I found out (only from talking to older folks) was very well regarded by those who used it. But it was very hard work trying to find anything to coroborate those casual conversations on the web. Charts and tables like the ones compiled by THG can give a good idea about which pieces should be paired up for an appropriate system that avoids unnecessary bottlenecks. I really wish this kind of information exists for soundcards, video cards, and modems in the form of a giant database of hardware products from the past as well as the present.

    --
    Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
    1. Re:maybe not, but still helpful and useful. by Decker-Mage · · Score: 1

      Actually you aren't the only one. I have a 5x86 here running WFW 3.11 sitting next to a PII running straight DOS 6.22 ;-). I still encounter these machines in the field so I keep them around for reference and to refresh my skills. I'm probably one of the few that still can cut 5 1/4" disks for people or convert them to 3 1/2. It's rarely called for but it does happen.

      --
      "[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go
  42. That may not be an issue much longer by KingSkippus · · Score: 2, Informative

    I thought I remembered this article from a few days ago. It seems that even Dell is finally starting to see the light.

    Could it be that Intel's days as a CPU manufacturer are numbered?

    1. Re:That may not be an issue much longer by JPriest · · Score: 1
      I thought I remembered this article from a few days ago. It seems that even Dell is finally starting to see the light.

      We hear this same "news" every ~6 months. I suspect that Dell sees the light every single time they need to negotiate better pricing with Intel. IMHO 'till they actually ship AMD systems they are just crying wolf again.

      Could it be that Intel's days as a CPU manufacturer are numbered?

      From what I have heard, Intel's per processor manufacturing costs are (much?) lower than AMD's. So if Intel wanted to play the price/performance game they could, but they don't have to because they still hold > 80% of the market even when they are way behind AMD in performance.

      --
      Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
    2. Re:That may not be an issue much longer by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      Could it be that Intel's days as a CPU manufacturer are numbered?

      Well, of course - now that they've joined up with Apple it's time to start calling them 'beleagured' and start the death-clock ticking.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  43. Re:Why is this still news? by Decker-Mage · · Score: 1
    Actually this review is useless for comparing dual-core CPU machines. The fundamental methodology is flawed as Sandra is unable to test that feature since the tests themselves are single threaded as SiSoft is more than willing to acknowledge. I still expect the dual-core AMD CPU's to clean up on any benchmarks that are multi-threaded but still you can't base your decision off of these charts.

    I make extensive use of virtual machines here using either Virtual Server or VMWare Workstation and can peg my P4's right to the wall when testing applications or one of my simulated network (security) configurations. Give me some benchmarks I can use, not this crap.

    --
    "[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go
  44. Xeons, Opterons? by einar2 · · Score: 1

    I am slightly unsatisfied about the chart. Where are the Xeons and the Opterons?

    You call yourself a geek and you do not use a CPU that fits to a server?

  45. 20 pages of crap until.... by BestNicksRTaken · · Score: 1

    http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20051121/the_mothe r_of_all_cpu_charts-39.html

    is about the only page worth looking at, the rest is all adverts and barely any text or conclusions.

    --
    #include <sig.h>
  46. Where's the legacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    When I read that word, I thought there would be comparisons old CPU's such as 486s, then I started reading TFA and it talked about the evolution from 1993 till today, so I though "so it will be from Pentiums on, ok". Then came the benchmarks and the only one "legacy" processor is an Athlon Thunderbird 1400, from 4 or 5 years ago. The rest are still sold today (well, some cores might be difficult to find, but Semprons and Athlon64 3000's are definitively still sold).

    I think the article should better read "from over 60 other recent processors".

  47. Re:Hrrrmpf!!! by TubeSteak · · Score: 1

    It is no use asking the editors to do their job.

    We've tried before & their grammar is still as poor as ours anyway.

    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  48. Legacy?!? Where's my processor? by Chemisor · · Score: 1

    Gosh, my 1GHz Athlon MP doesn't even make the "legacy" category any more. I'll just go cry now...

  49. "Legacy"?? by Z0mb1eman · · Score: 1

    I wasn't surprised to see my processor (1.4GHz Athlon) on the list... I WAS surprised to see that it's the OLDEST and slowest on the list though... especially since it still handles everything I throw at it with no problems.

    I'm willing to bet a large percentage of slashdotters still use processors that aren't even on the list anymore... and feeling no need to upgrade... am I wrong?

    --
    ClutterMe.com - easiest site creation on the Net. Just click and type.
  50. Re:Why is this still news? by The+Snowman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Tom's hardware makes the list.
    It's a massive undertaking to create it.
    That's news.

    Is it really news every time they update the list?

    Yes, this is news. This is the time of year that many people, myself included, plan on buying computer upgrades. Based on Tom's charts, I can see my (older) CPU, compare it to newer CPUs using the video card, memory, etc. as a control, and decide if the upgrade is worth it. Although Tom talks about the latest and greatest all the time, only once or twice a year does he put things in perspective with older hardware. Personally, I want to see the same thing but with video cards, because Tom's article showed me that upgrading my CPU isn't worth the money.

    Besides, Tom is talking about computer hardware. Nerds (myself included) love this stuff. So yes, this is news for nerds. And it does matter.

    --
    24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
  51. Some Real Toms Hardware Gems... by shoemakc · · Score: 1

    Here's some things i particularly enjoyed:

    -The charts showing "...performance per watt of processors from 1993 to today" that mention time on neither axis.

    -The picture and caption describing James Watt....as though most of his readership had never heard of him.

    -The picture of a sticker with the caption that read "This seal guarantees that the box is unopened.". Duh.

    Good stuff...good stuff. I do however agree with the assesment that the floppy drive is not dead. Although I may use it once a year if i'm lucky, it does still come in handy from time to time.

    -Chris

    --
    --an unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys--
  52. Re:Easy... by MECC · · Score: 1

    In so far as CPUs are concerned, Intel's competitors have been outperforming them for as long as Intel has had competitors. When they made the 8080, the z80 and 6809 were faster. When they made the 8088, AT&T made the faster 8086 and motorola came out with a true 16-bit chip.

    Intel has always compromised performance accross the board to conserve somethings else they think might need to be conserved, usually to compensate for less-than-leading design. Sometime its pin count, sometimes its silicon, sometimes its heat, or something else that got out of hand as a result of some other design choice that cost them. With a few brief exceptions, that's been their story. They're better at selling chips than making them.

    --
    "We are all geniuses when we dream"
    - E.M. Cioran
  53. AMD Processor Selection by macaroo · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the handy CPU comparison charts. Very timely as I am in the process of assembling a new 64 bit system based on a VIA KT800 chipset motherboard using a AMD Venice CPU chip socket 939. I have everything I need except the very expensive processor chip. I have been shopping for the biggest bang for the buck and the comparison charts are very handy. There doesn't appear to be much of a performance gap between the base model 3000 and the top of the line 3800. Delta 18% for Direct X v.9 and 23.5% for the video test (FPS), even though the gap is extremely large. Maybe somebody can explain the difference between the version E3 and the E6 chip. The difference is not apparent on the charts.

    1. Re:AMD Processor Selection by macaroo · · Score: 1

      I was talking about the large price gap between the base model AMD Venice 3000 and the top of the line AMD Venice 3800 CPU chip.

  54. floppy will always be there by Eugene · · Score: 1

    Floppy drive will always be there, until there's a new standardized removable media supported natively in BIOS.

    I still put floppy drives into every computer I build, since it is still the only reliable way to insert driver during OS installation, and upgrade/flash BIOS of your system. Although most system can be booted via optical drive, but there's no easy/simple way to produce a bootable CD or DVD..

    some MB can boot via USB/flash drive, but it's again not universally supported, and the media compatibility varies a lot, too.

  55. CPU price/performance comparison chart by przemekklosowski · · Score: 2, Informative

    I put together this web-scraping chart comparing price/performance of available x86-compatible CPU families on http://dclug.tux.org/cpu.png. The daily-run script collects web-advertised prices, and displays them as a series of lines showing price-vs.-nominal clockspeed data within the CPU sub-families.

    Note the logarithmic scale of the Y (price in US$) axis---in linear scale it's easier to see the knee in the curve, where additional speed increments begin to cost disproportionately more, but the linear graph was much less readable.

    The method used is a hacked-together heuristic, easily fooled by vendors' ever inventive approaches to reporting the parameters of the CPUs they are selling. Still, it's a good visual aid showing how various CPU families are positioned
    with respect to each other.

  56. Re:Why is this still news? by The+Snowman · · Score: 1

    Tom's uses these: pair Networks. He uses about 20 dedicated servers, including database servers. I think "CPU" in the singular sense is a bit inaccurate.

    --
    24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!