"When Intel made the PIV, they either refused to license AMD to build compatible CPUs, or AMD declined to manufacture them."
Actually, AMD came out with an entirely new "socket" with the original K7, the Athlon. It actually debuted in a slot form factor, but the resulty remains the same - AMD has been independent of Intel sockets since '99. AMD and Intel have numerous cross-licensing agreements, which is why Intel is offering an AMD64-compatible bunch of CPUs fairly soon. AMD could have used socket 423 or socket 478, but why would you want to redesign your chip to work with a socket that'll make it slower? It also would have killed upgrade routes for AMD's existing customers had they gone to Socket 423 when the P4 came out.
Most people seem to forget that the Athlon family was originally competing against, and beating, the P3 long before the P4 arrived. Thus, AMD came up with a chip that has competed against two major products from Intel for about 5 years now. That's impressive no matter which way you slice it.
"although dual Xeon configurations almost always beat dual Opterons."
Perhaps the submitter's screen reader doesn't work well with flash, but in the 2-way benchmarks, Opteron was on top twice, and Xeon was on top 3 times. All the 2-way benchmarks were fairly close (within 5%), and the Xeons never beat the Opterons by a margin greater than 1.7%. I don't quite know where 40% wins translate into "almost always" loses. In other words, the story submitter is a moron, or simply didn't look at the article.
"Results were a little varied as 4-way Opteron systems seemed to fare the best,"
Seemed? Let's see, out of five 4-way benchmarks, Opteron won... all of them - performing about 10% better than Xeons each time.
Since when did we start letting Tom Pabst submit articles to/. ?
Note to editors: When the submission is non-sequitur, either reject it or edit it.
The Itanium2s and up are pretty decent so long as you're working with code designed for 64-bit/EPIC. Where you run into problems is with 32-bit code, or pretty much any code not designed/optimized for EPIC. There's nothing wrong with Itanium in-and-of itself; it's just not cut out for compatibility the way x86 is. Had Intel stuck with the original plan for IA-64 (which was to replace x86 from top to bottom), this would have been fine. You simply would have lost the ability to use old applications, but new ones would run reasonably fast. 10 years later, Itanium has its niche, does quite well within that niche, and sucks for everything else.:)
"I wish we could get by with cheap Xeons, but they just don't cut the mustard for our applications."
This is exactly why Opteron DOES compete with Itanium - if only indirectly. Opteron will never hit the big-tin niche, simply because it was never designed, nor intended to do so. What Opteron does is bring 64-bitness, and all the benefits therein to the mid-range crowd. This forces Intel to choose between giving up on Itanium as anything other than a big-tin chip, or losing half its mid-range customers to AMD. Losing such a lucrative market would be far worse for Intel in the long run than losing the 10 years of R&D sunk into Itanium, so they've chosen to bring the Xeon line to the 64-bit world. With the new Potomac core (Q1/H1 '05), the XeonMP will be the CPU of choice for Intelphile mid-range customers in need of Itanium's benefits, but conscious of cost. The result will be that Itanium's legs will finally be completely taken out from under it, and it will be resigned to little more than a handfull of extremely high-end big-tin servers each year.
Does this mean Intel should continue to develop Itanium, even if it becomes clear it can no longer sustain its own R&D? I don't know - I think that's a question for Intel's board to answer. What I do know is that AMD had it right in '98/'99 when they decided to help transition people to 64-bit CPUs without losing x86's incredible compatibility. The bottom line is that someone like you would have gladly gone with either Opterons or Xeons had the choice been given to you. Unfortunately for Intel's margins, you and those in your position now have that choice.
" Can somebody tell me if the IA-32e processors will be in the socket 478 format to work with existing boards, or will they require a whole new socket and chipset (rather than a bios update)"
They're disabled in all socket 478 chips. The new Pentium 4e chips (Prescott core) supposedly have the extensions, but they remain disabled. Technically, it may be possible to gain access to those instructions through some sort of BIOS hack, but you would also need to use an Operating system that can detect, support, and make use of those new instructions. Also, you risk using unfinished or untested parts of the CPU if you do manage to gain access and use the extensions. There would be no benefit other than simple tinkering.
"If they really are just "extensions" then I don't see why anything special would need to be on the motherboard correct?"
You still need a CPU that supports the instructions, and which has them enabled. Technically, if Intel released Prescotts in S478 form with IA-32e enabled, it should work fine with an existing motherboard which would otherwise support the Prescott chip you're using. The probablility of Intel taking the time and effort to do this less than a quarter away from a whole new socket is virtually nil.
"The cpu should switch into 64bit mode whenever the OS tells it to right?"
That's not entirely accurate. Technically, what happens under AMD64 (the basis for IA-32e), is that specific instructions can be sent to the CPU to have it run code in what's called "Compatibility mode", which essentially allows it to behave as though it were a 32-bit CPU. The difference is that you're not 'switching' to 64-bit mode. You're either in 64-bit mode with the option for compatibility mode when needed (meaning you need a 64-bit capable OS), or you're in 32-bit and you're stuck in 32-bit.
If you're looking for 64-bitness, you may simply want to get an Athlon64. If you're waiting for 64-bitness on the Intel side of things, you'll be waiting until some time towards the end of this year. Good luck.
If someone were to suggest or imply that AMD's CPUs are flawless, I would be just as quick to jump on them with a list of reasons they're wrong. As I said, I didn't set out to spark a debate about whether AMD makes better or worse quality chips than Intel. In fact, they're all consumer-grade products from the top of the line to the bottom. My stated goal was to eliminate the idea of Intel's squeaky clean image. In my personal opinion, neither AMD nor Intel makes high or low quality chips. They're chips that function well enough for most consumers to be happy with them. When consumers are ready to spend $30,000 on a computer that's no faster than what they can spend $1,000 on now, they'll get high quality parts with a very low failure/bug rate. Until then, what you see if what you get.
"Doing some simple math, with a decentish disk controller, it will take 3 hours just to stream 1TB from disk to/dev/null."
But it only takes 3 seconds to blow the EMP.;)
Ever wonder if there's a market for these things yet? FBI busts in, you blow the EMP - FBI leaves, you get the tapes out of the lead safe downstairs...
Now that's some commitment to ensuring customer uptime.:)
I just don't think it's going to happen like that. There are two major parties in this country, the Republicans on the left, and the Democrats on the left. (No, it's not a typo, check the ACU's list of beliefs against this administration's actions)
I think what we need to do is get a Libertarian with some electability on the ballot as either a Democrat or a Republican. The best case scenario would have Libertarians winning both parties' nominations. The trick is getting people on the ballot who aren't well known as having Libertarian tendancies - a 'sleeper' if you will. Normally, I'm very much against political trickery or any kind (you can imagine how warm and fuzzy the current political climate makes me feel), but in this case, I think the good far outweighs the bad. The other problem is that we're not going to be able to do much with Dems controlling the Congress, and not a whole lot more with moderate Republicans controlling the Congress. I think with some moderate Dems, conservative (true Conservatists, not these neo-con idiots) Republicans, and a handful of Libertarians with Ds or Rs next to their names, we could really hammer some changes through.
In a perfect world, I'd say let's run a 3rd party candidate. In this world, I say we start filling Congress and the courts with 'undercover' folks who are willing to act like Ds or Rs until the time is right to start fixing things. I think the American people would go for a tax plan that eliminated taxes altogether within about 15 - 20 years. Most Americans have no idea that the (unconstitutional) income tax is a fairly new animal, enacted as some sort of temporary money train that turned into a maglev.
Time to derail the bitch and send part of the cargo to our state governments.
"These days, presidents don't seem to declare war on things that can possibly be ended by a peace treat (drugs, poverty, terror, etc). Tell me, Mr Bush, is the war on terror going to be over before or after the war on drugs?"
Absolutely.
"The suspension of due process indefinitely is an abomination to liberty, which I could've sworn was what we were fighting for in the first place."
I would argue that suspension at all is an abomination to liberty.
As for the rest of your comment, I must take issue with a number of things. First of all, you're definitely not a southerner, else you'd be calling it the War of Northern Aggression, which better illustrates the illegal nature of the war. There is nothing in the Consitution telling the Federal government that it had the power to stop secession of one or more states. Thus, as per the 9th and 10th amendments, the right to secede from the union remained with the states and those within those states. The North invaded, conquered, and ultimately burned to the ground a foreign nation because it was unable to survive, economically speaking, without it. But I digress.
You use the 'Civil War' (not getting into a semantecs debate) as one example of a time when citizens were imprisoned without due process. Luckily, we've had a court ruling on the matter, entitled Ex Parte Milligan, in which the imprisonment of a citizen under martial law was reversed, and in which the Supreme Court held that the very declaration of martial law was, itself, unconstitutional. From the court's decision:
----------
"Martial law cannot arise from a threatened invasion. The necessity must be actual and present; the invasion real, such as effectually closes the courts and deposes the civil administration."[Emph mine]
"If, in foreign invasion or civil war, the courts are actually closed, and it is impossible to administer criminal justice according to law, then, on the theatre of active military operations, where war really prevails, there is a necessity to furnish a substitute for the civil authority, thus overthrown, to preserve the safety of the army and society; and as no power is left but the military, it is allowed to govern by martial rule until the laws can have their free course. As necessity creates the rule, so it limits its duration; for, if this government is continued after the courts are reinstated, it is a gross usurpation of power."
And most importantly:
"Martial rule can never exist where the courts are open, and in the proper and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction. It is also confined to the locality of actual war."
My personal favorite part of the decision:
"But, it is insisted that the safety of the country in time of war demands that this broad claim for martial law shall be sustained. If this were true, it could be well said that a country, preserved at the sacrifice of all the cardinal principles of liberty, is not worth the cost of preservation. Happily, it is not so."[Emph mine]
---------------
Ergo, example 1 was shown to be illegal. Shall we look further at example 2?
In World War 2, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which called for all the 'japs' to be rounded up and put into internment camps. This already looks pretty bad, doesn't it? In Korematsu V. United States, the Supreme Court gave the 'thumbs up' to the internment camps, rolling over like trained puppies for the popular wartime President. However... Over time, people actually got their heads on straight and took a good look at what had happened. In 1976, President Ford issued Proclamation 4417 which terminated Executive Order 9066. It was called "An American Promise", and it promised that such an action would never again be taken, while acknowledging that it was wrong in the first place. In 1983, a Federal district court ruled the detention
Come on, folks, of course he's going to defend the PATRIOT ACT - he wrote the damn thing. Of course he's going to defend its enforcement - he helped enforce the damn thing. And of course he's going to be vague about the illegal/unconstitutional parts of the act, or of its enforcement - you think he wants to go to prison?
I support Viet Dinh's use of his 5th Amendment rights in this article.
What I don't support is the many parts of this act, and its enforcement, that are illegal, unconstitutional, immoral, and so far beyond the scope of Federal powers as to shock the imagination. I'm about ready to start looking into how we can find a strong libertarian presidential candidate who has a good chance of being elected. Along with a willing Congress, I'd like nothing more than to see the Federal government stripped down better than an unattended Corvette in south-central LA on a Friday night.
I want to see the Federal government up on cinder blocks, with the states standing around checking out their new goodies. Things are getting out of hand. We're spending more than $400 Billion a year on our military, just so we can stretch it to the breaking point by playing parent to the world. We're spending... well, we don't know how much we're spending on the very intelligence agencies that watch our every move. Why don't we know how much we're spending? Sorry, that's classified. Well, what are you doing with my money? Sorry, that's classified. Why is it classified?! It's my money! Sorry, that's classified. Well what am I getting in return for my unknown investment? Safety. Could you be more specific? Sorry, that's classified.
It's about time for a change. I wonder how much longer it will be before Americans can get together enough courage to dismantle the bulk of the Federal government. Are we ready for 10 - 20 years of readjustment, the end result of which is far more freedom and a return to the Constitutional Republic we once had? Or shall we sit on our collective asses for a bit longer while Uncle Sam's goons start doing random cavity searchs to see what we might be hiding?
"My point is that Intel COULD HAVE stuck to their guns and tried to push their own 64 bit architecture to show who was the boss."
Well let's see, it wouldn't have run on Windows, it wouldn't have run on Linux (can you see Linus pushing support for that?), it wouldn't have run anything Apple has to offer - so what are we talking about here, the 8086? Microsoft already told Intel they can take yet another x86-64 instruction set and stuff it. I can't see Microsoft going back on their promise to AMD (Sanders), nor supporting yet another architecture simply to make Intel happy. Intel could have used EPIC with the Xeons and P5s, but I think that would have required an incredible amount of effort, time, and money. This would put them out of competition with AMD for a minimum of one year, more likely two or three. I think we all learned well from 3DFX that the best product in the world doesn't sit at the top for years at a time while you get your act together for the next round.
"What impresses me is that they swallowed their pride and nixed Itanium."
Itanium hasn't been nixed. If you listen to Intel, it's unaffected by this latest 'twist' (in single quotes because we knew this was coming for more than a year now). Whether Intel will admit it or not, Itanium no longer has any chance for wide adoption. That doesn't mean they couldn't let it sit there at the top of the food chain, possibly breaking even during good years.
" Turning their back on a such a long research project which probably cost untold billions shows some balls, don't you think?"
I think it shows lack of vision and gross mismanagement. Having gone through 5 years hand-in-hand with HP, and knowing that what they're producing is basically going to be middle-of-the-road by the time it sees the light of day, they should have killed it off. That I would concede would have shown balls, and good vision. What we have instead is the Vietnam of the CPU industry. Not only has Itanium failed time and time again to meet expectations, but now it doesn't even have much of a market. Yet even now, Intel continues to pretend it has a product it can sell, profit from, and actually pay back the 10+ years worth of R&D.
"Just because they change sides doesn't mean they're following the advertising dollars."
Changed sides? I don't know about you, but if I'm looking at a review site, I'm looking for an honest opinion, not propaganda - not for either side.
Also, this isn't just about 'switching sides', it's about patently falsifying benchmark results via driver vetting and software/settings tweaks. If you're going to get the best possible performance out of one product, then seek to cripple the competing product in your review, then you're no better than... well.. Apple (dual G5vsXeon/Opteron benchs?!).
" Instead of running out and introducing a new 64 bit instruction set to the market to directly compete with AMD, and thus create market confusion and compatibility problems, they've decided to do the best thing for us, the consumers and programmers - embrace an existing standard to avoid market fragmentation."
I agree completely - thank goodness Intel has chosen to maintain compatibility for the good of customers with their 64-bit CPU, the Itanium. What's that you say? EPIC instruction set? It's not compatible with much of anything? Hmmm...
Intel was banking on AMD's 64-bit chips being a flop. They were banking on little to no uptake for the 64-bit line. They were banking on customers showing little to no interest in the 64-bit line. Their gamble did not pay off. HP (Tier-1 Vendor and co-creator of Itanium) is introducing Opteron servers shortly, if they haven't already announced them. Dell was strongly considering 64-bit AMD CPUs, in the interest of not losing customers to HP, Sun (another Opteron selling vendor), et al. Intel didn't want to make this move because it forces them to release 64-bit Xeon/DP/MP CPUs, which pretty much makes Itanium a 'big tin' niche product unable to sustain its own R&D from a bottom-line standpoint. 10 years worth of R&D down the drain isn't about to make investors terribly happy with Intel. Having spent 10 years working on the damn thing, they're right back at square 1 - or rather, a square or two under 1, as they were at least in the lead over AMD, technologically speaking, at square 1.
" Next time they decide to take a bullet and promote compatibility, they'll know better!"
Wait, I'm a little confused here... Isn't the entire point of Linus' tirade that Intel refused to specify what it is they're doing in clear, simple language? They're promoting confusion to avoid having to say, "we're using AMD's 64-bit X-86 extensions." They're not taking a bullet, they're wiggling on the end of the fishing line like a little worm, trying to squirm their way off the question of whether their 64-bit extensions are compatible with AMD's because they are AMD's.
"There is nothing finer than raising the hackles of delusional AMD lovers. However, today I do so with a heavy heart. This is no time to take aim at the pompous, self-righteous head-in-the-sand-ostriches of the alternative chip lifestyle. One must embrace them, hug them and wipe away their tears.
They are the freaks of low-cost computing, the poor, downtrodden users of products that never seem to be able to match PR numbers to actual performance, now almost beaten into marginality for all time. " (Ridiculous remarks curteousy of Omid, General Manager, U.S. Operations for Tom's Hardware)
You need some serious psychological help if you're crazy enough to believe that they're actually pro-AMD. They're not just pro-Intel, they're pro-$ADVERTISER. Generally speaking, their articles are skewed towards a select few especially heavy advertisers. They'll even work with different driver revisions and bios settings to maximize the advantage for Intel et al. There was even an article in which Tom himself admitted that he sent the results 'back to the labs for more testing' after the AMD chips performed a bit too well for his tastes. He didn't say why he sent the results back, but when you look at the articles surrounding it and see 9 articles with a pro-Intel slant, 1 with benchmarks that seem favorable for AMD, and the 1 gets the results sent back for 'further testing', you get a good indication of what's happening. Tell me this: why is it that Tom's benchmarks tell such a different story from virtually every other hardware sites'? Is it some massive AMD conspiracy? Why is it that Ace's says one thing, and Tom's says something totally different? (Ace's is a technical-minded person's hangout, as opposed to the consumer-oriented Tom's)
Wake up - Tom's is a propaganda machine serving up dumbed-down consumer grade articles with rigged benchmarks and non-sequitur conclusions.
It's a joke, and quite frankly, it's becoming pathetic.
"I have lost respect for Tom and his publication."
I've never had much respect for Tom; he's an egomaniac. Also, the website sold out to Intel and a number of other advertisers a few years ago (roughly 3). You'll notice a fairly rapid change in the articles if you look in the archives - that is, if you can find articles that haven't been re-edited or removed. They also have a habit of removing the author title or changing it when they decide they don't like the original author anymore.
Tom's is now a joke. It's a site offering dumbed-down consumer grade articles with rigged benchmarks and conclusions that are non-sequitur. Attempts to hide the utter bias have faded with time, with AMD supporters now being openly labled as just a bunch of idiotic, delusional fanboys by some in the staff (Hi Omid!). The benchmarks are done with multiple driver versions, then vetted such that the best possible results for key advertisers can be shown. Anandtech still has a good deal of respect in the community, as well as from me (I'm more important!;) ). Probably the best site I've run across is Ace's, which offers incredibly in-depth articles to those willing to learn a thing or two.
"There is nothing finer than raising the hackles of delusional AMD lovers. However, today I do so with a heavy heart. This is no time to take aim at the pompous, self-righteous head-in-the-sand-ostriches of the alternative chip lifestyle. One must embrace them, hug them and wipe away their tears.
They are the freaks of low-cost computing, the poor, downtrodden users of products that never seem to be able to match PR numbers to actual performance, now almost beaten into marginality for all time.
Of course, they won't admit this. They will howl at the moon, scream obscenities at nice, unassuming columnists with no axe to grind"
Perhaps the same William T Sherman whose campaign through the South during the War of Northern Aggression would, today, have landed him in The Hague on trial before the War Crimes Tribunal? The same man who drove his troops through the South, murdering unarmed farmers, women, and children while burning their homes and towns to the ground for no discernable reason? The same man whose murderous rampage frightened even his own men?
General William Tecumseh Sherman - the forgotten Hitler of the 19th century. It took a very long time to come up with a word to fit Sherman's way of life. In fact, we didn't even do it prior to his death. It took more methodical, less rage-driven acts of horror to make us realize we lacked the language to describe the lifestyle led by Sherman. Sherman's way of life can be summed up in a single word: genocide.
Fair? I never made the claim that AMD's CPUs are of higher quality than Intel's. I'm simply pointing out that the common idea that Intel CPUs "just work" is wrong. Intel, AMD, VIA... it's all consumer grade, any which way you slice it. You don't get top-of-the-line for only a couple grand or less. When consumers are ready to drop $20,000 on a CPU en masse, we'll have high quality CPUs. Until then, we get bugs - regardless of which company we choose. I simply choose AMD because I believe they give the best price/performance ratio, and now include more features that will become useful to me. If someone else wants to choose Intel CPUs for some other reason, I'm all for it - but I won't sit idly by while people propogate outright lies.
"support microcode updates to fix or work around the bugs"
Several of those could not be fixed via microcode updates, hence the recalls. Also, at least one fix blew out some compatability with a common chipset. This apparently was not something that could be worked out, so they just left it that way. The PIII 1.13GHz CPUs were totally recalled, because the CPU simply could not run at that frequency reliably. In any event, the fact that they've had so many problems, many of which have caused problems for people actually buying and using the CPUs, just goes to show that Intel isn't the super duper pinnacle of stability that people make it out to be.
No CPU is perfect, but claiming that Intel is making super high quality chips is laughable. It's all consumer grade - even the Itaniums.
"Granted you could be nervous about this since 3dfx went the way of the dodo, but since AMD doesn't make POS video cards that double the weight of your box...they should be safe;-)"
3DFX's problem had nothing to do with their products. Their problem had to do with the fact that they got greedy - extremely greedy. After their first few successful graphics chips were launched, they basically shut their board makers out in the European market with the purchase of STB. They began producing their own boards, and had production capacity sufficient to supply the European market, and that's about it. Thus, other board makers were still necessary for other markets, such as the US. Having been bent over by 3DFX in the European market, board makers essentially told 3DFX to take their chips and stuff them. Thus, 3DFX was left with the choice of abandoning every market but the European (you're joking, right?), or dipping into (read: draining) their R&D budget. Noting that option 1 was suicidal, 3DFX chose the latter. Thus, production was bumped, the new Voodoo 3 graphics cards were an outstanding bunch, and virtually no R&D was accomplished for a few years. Wait; did I say they didn't do any R&D for a few years?! Yes - yes I did. Thus, the thus far sub-standard (where 3DFX was the standard) 3D graphics card/chip makers were able to catch up to, and surpass 3DFX in both performance and features. Glide, 3DFX's baby, was eclipsed by the more open, if less fully-featured, OpenGL in game support. By the time 3DFX had enough production capability to start working on new cards, the writing was on the wall. Ati, Matrox, and nVidia were already too far ahead for 3DFX to have a chance competing against. 3DFX dumped the last of their cash into creating an extraordinarily powerful, goofy as hell looking, wildly expensive set of cards, which saw almost no time whatsoever in the market before 3DFX was forced to sell all IP rights to nVidia. 3DFX, nothing more than a shell of a company with no IP, then collapsed about a month later.
The last good card from 3DFX? The Voodoo 3 3500. Their last great card? The Voodoo 3 3000, whose overclocking ability was absolutely beyond anything anyone had ever before imagined possible. With stock cooling, one could achieve gains that would be thought of as ridiculous (percentage-wise) today. My own V3 3000, whose default memory clock speed was 166MHz, hit 220MHz with the stock cooler with no artifacts. I recall pushing it a bit higher with a rigged cooling system before finally replacing the card (it was getting OLD). 200MHz was common for the memory speed on those, and values as high as 240 - 250MHz had been reported, though often not without some artifacts. The quality of components was next to none from 3DFX. It was not their product, but their arrogance that was their undoing.
Or the Itanium bug that was severe enough to make Compaq halt Itanium shipments.
Or the Itanium 2 bug that "can cause systems to behave unpredictably or shut down".
Or the numerous other P4/Xeon/XeonMP bugs that have been hanging around.
Yes, I did consider the possibility that there might just be some basis for the belief that Intel's products are superior. Having considered that, in light of the mountains of evidence to the contrary, I shall now proceed to laugh at you.
"Unless you're some complete nob who likes to rip their heatsink off a processor in the middle of running a Quake 3 timedemo, this is NOT a problem."
I've likened the 'heat sink falling off' scenario to that of the radiator falling off a car. Since they happen at about the same frequency (never), it works well; not to mention the fact that it's funny to imagine someone's radiator falling off and the car continues driving at 5mph for the next 6 months while they continuously bitch about how slow it's been running lately.
Slashdot Mirror
"When Intel made the PIV, they either refused to license AMD to build compatible CPUs, or AMD declined to manufacture them."
Actually, AMD came out with an entirely new "socket" with the original K7, the Athlon. It actually debuted in a slot form factor, but the resulty remains the same - AMD has been independent of Intel sockets since '99. AMD and Intel have numerous cross-licensing agreements, which is why Intel is offering an AMD64-compatible bunch of CPUs fairly soon. AMD could have used socket 423 or socket 478, but why would you want to redesign your chip to work with a socket that'll make it slower? It also would have killed upgrade routes for AMD's existing customers had they gone to Socket 423 when the P4 came out.
Most people seem to forget that the Athlon family was originally competing against, and beating, the P3 long before the P4 arrived. Thus, AMD came up with a chip that has competed against two major products from Intel for about 5 years now. That's impressive no matter which way you slice it.
"although dual Xeon configurations almost always beat dual Opterons."
/. ?
Perhaps the submitter's screen reader doesn't work well with flash, but in the 2-way benchmarks, Opteron was on top twice, and Xeon was on top 3 times. All the 2-way benchmarks were fairly close (within 5%), and the Xeons never beat the Opterons by a margin greater than 1.7%. I don't quite know where 40% wins translate into "almost always" loses. In other words, the story submitter is a moron, or simply didn't look at the article.
"Results were a little varied as 4-way Opteron systems seemed to fare the best,"
Seemed? Let's see, out of five 4-way benchmarks, Opteron won... all of them - performing about 10% better than Xeons each time.
Since when did we start letting Tom Pabst submit articles to
Note to editors: When the submission is non-sequitur, either reject it or edit it.
"Now... given this kind of statistics, as sad as it may sound I'd say I am willing to pay anything for an Intel just to avoid the headaches."
You apparently are unaware of the headaches others have suffered at the hands of the almighty Intel. Here's a refresher:
I Win.
The Itanium2s and up are pretty decent so long as you're working with code designed for 64-bit/EPIC. Where you run into problems is with 32-bit code, or pretty much any code not designed/optimized for EPIC. There's nothing wrong with Itanium in-and-of itself; it's just not cut out for compatibility the way x86 is. Had Intel stuck with the original plan for IA-64 (which was to replace x86 from top to bottom), this would have been fine. You simply would have lost the ability to use old applications, but new ones would run reasonably fast. 10 years later, Itanium has its niche, does quite well within that niche, and sucks for everything else. :)
"I wish we could get by with cheap Xeons, but they just don't cut the mustard for our applications."
This is exactly why Opteron DOES compete with Itanium - if only indirectly. Opteron will never hit the big-tin niche, simply because it was never designed, nor intended to do so. What Opteron does is bring 64-bitness, and all the benefits therein to the mid-range crowd. This forces Intel to choose between giving up on Itanium as anything other than a big-tin chip, or losing half its mid-range customers to AMD. Losing such a lucrative market would be far worse for Intel in the long run than losing the 10 years of R&D sunk into Itanium, so they've chosen to bring the Xeon line to the 64-bit world. With the new Potomac core (Q1/H1 '05), the XeonMP will be the CPU of choice for Intelphile mid-range customers in need of Itanium's benefits, but conscious of cost. The result will be that Itanium's legs will finally be completely taken out from under it, and it will be resigned to little more than a handfull of extremely high-end big-tin servers each year.
Does this mean Intel should continue to develop Itanium, even if it becomes clear it can no longer sustain its own R&D? I don't know - I think that's a question for Intel's board to answer. What I do know is that AMD had it right in '98/'99 when they decided to help transition people to 64-bit CPUs without losing x86's incredible compatibility. The bottom line is that someone like you would have gladly gone with either Opterons or Xeons had the choice been given to you. Unfortunately for Intel's margins, you and those in your position now have that choice.
" Can somebody tell me if the IA-32e processors will be in the socket 478 format to work with existing boards, or will they require a whole new socket and chipset (rather than a bios update)"
They're disabled in all socket 478 chips. The new Pentium 4e chips (Prescott core) supposedly have the extensions, but they remain disabled. Technically, it may be possible to gain access to those instructions through some sort of BIOS hack, but you would also need to use an Operating system that can detect, support, and make use of those new instructions. Also, you risk using unfinished or untested parts of the CPU if you do manage to gain access and use the extensions. There would be no benefit other than simple tinkering.
"If they really are just "extensions" then I don't see why anything special would need to be on the motherboard correct?"
You still need a CPU that supports the instructions, and which has them enabled. Technically, if Intel released Prescotts in S478 form with IA-32e enabled, it should work fine with an existing motherboard which would otherwise support the Prescott chip you're using. The probablility of Intel taking the time and effort to do this less than a quarter away from a whole new socket is virtually nil.
"The cpu should switch into 64bit mode whenever the OS tells it to right?"
That's not entirely accurate. Technically, what happens under AMD64 (the basis for IA-32e), is that specific instructions can be sent to the CPU to have it run code in what's called "Compatibility mode", which essentially allows it to behave as though it were a 32-bit CPU. The difference is that you're not 'switching' to 64-bit mode. You're either in 64-bit mode with the option for compatibility mode when needed (meaning you need a 64-bit capable OS), or you're in 32-bit and you're stuck in 32-bit.
If you're looking for 64-bitness, you may simply want to get an Athlon64. If you're waiting for 64-bitness on the Intel side of things, you'll be waiting until some time towards the end of this year. Good luck.
If someone were to suggest or imply that AMD's CPUs are flawless, I would be just as quick to jump on them with a list of reasons they're wrong. As I said, I didn't set out to spark a debate about whether AMD makes better or worse quality chips than Intel. In fact, they're all consumer-grade products from the top of the line to the bottom. My stated goal was to eliminate the idea of Intel's squeaky clean image. In my personal opinion, neither AMD nor Intel makes high or low quality chips. They're chips that function well enough for most consumers to be happy with them. When consumers are ready to spend $30,000 on a computer that's no faster than what they can spend $1,000 on now, they'll get high quality parts with a very low failure/bug rate. Until then, what you see if what you get.
"Suggestions for a DVD Video on Demand System?"
I demand it, Kazaa provides it?
Oh, a video on demand system for you - nevermind.
Hang on, someone's banging on my door...
"Doing some simple math, with a decentish disk controller, it will take 3 hours just to stream 1TB from disk to /dev/null."
;)
:)
But it only takes 3 seconds to blow the EMP.
Ever wonder if there's a market for these things yet? FBI busts in, you blow the EMP - FBI leaves, you get the tapes out of the lead safe downstairs...
Now that's some commitment to ensuring customer uptime.
I just don't think it's going to happen like that. There are two major parties in this country, the Republicans on the left, and the Democrats on the left. (No, it's not a typo, check the ACU's list of beliefs against this administration's actions)
I think what we need to do is get a Libertarian with some electability on the ballot as either a Democrat or a Republican. The best case scenario would have Libertarians winning both parties' nominations. The trick is getting people on the ballot who aren't well known as having Libertarian tendancies - a 'sleeper' if you will. Normally, I'm very much against political trickery or any kind (you can imagine how warm and fuzzy the current political climate makes me feel), but in this case, I think the good far outweighs the bad. The other problem is that we're not going to be able to do much with Dems controlling the Congress, and not a whole lot more with moderate Republicans controlling the Congress. I think with some moderate Dems, conservative (true Conservatists, not these neo-con idiots) Republicans, and a handful of Libertarians with Ds or Rs next to their names, we could really hammer some changes through.
In a perfect world, I'd say let's run a 3rd party candidate. In this world, I say we start filling Congress and the courts with 'undercover' folks who are willing to act like Ds or Rs until the time is right to start fixing things. I think the American people would go for a tax plan that eliminated taxes altogether within about 15 - 20 years. Most Americans have no idea that the (unconstitutional) income tax is a fairly new animal, enacted as some sort of temporary money train that turned into a maglev.
Time to derail the bitch and send part of the cargo to our state governments.
" Did he refuse to incriminate himself under oath in this article?"
Yes, he did - when he provided vague, inaccurate, or offtopic responses to questions whose truthful answers would have had him admitting illegalities.
"These days, presidents don't seem to declare war on things that can possibly be ended by a peace treat (drugs, poverty, terror, etc). Tell me, Mr Bush, is the war on terror going to be over before or after the war on drugs?"
Absolutely.
"The suspension of due process indefinitely is an abomination to liberty, which I could've sworn was what we were fighting for in the first place."
I would argue that suspension at all is an abomination to liberty.
As for the rest of your comment, I must take issue with a number of things. First of all, you're definitely not a southerner, else you'd be calling it the War of Northern Aggression, which better illustrates the illegal nature of the war. There is nothing in the Consitution telling the Federal government that it had the power to stop secession of one or more states. Thus, as per the 9th and 10th amendments, the right to secede from the union remained with the states and those within those states. The North invaded, conquered, and ultimately burned to the ground a foreign nation because it was unable to survive, economically speaking, without it. But I digress.
You use the 'Civil War' (not getting into a semantecs debate) as one example of a time when citizens were imprisoned without due process. Luckily, we've had a court ruling on the matter, entitled Ex Parte Milligan, in which the imprisonment of a citizen under martial law was reversed, and in which the Supreme Court held that the very declaration of martial law was, itself, unconstitutional. From the court's decision:
----------
"Martial law cannot arise from a threatened invasion. The necessity must be actual and present; the invasion real, such as effectually closes the courts and deposes the civil administration."[Emph mine]
"If, in foreign invasion or civil war, the courts are actually closed, and it is impossible to administer criminal justice according to law, then, on the theatre of active military operations, where war really prevails, there is a necessity to furnish a substitute for the civil authority, thus overthrown, to preserve the safety of the army and society; and as no power is left but the military, it is allowed to govern by martial rule until the laws can have their free course. As necessity creates the rule, so it limits its duration; for, if this government is continued after the courts are reinstated, it is a gross usurpation of power."
And most importantly:
"Martial rule can never exist where the courts are open, and in the proper and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction. It is also confined to the locality of actual war."
My personal favorite part of the decision:
"But, it is insisted that the safety of the country in time of war demands that this broad claim for martial law shall be sustained. If this were true, it could be well said that a country, preserved at the sacrifice of all the cardinal principles of liberty, is not worth the cost of preservation. Happily, it is not so."[Emph mine]
---------------
Ergo, example 1 was shown to be illegal. Shall we look further at example 2?
In World War 2, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which called for all the 'japs' to be rounded up and put into internment camps. This already looks pretty bad, doesn't it? In Korematsu V. United States, the Supreme Court gave the 'thumbs up' to the internment camps, rolling over like trained puppies for the popular wartime President. However... Over time, people actually got their heads on straight and took a good look at what had happened. In 1976, President Ford issued Proclamation 4417 which terminated Executive Order 9066. It was called "An American Promise", and it promised that such an action would never again be taken, while acknowledging that it was wrong in the first place. In 1983, a Federal district court ruled the detention
Come on, folks, of course he's going to defend the PATRIOT ACT - he wrote the damn thing. Of course he's going to defend its enforcement - he helped enforce the damn thing. And of course he's going to be vague about the illegal/unconstitutional parts of the act, or of its enforcement - you think he wants to go to prison?
I support Viet Dinh's use of his 5th Amendment rights in this article.
What I don't support is the many parts of this act, and its enforcement, that are illegal, unconstitutional, immoral, and so far beyond the scope of Federal powers as to shock the imagination. I'm about ready to start looking into how we can find a strong libertarian presidential candidate who has a good chance of being elected. Along with a willing Congress, I'd like nothing more than to see the Federal government stripped down better than an unattended Corvette in south-central LA on a Friday night.
I want to see the Federal government up on cinder blocks, with the states standing around checking out their new goodies. Things are getting out of hand. We're spending more than $400 Billion a year on our military, just so we can stretch it to the breaking point by playing parent to the world. We're spending... well, we don't know how much we're spending on the very intelligence agencies that watch our every move. Why don't we know how much we're spending? Sorry, that's classified. Well, what are you doing with my money? Sorry, that's classified. Why is it classified?! It's my money! Sorry, that's classified. Well what am I getting in return for my unknown investment? Safety. Could you be more specific? Sorry, that's classified.
It's about time for a change. I wonder how much longer it will be before Americans can get together enough courage to dismantle the bulk of the Federal government. Are we ready for 10 - 20 years of readjustment, the end result of which is far more freedom and a return to the Constitutional Republic we once had? Or shall we sit on our collective asses for a bit longer while Uncle Sam's goons start doing random cavity searchs to see what we might be hiding?
"My point is that Intel COULD HAVE stuck to their guns and tried to push their own 64 bit architecture to show who was the boss."
Well let's see, it wouldn't have run on Windows, it wouldn't have run on Linux (can you see Linus pushing support for that?), it wouldn't have run anything Apple has to offer - so what are we talking about here, the 8086? Microsoft already told Intel they can take yet another x86-64 instruction set and stuff it. I can't see Microsoft going back on their promise to AMD (Sanders), nor supporting yet another architecture simply to make Intel happy. Intel could have used EPIC with the Xeons and P5s, but I think that would have required an incredible amount of effort, time, and money. This would put them out of competition with AMD for a minimum of one year, more likely two or three. I think we all learned well from 3DFX that the best product in the world doesn't sit at the top for years at a time while you get your act together for the next round.
"What impresses me is that they swallowed their pride and nixed Itanium."
Itanium hasn't been nixed. If you listen to Intel, it's unaffected by this latest 'twist' (in single quotes because we knew this was coming for more than a year now). Whether Intel will admit it or not, Itanium no longer has any chance for wide adoption. That doesn't mean they couldn't let it sit there at the top of the food chain, possibly breaking even during good years.
" Turning their back on a such a long research project which probably cost untold billions shows some balls, don't you think?"
I think it shows lack of vision and gross mismanagement. Having gone through 5 years hand-in-hand with HP, and knowing that what they're producing is basically going to be middle-of-the-road by the time it sees the light of day, they should have killed it off. That I would concede would have shown balls, and good vision. What we have instead is the Vietnam of the CPU industry. Not only has Itanium failed time and time again to meet expectations, but now it doesn't even have much of a market. Yet even now, Intel continues to pretend it has a product it can sell, profit from, and actually pay back the 10+ years worth of R&D.
"Just because they change sides doesn't mean they're following the advertising dollars."
Changed sides? I don't know about you, but if I'm looking at a review site, I'm looking for an honest opinion, not propaganda - not for either side.
Also, this isn't just about 'switching sides', it's about patently falsifying benchmark results via driver vetting and software/settings tweaks. If you're going to get the best possible performance out of one product, then seek to cripple the competing product in your review, then you're no better than... well.. Apple (dual G5vsXeon/Opteron benchs?!).
" Instead of running out and introducing a new 64 bit instruction set to the market to directly compete with AMD, and thus create market confusion and compatibility problems, they've decided to do the best thing for us, the consumers and programmers - embrace an existing standard to avoid market fragmentation."
I agree completely - thank goodness Intel has chosen to maintain compatibility for the good of customers with their 64-bit CPU, the Itanium. What's that you say? EPIC instruction set? It's not compatible with much of anything? Hmmm...
Intel was banking on AMD's 64-bit chips being a flop. They were banking on little to no uptake for the 64-bit line. They were banking on customers showing little to no interest in the 64-bit line. Their gamble did not pay off. HP (Tier-1 Vendor and co-creator of Itanium) is introducing Opteron servers shortly, if they haven't already announced them. Dell was strongly considering 64-bit AMD CPUs, in the interest of not losing customers to HP, Sun (another Opteron selling vendor), et al. Intel didn't want to make this move because it forces them to release 64-bit Xeon/DP/MP CPUs, which pretty much makes Itanium a 'big tin' niche product unable to sustain its own R&D from a bottom-line standpoint. 10 years worth of R&D down the drain isn't about to make investors terribly happy with Intel. Having spent 10 years working on the damn thing, they're right back at square 1 - or rather, a square or two under 1, as they were at least in the lead over AMD, technologically speaking, at square 1.
" Next time they decide to take a bullet and promote compatibility, they'll know better!"
Wait, I'm a little confused here... Isn't the entire point of Linus' tirade that Intel refused to specify what it is they're doing in clear, simple language? They're promoting confusion to avoid having to say, "we're using AMD's 64-bit X-86 extensions." They're not taking a bullet, they're wiggling on the end of the fishing line like a little worm, trying to squirm their way off the question of whether their 64-bit extensions are compatible with AMD's because they are AMD's.
Are you serious? Tom? Is that you?
Here:
"There is nothing finer than raising the hackles of delusional AMD lovers. However, today I do so with a heavy heart. This is no time to take aim at the pompous, self-righteous head-in-the-sand-ostriches of the alternative chip lifestyle. One must embrace them, hug them and wipe away their tears.
They are the freaks of low-cost computing, the poor, downtrodden users of products that never seem to be able to match PR numbers to actual performance, now almost beaten into marginality for all time. "
(Ridiculous remarks curteousy of Omid, General Manager, U.S. Operations for Tom's Hardware)
You need some serious psychological help if you're crazy enough to believe that they're actually pro-AMD. They're not just pro-Intel, they're pro-$ADVERTISER. Generally speaking, their articles are skewed towards a select few especially heavy advertisers. They'll even work with different driver revisions and bios settings to maximize the advantage for Intel et al. There was even an article in which Tom himself admitted that he sent the results 'back to the labs for more testing' after the AMD chips performed a bit too well for his tastes. He didn't say why he sent the results back, but when you look at the articles surrounding it and see 9 articles with a pro-Intel slant, 1 with benchmarks that seem favorable for AMD, and the 1 gets the results sent back for 'further testing', you get a good indication of what's happening. Tell me this: why is it that Tom's benchmarks tell such a different story from virtually every other hardware sites'? Is it some massive AMD conspiracy? Why is it that Ace's says one thing, and Tom's says something totally different? (Ace's is a technical-minded person's hangout, as opposed to the consumer-oriented Tom's)
Wake up - Tom's is a propaganda machine serving up dumbed-down consumer grade articles with rigged benchmarks and non-sequitur conclusions.
It's a joke, and quite frankly, it's becoming pathetic.
"I have lost respect for Tom and his publication."
;) ). Probably the best site I've run across is Ace's, which offers incredibly in-depth articles to those willing to learn a thing or two.
I've never had much respect for Tom; he's an egomaniac. Also, the website sold out to Intel and a number of other advertisers a few years ago (roughly 3). You'll notice a fairly rapid change in the articles if you look in the archives - that is, if you can find articles that haven't been re-edited or removed. They also have a habit of removing the author title or changing it when they decide they don't like the original author anymore.
Tom's is now a joke. It's a site offering dumbed-down consumer grade articles with rigged benchmarks and conclusions that are non-sequitur. Attempts to hide the utter bias have faded with time, with AMD supporters now being openly labled as just a bunch of idiotic, delusional fanboys by some in the staff (Hi Omid!). The benchmarks are done with multiple driver versions, then vetted such that the best possible results for key advertisers can be shown. Anandtech still has a good deal of respect in the community, as well as from me (I'm more important!
Here's an excerpt from a recent column on Tom's:
"There is nothing finer than raising the hackles of delusional AMD lovers. However, today I do so with a heavy heart. This is no time to take aim at the pompous, self-righteous head-in-the-sand-ostriches of the alternative chip lifestyle. One must embrace them, hug them and wipe away their tears.
They are the freaks of low-cost computing, the poor, downtrodden users of products that never seem to be able to match PR numbers to actual performance, now almost beaten into marginality for all time.
Of course, they won't admit this. They will howl at the moon, scream obscenities at nice, unassuming columnists with no axe to grind"
"General Willliam T. Sherman"
Perhaps the same William T Sherman whose campaign through the South during the War of Northern Aggression would, today, have landed him in The Hague on trial before the War Crimes Tribunal? The same man who drove his troops through the South, murdering unarmed farmers, women, and children while burning their homes and towns to the ground for no discernable reason? The same man whose murderous rampage frightened even his own men?
General William Tecumseh Sherman - the forgotten Hitler of the 19th century. It took a very long time to come up with a word to fit Sherman's way of life. In fact, we didn't even do it prior to his death. It took more methodical, less rage-driven acts of horror to make us realize we lacked the language to describe the lifestyle led by Sherman. Sherman's way of life can be summed up in a single word: genocide.
Fair? I never made the claim that AMD's CPUs are of higher quality than Intel's. I'm simply pointing out that the common idea that Intel CPUs "just work" is wrong. Intel, AMD, VIA... it's all consumer grade, any which way you slice it. You don't get top-of-the-line for only a couple grand or less. When consumers are ready to drop $20,000 on a CPU en masse, we'll have high quality CPUs. Until then, we get bugs - regardless of which company we choose. I simply choose AMD because I believe they give the best price/performance ratio, and now include more features that will become useful to me. If someone else wants to choose Intel CPUs for some other reason, I'm all for it - but I won't sit idly by while people propogate outright lies.
"support microcode updates to fix or work around the bugs"
Several of those could not be fixed via microcode updates, hence the recalls. Also, at least one fix blew out some compatability with a common chipset. This apparently was not something that could be worked out, so they just left it that way. The PIII 1.13GHz CPUs were totally recalled, because the CPU simply could not run at that frequency reliably. In any event, the fact that they've had so many problems, many of which have caused problems for people actually buying and using the CPUs, just goes to show that Intel isn't the super duper pinnacle of stability that people make it out to be.
No CPU is perfect, but claiming that Intel is making super high quality chips is laughable. It's all consumer grade - even the Itaniums.
"Granted you could be nervous about this since 3dfx went the way of the dodo, but since AMD doesn't make POS video cards that double the weight of your box...they should be safe ;-)"
3DFX's problem had nothing to do with their products. Their problem had to do with the fact that they got greedy - extremely greedy. After their first few successful graphics chips were launched, they basically shut their board makers out in the European market with the purchase of STB. They began producing their own boards, and had production capacity sufficient to supply the European market, and that's about it. Thus, other board makers were still necessary for other markets, such as the US. Having been bent over by 3DFX in the European market, board makers essentially told 3DFX to take their chips and stuff them. Thus, 3DFX was left with the choice of abandoning every market but the European (you're joking, right?), or dipping into (read: draining) their R&D budget. Noting that option 1 was suicidal, 3DFX chose the latter. Thus, production was bumped, the new Voodoo 3 graphics cards were an outstanding bunch, and virtually no R&D was accomplished for a few years. Wait; did I say they didn't do any R&D for a few years?! Yes - yes I did. Thus, the thus far sub-standard (where 3DFX was the standard) 3D graphics card/chip makers were able to catch up to, and surpass 3DFX in both performance and features. Glide, 3DFX's baby, was eclipsed by the more open, if less fully-featured, OpenGL in game support. By the time 3DFX had enough production capability to start working on new cards, the writing was on the wall. Ati, Matrox, and nVidia were already too far ahead for 3DFX to have a chance competing against. 3DFX dumped the last of their cash into creating an extraordinarily powerful, goofy as hell looking, wildly expensive set of cards, which saw almost no time whatsoever in the market before 3DFX was forced to sell all IP rights to nVidia. 3DFX, nothing more than a shell of a company with no IP, then collapsed about a month later.
The last good card from 3DFX? The Voodoo 3 3500. Their last great card? The Voodoo 3 3000, whose overclocking ability was absolutely beyond anything anyone had ever before imagined possible. With stock cooling, one could achieve gains that would be thought of as ridiculous (percentage-wise) today. My own V3 3000, whose default memory clock speed was 166MHz, hit 220MHz with the stock cooler with no artifacts. I recall pushing it a bit higher with a rigged cooling system before finally replacing the card (it was getting OLD). 200MHz was common for the memory speed on those, and values as high as 240 - 250MHz had been reported, though often not without some artifacts. The quality of components was next to none from 3DFX. It was not their product, but their arrogance that was their undoing.
Like the PIII Coppermine CPUs that wouldn't even boot sometimes.
Or the randomly rebooting PII Xeons.
Or the voltage problems with certain PIII Xeons.
Or the memory request system hang bug in the PIII/Xeon.
Or the PIII's SSE bug whose 'fix' killed i810 compatability.
Or the MTH bug in the PIII CPUs that forced Intel customers to replace boards and RAM.
Or the recalled, that's right, recalled PIII chips at 1.13GHz.
Or the recalled (there's that word again) Xeon SERVER chips at 800 and 900MHz.
Or the recalled (that word, AGAIN?!) cc820 "cape cod" Intel motherboards.
Or the data overwriting bug in the P4 CPUs.
Or the P4 chipset bug that killed video performance.
Or the Sun/Oracle P4 bug.
Or the Itanium bug that was severe enough to make Compaq halt Itanium shipments.
Or the Itanium 2 bug that "can cause systems to behave unpredictably or shut down".
Or the numerous other P4/Xeon/XeonMP bugs that have been hanging around.
Yes, I did consider the possibility that there might just be some basis for the belief that Intel's products are superior. Having considered that, in light of the mountains of evidence to the contrary, I shall now proceed to laugh at you.
Ha ha ha.
Now go away, or I shall mock you again.
"Unless you're some complete nob who likes to rip their heatsink off a processor in the middle of running a Quake 3 timedemo, this is NOT a problem."
I've likened the 'heat sink falling off' scenario to that of the radiator falling off a car. Since they happen at about the same frequency (never), it works well; not to mention the fact that it's funny to imagine someone's radiator falling off and the car continues driving at 5mph for the next 6 months while they continuously bitch about how slow it's been running lately.
"These guys say that there are... 102 [(A-10 and OA-10)] in the ANG."
Yeah, just in case tanks start rolling down the streets of south-central LA. Last time I saw a tank in LA, it said "Police" on the side of it.
Ever get the feeling that our criminals are getting a little out of hand?