I certainly regret making the decision to do 256x2 in my machine...especially since upgrading to gig and maintaining dual channel means I have to buy 2 sticks of 512.
Are you sure? I think most modern motherboards with 4 DIMM slots support dual channel operation with 3 DIMMS if the third DIMM is equal in size and speed to the total of th first 2 DIMMS.
For example, I recently built a cheap-ass system with an Intel D915GUX (915G chipset) motherboard. I chose to install 512MB in dual channel (2x256). According to the manual, I can upgrade to 1GB by putting both 256MB DIMMS into one channel's DIMM slots, then putting a new 512MB DIMM into one of the other channel's DIMM slots.
A site called Access Technologies sells the VX924 and their spec page gives more information than Viewsonic's spec page. Here's some important info from that page:
I'm just waiting for a Pentium-M Mac mini so I can install Linux and use WINE. It'll make a great PVR/game console.
If it doesn't have to be a Mac, then a Pentium M mini-clone is already available from VoodooPC for about $900 w/o shipping (Pentium M 740, Intel 915GM chipset). Much cheaper options will be coming soon from AOpen, which supplies that case/motherboard to VoodooPC.
Intel are truly screwed for at least the next 6-12 months by the looks of things unless they are hiding something seriously good.
Intel's not really hiding them, but they do have some pretty good, lesser-known 65nm things coming out in about 3-6 months. These won't beat AMD's Opterons, but I think Intel will be less screwed than you think. Intel will be able to lessen the screwing by beating AMD (by a long time) to a mature 65nm manufacturing capability. Some reviewers (like Tom's Hardware) have already benchmarked some 65nm Pentium Ds and the power savings are significant.
According to Intel's roadmap, Dempsey (65nm dual-core Xeon) will launch in Q1 2006 at higher clock/bus speeds and lower TDP than the Xeon reviewed in the article (2.8GHz, 667MHz, 135W TDP). At launch, Dempsey will offer a 3.2GHz (1066MHz bus) at 95W TDP.
Another interesting server CPU due in Q1 2006 is Sossaman, which is a server version of Yonah (dual-core, 2GHz, 31W TDP). Since Yonah is a 32-bit architecture, it's not really comparable to Opteron and Xeon, but it should rule the market for low-power 32-bit servers.
That's not a challenge or insult. I've never been sure what to call the PowerMac G5 (desktop or workstation?) until today. Now I'd call it a workstation because they added support for ECC memory, workstation graphics cards (NVIDIA Quadro), and 4x/8x non-graphics PCIe slots.
Before today's updates, the PowerMac G5's could be called a "workstations" because they supported dual processors and PCI-X slots. Or maybe they were "desktops" because they didn't support ECC memory or workstation graphics cards (e.g. Quadro and ATI FireGL).
Of course, when Apple claimed the PowerMac G5 was the "world's fastest personal computer" and "world's first 64-bit desktop," they defined it as a "desktop" because dual-processor AMD Opteron workstations existed and were faster.
The nVidia 6600 is more comparable to an ATI X600, both of which are a generation beyond the ATI 9800 (and the nVidia 5900).
Actually, the Radeon X600's architecture is from the same generation as the Radeon 9600. The X600 is the PCIe version of the 9600. The generation beyond the 9600/X600 architecture is the X700.
I freakin' hate these inconsistent naming schemes. The Radeon 9200's architecture is the same as the Radeon 8500 (DirectX 8 for Windows users). The NVIDIA GeForce 4 MX uses the GeForce 2 architecure (no pixel/vertex shaders).
I HAVE heard that MCE 2006 was supposed to support CableCARDs, but recently MS announced that they weren't releasing a new MCE until Longhorn.
A few nitpicks:
I don't think a new version called "Media Center Edition 2006" was ever planned or announced. The article's introduction referred to the "massive Rollup 2 patch," which is a free update to MCE 2005. This update was supposed to include Cable Card support, but this feature was cut (according to Microsoft's Matt Davis). Here's the blog entry where I read about this: "More details on Rollup 2."
Also, the next "new" version of MCE (Longhorn version) will not be called "Media Center Edition" anymore. It will be called "Vista Home Premium Edition" (details here). This will probably be the first Windows version with Cable Card support. Ugh.
Ha! That's as bad as "The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" = "The The Angels Angels of Anaheim" in English and "Los Los Angeles Angeles de Anaheim" in Spanish.
It's $59+$7 s/h to have Apple replace the battery. At that price, you may as well buy the Applecare contract at $59 and just figure the battery will need replacing within 2 years.
It's about $4 (for a two pack) to replace the rechargeable AAA battery yourself in a Creative Zen Nano.
Of course, a AAA battery makes the Creative Nano a whole.51 inches thick (iPod nano is.27), but I think the GP's point is that an easily self-replaceable battery is a very nice feature. Maybe Apple cannot implement a replaceable battery without compromising the nano's fit and finish (even with a "watch type" battery). However, some people will accept these compromises and buy a competing flash-based player with this feature.
Are there any quasi-reputable sites (a la Tom's Hardware?) that have reviews on such things?
PCMag.com's scanner reviews are relatively brief (compared to Tom's Hardware), but they still review more scanners than most sites and is a good starting point for first-time scanner buyers.
PCMag.com's scanner roundups group together their scanner reviews by category and give nice introductions that describe what features to look for in each category. Their most recent roundups are:
the first number in an ATI card is (supposed to be) the version of DirectX it's built to support (or, it was until the X series; they ran out of 9-based numbers, I guess).
With the glaring, f'd up exception of the Radeon 9000/9200 series, which are DirectX 8 cards (as the grandparent stated). The 9000/9200 series were previous-generation cards (8500 series) renamed. Isn't that f'd up?
nVidia's naming scheme is no more or less complex than ATI's. You're just familiar with ATI's product line, and rather ignorant (it seems) of nVidia's.
You left out the GeForce4 MX, which was based on GeForce2 technology (DirectX 7), not GeForce4 (DirectX 8) as its name seems to indicate.
So far, it seems like only the "low end" cards have had misleading names. But "low end" buyers are the ones least likely to do the research.
If we went strictly by the Rojak tables, the 5900 Ultra is a clearly superior card to the Radeon 9800 Pro...
Clearly that is not the case in the real world
It is if you're running Linux, right? Seriously, I haven't seen any 5900 Ultra vs Radeon 9800 Pro Linux benchmarks, but I know NVIDIA has had a better reputation for Linux drivers. For that reason alone, I tend to favor NVIDIA products, even if their Windows performance is slightly worse.
The CNET article doesn't even mention the upcoming Intel chipsets (945GZ and 945PL) that are supposed to replace the current low-end chipsets that are being phased out, according to a July 12 DigiTimes article:
945GZ: GMA 950 graphics w/o PCI Express x16 slot. Replaces 910GL and 915GL. Samples being delivered to motherboard makers in late July. Volume shipments in 4Q05 or 1Q06.
945PL: Low-end version of 945P. Replaces 915PL. Samples delivering July or August. Volume shipments in September 2005.
From the CNET News.com article:
The move, expected to take place by the end of August, could delay shipments of low-end PCs from various manufacturers for a couple of months.
Sources close to the chipmaking giant's dealings confirmed reports that Intel would shutter production of its 910GL, 915GL and 915PL chipsets.
Does CNET even know about 945GZ and 945PL? The article seems to be implying that, after the current low-end chipsets are phased out, Intel will exit the low-end chipset business. Are 945GZ and 945PL being cancelled? If not, will supplies of current low-end chipsets run out months before 945GV and 945PL ship in volume?
But the company that made the laser printer into something people would buy started with an A.
You misspelled "Adobe" (wink).
From "Triumph of the Nerds":
Despite the hype, by late 1984, the Mac's sales were disastrous...
Until someone invented a way to print exactly what was on the screen gui would be, well a lot of hooey. Apple's problem was the dot matrix printer. It gave everything a type-writer quality. But salvation was at hand - and once again it owed a lot to Xerox Parc. One of Parc's former brains, John Warnock, had invented a technology that allowed a laser printer to print exactly, precisely what was on your screen. He started a company called Adobe to market his invention - when along came Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs:
But I heard a few times, people would tell me, hey there was these guys over in this garage at Xerox Parc you ought to go see em and I finally went and saw em and I saw what they were doing and it was better than what we were doing.
John Warnock, Co-founder, Adobe Systems:
Steve Jobs came in, he told us about the Macintosh. He knew that the dot matrix printers, the old image writer that they had was not going to fly in a business environment. He had no...he and Atkinson had not been able to figure out how to drive laser printers and what we had figured out how to do what no-one else had figured out how to do was drive laser printers.
It is possible that they are overstating the RAM requirements, but holy cow, that seems like a whole crapload of memory to run... what, exactly?
To run a compositing window server... I think. I'm no operating systems expert, but I think a compositing window server (like Vista's and OS X's) buffers all windows and every pixel in every buffered window is stored in memory. That's in contrast to Windows XP/2000, where only the essential information of each window (e.g. size, features, contents) is stored in memory.
The Longhorn desktop is being drawn in a completely different way than all previous versions. Every window will have its own, full window-sized surface to draw to. The desktop will be dynamically composed many times a second from the contents of each window. The goal for desktop composition is to enable compelling new visual effects for both the Windows user interface and for applications created by third-party developers shown on increasingly affordable high-density displays.
The Longhorn Display Driver Model allows for the visual effects seen on a user's desktop to scale relative to the available graphics hardware. For example, the experience of viewing Longhorn on hardware with capabilities equivalent to a high end DirectX® 9-compliant graphics chip will be much richer than Longhorn displayed on baseline legacy graphics hardware.
For Longhorn, graphics requirements for desktop experiences are defined in relation to differentiated experiences:
Aero Glass experience: Delivers the full-fidelity Longhorn user experience on the desktop, including support for 3D graphics and animation.
Aero experience: Delivers the minimum hardware acceleration and desktop composition for the Longhorn user experience.
Classic experience: Equivalent to Windows 2000 capabilities, using software rendering.
On the other hand, that page was last updated over a year ago. Maybe they've changed "Classic experience" to the XP theme.
Isn't this the same guy who was trying to argue that there is no vulnerability in running as root all the time?
Yes, in a Slashdot interview two years ago (1st question). This guy is the main reason I'm hesitant about recommending Gizmo over Skype for VOIP newbies.
I tend to think of the Radeon 9200 as comparable to the GeForce FX 5200,
The Radeon 9200 (OpenGL 1.3, DirectX 8.1) is actually an updated Radeon 8500 and is comparable to the GeForce 3. ATI just re-used their previous generation's high end technology into their low end product. The GeForce FX 5200 (OpenGL 1.4, DirectX 9) is comparable (in features) to the Radeon 9550, but slower.
although the latter does support Core Image.
Core Image seems to require an OpenGL 1.4 GPU, which is probably why it requires a GeForce FX 5200 or Radeon 9600 minimum. Even though the 9550 is not listed among the supported GPUs, I think it should work since it's just a slower version of the 9600.
The Radeon 9200 was actually a big selling point for me. I know it's pretty slow compared to a lot of cards out there, but it sure as hell beats what you get on comparably priced branded PCs.
Not the newest "comparably priced branded PCs" like the HP Pavilion a1010y and the Compaq Presario SR1010Z. They use the same integrated graphics (Intel GMA 900) that's working so well in Apple's Intel developer Macs. Quartz seems to work very well sharing system and video memory through PCI Express.
Is it just me, or have win2k users really been getting the shaft compared to WinXP users? I mean it's only a year older than XP and everything, both features and support are already being cut.
To me, it seems like Windows 2000 users are only "getting the shaft" from Microsoft when it comes to who can use MS's free applications. For example, Windows XP is required for Internet Explorer 7 (oh darn), Windows Media Player 10 (bummer), and Windows Movie Maker (whoop dee freakin' doo). Of course, Win2K users will continue to be supported by MS if they want to use their non-free apps like Office, Visual Studio, and Halo.
For all of the other software companies, it seems like if they support WinXP (NT 5.1), then they always support Win2K (NT 5.0) as well.
Buying win2k in 2000 seems like a piss poor deal compared to buying XP in 2001, being the main product line for 5 years until end of 2006, and with support probably to 2010.
I don't think it's a bad deal. Win2K gets extended support (includes security updates) until June 30, 2010 and will likely continue to work with every non-MS app until then.
I think the ones who might be getting a piss poor deal are WinXP Home users, whose mainstream support ends December 31, 2006 with no extended support. However, I wouldn't be surprised if MS extended mainstream support for WinXP Home users the same way they did for Windows 98 users. Then again, lots of businesses used Win98 because Windows NT 4.0 was not quite mature enough. Today, not many businesses are using WinXP Home.
After all, this new version of Windows is likely going to be designed mostly to support the x86-64 CPU instruction set that AMD pioneered and Intel has begun to use, so this sets a break with the 32-bit past of previous Windows versions.
Interesting, but I think it will still be way too early (H2 2006) to make "a break" with the 32-bit past, present, and future. Remember, an AMD64 or EM64T processor is a minimum system requirement for x64 versions of Windows. The vast majority of the "mainstream" desktops sold today still use 32-bit processors (Celeron, Sempron, P4 5xx). The next Pentium M-like core (Yonah, Q1 2006) will still be 32-bit, and this architecture won't add EM64T until Merom (Q4 2006).
When Vista is released, most (maybe all) new Intel notebooks will still have 32-bit processors. Also, mainstream support for Windows XP Home (no extended support) ends December 31, 2006 (I'd be surprised if they didn't extend it), so there will be millions of potential 32-bit upgraders that Microsoft can't ignore. There are also all those businesses that still haven't been convinced to upgrade from Windows 2000 and have modern 32-bit hardware.
"...its peak power consumption is 24.5 watts at 1.6 "
Note the emphasis on the word "peak," which is actually an inaccurate description. 24.5W is the TDP, which Intel describes as: "Thermal Design Power (TDP) represents the maximum amount of power the thermal solution is required to dissipate. The thermal solution should be designed to dissipate the TDP without exceeding the maximum Tjunction specification. TDP does not represent the power delivery and voltage regulation requirements for the processor."
1.5GHz, 1.6GHz, and 1.7GHz Pentium M processors (.13 micron) have the same TDP (24.5W). They obviously do not consume the same amount of power in typical usage.
PowerPC
"...ranging from 1.2 to 1.6 GHz, with power consumption ranging from 13 to 16 Watts, respectively "
That's "typical" power consumption, not peak or recommended max dissipation for the CPU cooler.
In addition, the GP thinks "AMD has clearly won the market in terms of the consumer 64bit processor." IMO, I don't think anybody has "won" the consumer 64-bit processor market because 64-bit Windows is not widely used yet. But now that Intel has released 64-bit versions of the Pentium 4 500 series and Celeron D, I think Intel will win this market. I think Dell's 64-bit sales alone will outnumber the sales of Athlon 64 and 64-bit Sempron.
Results were very similar to above, except the $1042 AMD dual-core beat the $544 Intel dual-core 3:30 to 3:44, and AMD's $1101 single-core tied Intel's $610 single-core (4:58 to 4:56).
...the A64 came out on top.
Hardly.
The comment you called a "troll" admits that he thinks AMD64 beats Intel EM64T in everything except multimedia encoding. At worst, he might have a reasonable misconception. He is not a troll.
The kind of games that excel on the PC (RTS, MMORG, and other RPGs) don't really need that kind of processing power
There's one important (MMORG) exception: Everquest 2. According to Anandtech, a GeForce 7800 GTX will only get you 25fps at 1280x1024 in extreme quality mode.
I wouldn't be surprised if Unfrozen Caveman Baseball Player already ordered a pair. He's on the disabled list and his 2005 salary is $14,500,000.
Slashdot Mirror
Are you sure? I think most modern motherboards with 4 DIMM slots support dual channel operation with 3 DIMMS if the third DIMM is equal in size and speed to the total of th first 2 DIMMS.
For example, I recently built a cheap-ass system with an Intel D915GUX (915G chipset) motherboard. I chose to install 512MB in dual channel (2x256). According to the manual, I can upgrade to 1GB by putting both 256MB DIMMS into one channel's DIMM slots, then putting a new 512MB DIMM into one of the other channel's DIMM slots.
If it doesn't have to be a Mac, then a Pentium M mini-clone is already available from VoodooPC for about $900 w/o shipping (Pentium M 740, Intel 915GM chipset). Much cheaper options will be coming soon from AOpen, which supplies that case/motherboard to VoodooPC.
Intel's not really hiding them, but they do have some pretty good, lesser-known 65nm things coming out in about 3-6 months. These won't beat AMD's Opterons, but I think Intel will be less screwed than you think. Intel will be able to lessen the screwing by beating AMD (by a long time) to a mature 65nm manufacturing capability. Some reviewers (like Tom's Hardware) have already benchmarked some 65nm Pentium Ds and the power savings are significant.
According to Intel's roadmap, Dempsey (65nm dual-core Xeon) will launch in Q1 2006 at higher clock/bus speeds and lower TDP than the Xeon reviewed in the article (2.8GHz, 667MHz, 135W TDP). At launch, Dempsey will offer a 3.2GHz (1066MHz bus) at 95W TDP.
Another interesting server CPU due in Q1 2006 is Sossaman, which is a server version of Yonah (dual-core, 2GHz, 31W TDP). Since Yonah is a 32-bit architecture, it's not really comparable to Opteron and Xeon, but it should rule the market for low-power 32-bit servers.
That's not a challenge or insult. I've never been sure what to call the PowerMac G5 (desktop or workstation?) until today. Now I'd call it a workstation because they added support for ECC memory, workstation graphics cards (NVIDIA Quadro), and 4x/8x non-graphics PCIe slots.
Before today's updates, the PowerMac G5's could be called a "workstations" because they supported dual processors and PCI-X slots. Or maybe they were "desktops" because they didn't support ECC memory or workstation graphics cards (e.g. Quadro and ATI FireGL).
Of course, when Apple claimed the PowerMac G5 was the "world's fastest personal computer" and "world's first 64-bit desktop," they defined it as a "desktop" because dual-processor AMD Opteron workstations existed and were faster.
Actually, the Radeon X600's architecture is from the same generation as the Radeon 9600. The X600 is the PCIe version of the 9600. The generation beyond the 9600/X600 architecture is the X700.
I freakin' hate these inconsistent naming schemes. The Radeon 9200's architecture is the same as the Radeon 8500 (DirectX 8 for Windows users). The NVIDIA GeForce 4 MX uses the GeForce 2 architecure (no pixel/vertex shaders).
A few nitpicks:
I don't think a new version called "Media Center Edition 2006" was ever planned or announced. The article's introduction referred to the "massive Rollup 2 patch," which is a free update to MCE 2005. This update was supposed to include Cable Card support, but this feature was cut (according to Microsoft's Matt Davis). Here's the blog entry where I read about this: "More details on Rollup 2."
Also, the next "new" version of MCE (Longhorn version) will not be called "Media Center Edition" anymore. It will be called "Vista Home Premium Edition" (details here). This will probably be the first Windows version with Cable Card support. Ugh.
Ha! That's as bad as "The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" = "The The Angels Angels of Anaheim" in English and "Los Los Angeles Angeles de Anaheim" in Spanish.
It's about $4 (for a two pack) to replace the rechargeable AAA battery yourself in a Creative Zen Nano.
Of course, a AAA battery makes the Creative Nano a whole .51 inches thick (iPod nano is .27), but I think the GP's point is that an easily self-replaceable battery is a very nice feature. Maybe Apple cannot implement a replaceable battery without compromising the nano's fit and finish (even with a "watch type" battery). However, some people will accept these compromises and buy a competing flash-based player with this feature.
Gotta love the battery life of flash, though.
PCMag.com's scanner reviews are relatively brief (compared to Tom's Hardware), but they still review more scanners than most sites and is a good starting point for first-time scanner buyers.
PCMag.com's scanner roundups group together their scanner reviews by category and give nice introductions that describe what features to look for in each category. Their most recent roundups are:
With the glaring, f'd up exception of the Radeon 9000/9200 series, which are DirectX 8 cards (as the grandparent stated). The 9000/9200 series were previous-generation cards (8500 series) renamed. Isn't that f'd up?
GeForce 4200, 4400, 4600
GeForce FX5200, FX5300, FX5700, FX5750, FX5900
GeForce 6200, 6600, 6800
GeForce 7800...
nVidia's naming scheme is no more or less complex than ATI's. You're just familiar with ATI's product line, and rather ignorant (it seems) of nVidia's.
You left out the GeForce4 MX, which was based on GeForce2 technology (DirectX 7), not GeForce4 (DirectX 8) as its name seems to indicate.
So far, it seems like only the "low end" cards have had misleading names. But "low end" buyers are the ones least likely to do the research.
Clearly that is not the case in the real world
It is if you're running Linux, right? Seriously, I haven't seen any 5900 Ultra vs Radeon 9800 Pro Linux benchmarks, but I know NVIDIA has had a better reputation for Linux drivers. For that reason alone, I tend to favor NVIDIA products, even if their Windows performance is slightly worse.
Has ATI improved their Linux drivers lately?
From the CNET News.com article:
Does CNET even know about 945GZ and 945PL? The article seems to be implying that, after the current low-end chipsets are phased out, Intel will exit the low-end chipset business. Are 945GZ and 945PL being cancelled? If not, will supplies of current low-end chipsets run out months before 945GV and 945PL ship in volume?You misspelled "Adobe" (wink).
From "Triumph of the Nerds":
To run a compositing window server... I think. I'm no operating systems expert, but I think a compositing window server (like Vista's and OS X's) buffers all windows and every pixel in every buffered window is stored in memory. That's in contrast to Windows XP/2000, where only the essential information of each window (e.g. size, features, contents) is stored in memory.
That's my guess, anyway. From Graphics Hardware and Drivers for Windows "Longhorn":
I read that "Classic" will be like Windows 2000. In fact, here's where I read it: Graphics Hardware and Drivers for Windows "Longhorn".
From that page:
On the other hand, that page was last updated over a year ago. Maybe they've changed "Classic experience" to the XP theme.Yes, in a Slashdot interview two years ago (1st question). This guy is the main reason I'm hesitant about recommending Gizmo over Skype for VOIP newbies.
The Radeon 9200 (OpenGL 1.3, DirectX 8.1) is actually an updated Radeon 8500 and is comparable to the GeForce 3. ATI just re-used their previous generation's high end technology into their low end product. The GeForce FX 5200 (OpenGL 1.4, DirectX 9) is comparable (in features) to the Radeon 9550, but slower.
although the latter does support Core Image.
Core Image seems to require an OpenGL 1.4 GPU, which is probably why it requires a GeForce FX 5200 or Radeon 9600 minimum. Even though the 9550 is not listed among the supported GPUs, I think it should work since it's just a slower version of the 9600.
Not the newest "comparably priced branded PCs" like the HP Pavilion a1010y and the Compaq Presario SR1010Z. They use the same integrated graphics (Intel GMA 900) that's working so well in Apple's Intel developer Macs. Quartz seems to work very well sharing system and video memory through PCI Express.
To me, it seems like Windows 2000 users are only "getting the shaft" from Microsoft when it comes to who can use MS's free applications. For example, Windows XP is required for Internet Explorer 7 (oh darn), Windows Media Player 10 (bummer), and Windows Movie Maker (whoop dee freakin' doo). Of course, Win2K users will continue to be supported by MS if they want to use their non-free apps like Office, Visual Studio, and Halo.
For all of the other software companies, it seems like if they support WinXP (NT 5.1), then they always support Win2K (NT 5.0) as well.
Buying win2k in 2000 seems like a piss poor deal compared to buying XP in 2001, being the main product line for 5 years until end of 2006, and with support probably to 2010.
I don't think it's a bad deal. Win2K gets extended support (includes security updates) until June 30, 2010 and will likely continue to work with every non-MS app until then.
I think the ones who might be getting a piss poor deal are WinXP Home users, whose mainstream support ends December 31, 2006 with no extended support. However, I wouldn't be surprised if MS extended mainstream support for WinXP Home users the same way they did for Windows 98 users. Then again, lots of businesses used Win98 because Windows NT 4.0 was not quite mature enough. Today, not many businesses are using WinXP Home.
After all, this new version of Windows is likely going to be designed mostly to support the x86-64 CPU instruction set that AMD pioneered and Intel has begun to use, so this sets a break with the 32-bit past of previous Windows versions.
Interesting, but I think it will still be way too early (H2 2006) to make "a break" with the 32-bit past, present, and future. Remember, an AMD64 or EM64T processor is a minimum system requirement for x64 versions of Windows. The vast majority of the "mainstream" desktops sold today still use 32-bit processors (Celeron, Sempron, P4 5xx). The next Pentium M-like core (Yonah, Q1 2006) will still be 32-bit, and this architecture won't add EM64T until Merom (Q4 2006).
When Vista is released, most (maybe all) new Intel notebooks will still have 32-bit processors. Also, mainstream support for Windows XP Home (no extended support) ends December 31, 2006 (I'd be surprised if they didn't extend it), so there will be millions of potential 32-bit upgraders that Microsoft can't ignore. There are also all those businesses that still haven't been convinced to upgrade from Windows 2000 and have modern 32-bit hardware.
"...its peak power consumption is 24.5 watts at 1.6 "
Note the emphasis on the word "peak," which is actually an inaccurate description. 24.5W is the TDP, which Intel describes as: "Thermal Design Power (TDP) represents the maximum amount of power the thermal solution is required to dissipate. The thermal solution should be designed to dissipate the TDP without exceeding the maximum Tjunction specification. TDP does not represent the power delivery and voltage regulation requirements for the processor."
1.5GHz, 1.6GHz, and 1.7GHz Pentium M processors (.13 micron) have the same TDP (24.5W). They obviously do not consume the same amount of power in typical usage.
PowerPC
"...ranging from 1.2 to 1.6 GHz, with power consumption ranging from 13 to 16 Watts, respectively "
That's "typical" power consumption, not peak or recommended max dissipation for the CPU cooler.
In addition, the GP thinks "AMD has clearly won the market in terms of the consumer 64bit processor." IMO, I don't think anybody has "won" the consumer 64-bit processor market because 64-bit Windows is not widely used yet. But now that Intel has released 64-bit versions of the Pentium 4 500 series and Celeron D, I think Intel will win this market. I think Dell's 64-bit sales alone will outnumber the sales of Athlon 64 and 64-bit Sempron.
Nice AMD bias.
On one of these tests (http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050627/athlon_f x57-07.html, http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050627/athlon_fx 57-08.html), encoding lame mp3, the P4 came out on top of the A64 FX-67. On five others, encoding mpeg1 to mpeg2,
The $1042 A64 X2 4800+ tied the $544 Pentium D 840 (1:17 vs 1:18). In single-core performance, the $610 P4 660 beat the $1101 A64 FX-57 (1:35 to 1:44).
mpeg2 to divx,...
Results were very similar to above, except the $1042 AMD dual-core beat the $544 Intel dual-core 3:30 to 3:44, and AMD's $1101 single-core tied Intel's $610 single-core (4:58 to 4:56).
Hardly.
The comment you called a "troll" admits that he thinks AMD64 beats Intel EM64T in everything except multimedia encoding. At worst, he might have a reasonable misconception. He is not a troll.
There's one important (MMORG) exception: Everquest 2. According to Anandtech, a GeForce 7800 GTX will only get you 25fps at 1280x1024 in extreme quality mode.
I wouldn't be surprised if Unfrozen Caveman Baseball Player already ordered a pair. He's on the disabled list and his 2005 salary is $14,500,000.