["If you refuse to offer more staff, we can only reasonably expect to complete around this date", and don't flinch.]
For a major update with so few people, I'd get a bid on the job from a top website company, and make sure they know that they may end up with 100% of the load or a smaller part, or the project may not go forward at all. You get an independant cost/schedule/man-hours opinion you can use to get the support needed internal or external, or have it scrapped. If you wind up doing it in-house, you still have the original bid to show how you stack up against outsourcing. If you get some management support for using external resources, then you can offload a portion to meet your schedule and budget. With any of the external options, don't forget to include an internal project manager and whatver else you need for internal support - interfacing will take a lot of hours.
"Finally, your posts are near unreadable due to poor formatting."
I cringed when I saw how they turned out - thanks for the tips.
"AMD locks you into DDR right now. You cannot use DDR3 on an Athlon 66 or FX any more than you can use DDR2."
Which is immaterial. You can't just pop in the next best memory technology on either Intel or AMD systems - they both put a cap on what you can use. Even going to the next best P4 FSB to use faster DDR2 causes you to replace your CPU, mobo, and memory, so a claimed advantage or disadvantage here would be mistaken.
" Your response is non-responsive. "
Since I'm quoting your post and responding, I can assume that you didn't really mean to write what you posted or you didn't find your points material. This would bolster my argument that your points are either mistaken or immaterial.
" As to memory prices, we'll just have to see. I do not subscribe to the idea that xbitlabs' reprints of stories in the Taiwanese technical news are any better than Tom's. But for that matter, neither is impressive. "
But your claim was you couldn't find anything saying the prices weren't coming down, so this part of your post was just ill-informed and immaterial.
" I do strongly feel that DDR2 prices will drop below DDR prices. Intel machines use DDR2 now, the majority of the market will be with DDR2, and that'll make that the most common and cheapest form of memory. "
No doubt it will be the most common, and DDR prices will go up as capacity is shifted away from it. This is a "headroom" type of argument. It will be cheaper and better some time in the future, so there is some disadvantage or advantage today - DDR2 has more headroom. Nice, but it doesn't make my PC cheaper or faster, so it's immaterial today. And next year AMD ships with DDR2 controllers, so it's immaterial in the future as well.
" Finally, this test uses CAS2 DDR, and CAS3 DDR2. Although CAS3 DDR is the most common type of DDR2, CAS2 is by far NOT the most common type of DDR. CAS2 DDR costs about twice as much as regular CAS2.5 DDR (more than regular DDR2 also). The tester should have used lower-latency DDR2 or regular-latency DDR in order to have a more apples-to-apples test. "
This is very much mistaken. The reviewer chose performance memory for both DDR and DDR2. Basically you're saying to have a fair comparison, the DDR2 should be the performance memory they used, and the DDR should be lower performace mainstream memory. As for pricing and availability, go to newegg and you'll find plenty of CAS 2 PC3200 DDR memory modules available at reasonable prices. Check for CAS 3 DDR2 4200 modules and you'll find very few and they are expensive.
Bottom line on this is you can get more data transferred in and out of memory today with the AMD64 / DDR approach compared to the P4 / DDR2 approach. As to what happens in the future, both companies will be supporting DDR2. With either architecture, shifting to even higher performance DDR2 memory requires a new CPU, mobo, and memory, so you should buy what's best today, because you'll have to replace all the guts with the next major upgrade.
You arguments are hypothetical and theoretical, but there's no real-world disadvantage to AMD's on-die memory conrtoller now or in the forseeable future. If anything, the data shows an advantage. And like I said, Intel seems to agree with me, since they're designing new CPUs with on-die memory controllers (see link in previous post). If Intel thought you were right, I don't think they would be following AMD's lead.
But Intel could be mistaken, and you could be right.
'My point was that Intel has not been behind AMD in memory bandwidth in recent memory. At most times, including right now, they are ahead of AMD in memory bandwidth.'
On the other hand, they seem to be behind on the memory benchmarks, so claiming higher memory bandwidth seems suspect:
http://www.gdhardware.com/hardware/cpus/amd/athlon 64/fx57/003.htm
'
As to your comments that memory manufacturers say DDR2 prices aren't going to drop, I could find nothing like that at all. Most news sources say DDR2 prices will drop below DDR prices in the 2nd half of the year. More specific news says things like I mentioned above.'
'But regardless of the reasons, as DDR2 drops in price below DDR, many Athlon users are going to wish they could use DDR2.'
DDR prices will rise above DDR2 as DDR becomes phased out:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=24059
DDR2 isn't coming down much more, and neither is DDR:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/memory/display/200506 16222515.html
The information is widely available on Asian sites, and gets picked up from time to time by sites like theinquirer and xbitlabs. Since it's from the DRAM manufacturers and OEMs, it's better than Tom's, which is notoriously unreliable. If you want to make it easy on yourself, just read digitimes and xbitlabs every day. But to your point about wishing they could run DDR2, people looking for performance will be buying DDR3, a much better technical solution than DDR2, and AMD offers DDR2 next year when DDR finally is at a disadvantage.
'I dunno about Intel copying AMD's plans. I haven't heard anything of it.
'
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/200506152 32538.html
From a practical standpoint, memory bandwidth benchmarks show AMD is ahead, so I think the rest of the discussion is somewhat moot.
The top offering is always, always expensive. Fact of life - the new product or higher clock bins come in at the top of the price list, and everything else gets bumped down in price eventually. Semiconductor pricing in general, noit just CPUs, starts high and decreases over time. Expecting something different for any IC is unrealistic, especially if noone else offers a comparable part.
As to who will buy it, there are plenty of people out there using PCs as low end workstations - they'll take all the performance they can get. But on the consumer side, you're asking who would buy a Ferrari, as if people don't buy them, or they're stupid for buying one. Maybe they're smart enough to make a lot of money.....
"
Intel was doing 6.4GB/s (dual channel PC3200 RAM) when AMD was at 2.7GB/sec. (single channel PC2700).
"
Not relevant to FX discussions or X2 or AMD64 discussions so it seems to confuse the issue.
"
Athlon systems are stuck with DDR right now even as DDR2 prices fall below DDR prices.
"
Being stuck with DDR doesn't seem to be a problem, judging by the benchmarks. Also note even high latency DDR2 isn't lower in price than DDR, and DRAM manufacturers say the price on DDR2 isn't coming down more, so for most purposes it is more expensive and can be expected to be more expensive for the forseeable future.
"
Also, HyperTransport isn't all that insanely fast.
"
But the difference is the old FSB design that Intel still uses has to handle all memory AND IO traffic, while AMD's memory controller only handles memory traffic, and the HT only handles IO traffic. The combined bandwidth is much greater than The Intel FSB's, and there is no competition for bus bandwidth. Which probably explains why Intel is moving to copy AMD's approach for it's future processors, so I'm not sure Intel's designers agree with your position.
Slashdot Mirror
["If you refuse to offer more staff, we can only reasonably expect to complete around this date", and don't flinch.] For a major update with so few people, I'd get a bid on the job from a top website company, and make sure they know that they may end up with 100% of the load or a smaller part, or the project may not go forward at all. You get an independant cost/schedule/man-hours opinion you can use to get the support needed internal or external, or have it scrapped. If you wind up doing it in-house, you still have the original bid to show how you stack up against outsourcing. If you get some management support for using external resources, then you can offload a portion to meet your schedule and budget. With any of the external options, don't forget to include an internal project manager and whatver else you need for internal support - interfacing will take a lot of hours.
Any tool to fix this problem? http://www.centos.org/modules/news/article.php?sto ryid=127
"Finally, your posts are near unreadable due to poor formatting."
I cringed when I saw how they turned out - thanks for the tips.
"AMD locks you into DDR right now. You cannot use DDR3 on an Athlon 66 or FX any more than you can use DDR2."
Which is immaterial. You can't just pop in the next best memory technology on either Intel or AMD systems - they both put a cap on what you can use. Even going to the next best P4 FSB to use faster DDR2 causes you to replace your CPU, mobo, and memory, so a claimed advantage or disadvantage here would be mistaken.
"
Your response is non-responsive.
"
Since I'm quoting your post and responding, I can assume that you didn't really mean to write what you posted or you didn't find your points material. This would bolster my argument that your points are either mistaken or immaterial.
"
As to memory prices, we'll just have to see. I do not subscribe to the idea that xbitlabs' reprints of stories in the Taiwanese technical news are any better than Tom's. But for that matter, neither is impressive.
"
But your claim was you couldn't find anything saying the prices weren't coming down, so this part of your post was just ill-informed and immaterial.
"
I do strongly feel that DDR2 prices will drop below DDR prices. Intel machines use DDR2 now, the majority of the market will be with DDR2, and that'll make that the most common and cheapest form of memory.
"
No doubt it will be the most common, and DDR prices will go up as capacity is shifted away from it. This is a "headroom" type of argument. It will be cheaper and better some time in the future, so there is some disadvantage or advantage today - DDR2 has more headroom. Nice, but it doesn't make my PC cheaper or faster, so it's immaterial today. And next year AMD ships with DDR2 controllers, so it's immaterial in the future as well.
"
Finally, this test uses CAS2 DDR, and CAS3 DDR2. Although CAS3 DDR is the most common type of DDR2, CAS2 is by far NOT the most common type of DDR. CAS2 DDR costs about twice as much as regular CAS2.5 DDR (more than regular DDR2 also). The tester should have used lower-latency DDR2 or regular-latency DDR in order to have a more apples-to-apples test.
"
This is very much mistaken. The reviewer chose performance memory for both DDR and DDR2. Basically you're saying to have a fair comparison, the DDR2 should be the performance memory they used, and the DDR should be lower performace mainstream memory. As for pricing and availability, go to newegg and you'll find plenty of CAS 2 PC3200 DDR memory modules available at reasonable prices. Check for CAS 3 DDR2 4200 modules and you'll find very few and they are expensive.
Bottom line on this is you can get more data transferred in and out of memory today with the AMD64 / DDR approach compared to the P4 / DDR2 approach. As to what happens in the future, both companies will be supporting DDR2. With either architecture, shifting to even higher performance DDR2 memory requires a new CPU, mobo, and memory, so you should buy what's best today, because you'll have to replace all the guts with the next major upgrade.
You arguments are hypothetical and theoretical, but there's no real-world disadvantage to AMD's on-die memory conrtoller now or in the forseeable future. If anything, the data shows an advantage. And like I said, Intel seems to agree with me, since they're designing new CPUs with on-die memory controllers (see link in previous post). If Intel thought you were right, I don't think they would be following AMD's lead.
But Intel could be mistaken, and you could be right.
'My point was that Intel has not been behind AMD in memory bandwidth in recent memory. At most times, including right now, they are ahead of AMD in memory bandwidth.' On the other hand, they seem to be behind on the memory benchmarks, so claiming higher memory bandwidth seems suspect: http://www.gdhardware.com/hardware/cpus/amd/athlon 64/fx57/003.htm
'
As to your comments that memory manufacturers say DDR2 prices aren't going to drop, I could find nothing like that at all. Most news sources say DDR2 prices will drop below DDR prices in the 2nd half of the year. More specific news says things like I mentioned above.'
'But regardless of the reasons, as DDR2 drops in price below DDR, many Athlon users are going to wish they could use DDR2.'
DDR prices will rise above DDR2 as DDR becomes phased out:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=24059
DDR2 isn't coming down much more, and neither is DDR:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/memory/display/200506 16222515.html
The information is widely available on Asian sites, and gets picked up from time to time by sites like theinquirer and xbitlabs. Since it's from the DRAM manufacturers and OEMs, it's better than Tom's, which is notoriously unreliable. If you want to make it easy on yourself, just read digitimes and xbitlabs every day. But to your point about wishing they could run DDR2, people looking for performance will be buying DDR3, a much better technical solution than DDR2, and AMD offers DDR2 next year when DDR finally is at a disadvantage.
'I dunno about Intel copying AMD's plans. I haven't heard anything of it.
'
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/200506152 32538.html
From a practical standpoint, memory bandwidth benchmarks show AMD is ahead, so I think the rest of the discussion is somewhat moot.
The top offering is always, always expensive. Fact of life - the new product or higher clock bins come in at the top of the price list, and everything else gets bumped down in price eventually. Semiconductor pricing in general, noit just CPUs, starts high and decreases over time. Expecting something different for any IC is unrealistic, especially if noone else offers a comparable part. As to who will buy it, there are plenty of people out there using PCs as low end workstations - they'll take all the performance they can get. But on the consumer side, you're asking who would buy a Ferrari, as if people don't buy them, or they're stupid for buying one. Maybe they're smart enough to make a lot of money.....
" Intel was doing 6.4GB/s (dual channel PC3200 RAM) when AMD was at 2.7GB/sec. (single channel PC2700). " Not relevant to FX discussions or X2 or AMD64 discussions so it seems to confuse the issue. " Athlon systems are stuck with DDR right now even as DDR2 prices fall below DDR prices. " Being stuck with DDR doesn't seem to be a problem, judging by the benchmarks. Also note even high latency DDR2 isn't lower in price than DDR, and DRAM manufacturers say the price on DDR2 isn't coming down more, so for most purposes it is more expensive and can be expected to be more expensive for the forseeable future. " Also, HyperTransport isn't all that insanely fast. " But the difference is the old FSB design that Intel still uses has to handle all memory AND IO traffic, while AMD's memory controller only handles memory traffic, and the HT only handles IO traffic. The combined bandwidth is much greater than The Intel FSB's, and there is no competition for bus bandwidth. Which probably explains why Intel is moving to copy AMD's approach for it's future processors, so I'm not sure Intel's designers agree with your position.