What is Digg?51 Comments
- DeepDoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+25@angrycat
actually they started out as a producer of logic chips in 1969, then entered the RAM chip business in 1975
They then got the contract to produce 8080 chips for Intel because IBM required two suppliers. Intel later broke that contract because they did not want to share the 386 technology with anyone. AMD was later awarded a billion dollar settlement from Intel for breaking that contract. AMD then reverse engineered a 386 clone chip and did the same for 486. But every CPU they have made since K5 has been completely done in-house with no reverse engineering. In fact Intel now licenses the AMD64 technology from AMD for 64 bit and calls it EMT64
So no, they no longer copy anything from Intel and have been great at innovating in the market. If not for the competition from AMD, Intel would have no motivation to make faster and faster CPUs. I am no fanboy, I buy whatever is fastest when I build my PC. But we all owe AMD a big thank you for competing with Chipzilla. - c6mjohn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+25That's not a hair related question, sorry.
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -8/+21Try putting that chip up against a Core 2 Duo. I can't find any reason to buy an AMD CPU right now, unless I already had an AM2 board.
- DeepDoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12relax, its a cyclic thing.
P3>K6
Athlon>P3
Athlon>early P4
P4>Athlon
Athlon64>P4
Core2Duo>Athlon64
See how that works? Whoever has the newest architecture has the performance lead. The only exception to that was the early P4s. P4 was almost like the marketing department designed a chip to just have a high clock frequency to sell to people who only thought that megahertz was everything. When the Northwood P4s came out, they finally had a fast enough FSB to make use of the insane clock speeds Netburst was capable of.
But other than that, it has been a cyclic rotation of who is fastest, at least since AMD really became competitive. - Alfdog, on 10/12/2007, -6/+17They always make a smaller version of the original, then increase the speeds. Intel is already at 45nm, I highly doubt AMD can catch up. I do hope for the best for AMD, since competition is good for all of us.
- B3bomber, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12I'd have to agree that Core 2 is better right now. Though I tend to prefer AMD chips (root for the underdog) I also buy whoever has a noticable performance/cost ratio for what I work on. In the end I hope the competition keeps up as we win with them making newer/better stuff.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Well, exactly... There's always a market that needs to be supported and these chips do a better job with heat and power consumption. They also offer better OC'ing. But yes, if you're starting from scratch, there's no reason not to go Intel right now.
- HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Anand covered this a couple weeks ago, and also contacted AMD and determined why the performance is lower.
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2893&p=3
It's because they added memory latency in order to allow larger L2 cache sizes, although they haven't yet made any chips with the larger L2 caches.
Anand's article also compares against Intel's Core 2 Duo chips.
It's a lot better article. Check it out above. I submitted it a while back, but I didn't write a sexy enough headline I guess. - 5thfreedom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8"They always make a smaller version of the original, then increase the speeds. Intel is already at 45nm, I highly doubt AMD can catch up. I do hope for the best for AMD, since competition is good for all of us."
We were saying the EXACT same thing about Intel just a couple of years ago. AMD was on top for a long time. Now it is Intel's turn to push the envelope for a while. Rest assured that AMD will not be content with 2nd place for long. - adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Speed isn't everything, if I was the head of some big IT department looking for some new equipment this news would sure catch my eye better then some performance increase. Electric and cooling bills for companies that have large datacenters or equipment rooms are a HUGE problem for big companies right now.
- Asianwaste, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Although I know why, I've always thought it weird that AMD bought out ATI. The two companies had polar opposite philosophies on how efficient should every watt coming out of your power supply should be. I used to always pair Nvidia with AMD and Intel with ATI.
Looks like AMD and ATI are learning things from each other. Should be interesting where this is going. - DeepDoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4neat rig, what are you building it for?
- dsendecki, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Did you hear about the bomb scare in Boston? The guerilla marketers who are being charged held a press conference and wouldn't take anything except questions related to hairstyles from the 60s and 70s.
- doodlebumm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I went to look at benchmarks on Tom's hardware for two processors that were both dual core, and as close in price as I could come (10% difference - couldn't find a Core Duo cheap enough to compare to a 64 X2 high enough in their charts) The bench marks in most cases were within 10%. Sometimes the AMD beat the Intel. I would say that they were comparable overall. As far as other considerations... I think that my AMD X2 runs cooler than a Core Duo I put in an office server. I know that the stock fan is cooler, so for quietness I like the AMD, unless I want to spend more for a quieter fan for the Intel, but then I'm making it less cost effective. I also found the fan on the Intel to be much harder to connect to the MB. I almost broke (or so it seemed) the MB trying to get fasten the fan in place. I also paid much less for the AMD motherboard.
So, in the cases that I am looking at, it still looks like AMD wins for cost and convenience. But that is just my case, I suppose. - noodlez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4honestly, i don't care much about the speed of the processor anymore, unless i'm doing something very specific or have a lot of money to burn.
they've gotten fast and powerful. i'd rather spend the extra money on a faster hard drive or more ram or a better video card.
kudos to AMD for taking a different direction. if they were going to butt heads with intel, they're going to fail, intel's too much larger. they can crank out the higher speed and technology leaps faster/better. its up to AMD to see a different direction and take it, and its succeeded in the past. - Xeppo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@moduc:
http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html?modelx=33&model1=430&model2=464&chart=195
That's Price/Performance. - dsendecki, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4A processor that consumes less power and produces less heat should translate to higher performance per watt than the 90nm design. This doesn't. That's the point of the paragraph. Try reading it again. Slower.
- j37hr0, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@moduc Probably at http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html
- greyfade, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Tom's Hardware is well known for "selling out" and generally being unreliable. they're known to fudge results or outright lie to get paid. take what they say with a grain of kosher salt.
- safetyseal, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5MRFX2 dugg down, you're such a troll, The places where they were even close were such obvious AMD fanboy websites(hardocp) it makes me sick, and this is coming from someone who hasn't owned a intel product in over 12 years until now. Get over it core 2 is faster, thats all, how any doubt remains thats the average consumer, power-gamer, video editor, etc would see more performance in Intels platform is beyond me.
Now the market is not static K8L my indeed be the flip back into AMD's advantage and lets hope so, but for god sakes FX/X2/etc are not as fast as Core 2, this is the state of things deal with it, as soon enough it will change agian. - benow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yes, Core 2 is good, but don't even begin to count AMD out. Their processors are very well designed, ie with the memory interface on die, are quite energy miserly. If they maintain their focus on optimal tech design, the quads+ at 45nm- should be great (at least as great as software will let them be).
I'm still after an AMD chip for my next box... the 35W 2GHz Dual Core 3800+ EE drinks only a trickle... less with powersaving, is silent with passive cooling, and has enough grunt to be the core of a nice workstation. It should be light enough to be powered for 8hrs/day in a small (mobile) solar/battery setup, including a 24" lcd and laptop HDs. - mdmadph, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4here -- here's a cookie. just give me your address and I'll send it right over.
- DeepDoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2performance per watt is very critical in a server environment. Those electric bills from all those servers and workstations plus the AC to cool them sure adds up fast.
- doodlebumm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@Xeppo
There are definitely discrepancies in the data because the bottom of the barrel was 93,000!?!?!???? An AMD 64 X2 5000 was 34, but a 4400 was 93,000?? I suspect there are more problems with the data.
I replaced my AMD 2500+ with a 64 X2 4200, and it does CD ripping to MP3's in about 2 minutes instead of 15 minutes. even if I say it quadrupled the performance by the chip rating, the real world is more like 8 to 1. I didn't pay that much for the processor either - under $200. So my 2500+ would have to sell for about $50 by the book, or $25 by experience to beat the price performance. Tom's hardware doesn't come close to these sorts of numbers. If their numbers werw right, the 2500+ would have to cost about $5. - maninblac1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3All i can say is wow, just wow. This kind of review is not what AMD needs to bolster its PR.
I'm not sure what's happening with AMD right now, but they need to get it together, it seems that they're trying to take a page out of intel's book and milk an architecture for what it's got.
Silicon processing implies that a die shrink should yeild equal or better performance, so the fact that this performance is less than or equal seems a little troubling to me. AMD really needs a killer chip to stamp out intel's surge. - bigwophh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2They're fixed now.
- Elranzer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"I'd have to agree that Core 2 is better right now. Though I tend to prefer AMD chips (root for the underdog) I also buy whoever has a noticable performance/cost ratio for what I work on. In the end I hope the competition keeps up as we win with them making newer/better stuff."
I wouldn't "root for the underdog" just for the sake of an underdog. I root for whomever has the best product out (for any industry, not just chip makers). AMD still makes billions, you know. - stoppedcode12, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yikes, this sounds like intel 6xx series vs intel 5xx series. Except the the Brisbane we have now doesn't have more cache, just slower cache.
- maninblac1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@deepdoo
Yes, in large server environments much savings can be made on power consumption since servers essentially are always on. However, intel still has better performance/watt than AMD does. However, the principle problem is this, investing in new systems is a huge cost, which is almost always more expensive than any savings it provides.
Additionally, performance goes hand in hand with consumption. A chip that must run at 100% load at 45W for a minute will consume more than a chip that only needs to run at 60% load at 60W for a minute. But the actual math of calculating which is more power effective is more complex involving power expent during cooling the chip and what are exceptable thermal levels in the environment. But in the end i understand what you said, but i'll stand by my statement, a chip that performs less and consumes less power is less valuable than intel's offering which consumes less but gives greater performance. - HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Some still say "recorded in Celcius" when it's spelled "Celsius". Even easier, just say "Centigrade".
- lilrabbit129, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"i think its a smart decision to make their products better, not just faster."
For a processor, what is "better" if not "faster" ? The only thing I can think of is power consumption, which has been discussed in the comments above. - noodlez, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1of course performance counts. if it didn't, we'd be running around with tiny 8086's running laptops or something.
my point is that its not like they're taking the company in a totally different direction. their processors are still top notch, they just seem to not want to pour the huge resources into competing with intel for the bleeding edge of processing power.
i think its a smart decision to make their products better, not just faster. - HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Actually, if you just move a processor to a new process, it should run the same speed at the same clock rates. AMD's new cores run slightly slower clock-for-clock.
They can of course bump up the clock rate a bit, that's one of the benefits of a new smaller process.
But really, this architecture is past its prime. It isn't going to shine on 65nm. It'll be a bit cheaper than at 90nm, so it's not a complete washout, but it's clearly only a stopgap, and not even a great one. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"What AMD has not worked into the transition are any core performance enhancements."
How can you assume they haven't thought of this? You think they're that stupid? - ScrabbyDoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thats what VIA did with Cyrix, was a contender before, but now just peddling in the mini enthusiast markets ... efficiency _and_ performance counts
- greyfade, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1indeed. but you forget that even later P4s still had problems with heat and a poor price/performance ratio as compared to AMD. (not saying it might have been superior at some point, just pointing out the facts.)
- DeepDoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I was being quick and not wanting to spend all day talking about the differences between a Thunderbird Athlon and an Athlon XP Tbred or Barton.
I was also just using sheer performance, not price or heat or stupid expensive RAMBUS memory.
I was being very general. If you would like, I could put together a complete history of the cores and performance differences. But I think I will pass on that for now. - mortaneous, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Anyone else bothered that ALL their wattage graphs had "Higher Scores = Better Performance" when exactly the opposite is true?
- Prysorra, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Cost....??
- Sneakernets, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I went Intel. Core 2 Duo. 6-8 Hours battery life on a 15-cell Lithium.
I've never been happier. :D - noodlez, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2edit: wow, double post even though i clicked the button once. :-/
digg srsly needs the ability to delete a post within the given edit window. - schoate09, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I currently have a Core 2 Duo. Against any AMD i compared it against in the price range, it blew them away. I couldn't see getting AMD unless you bought into it before the Core 2 came out, and have a mobo/ram etc. for it. And now performance is going down? Maybe AMD is attempting to capture some other audience.
- freidog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The performance issues have been covered pretty much everywhere, they seem to stem from a higher L2 latency. It looks like Brisbane moved from a 20 to a 22 or 23 cycle latency on L2 cache.
Hopefully that just means AMD either plans larger L2 variants in the future, or wanted some head room for scaling the clock speeds a bit more. Of course it could just mean prorogation delay in the wires is worse than in 90nm and it's taking longer to move data half way across the die. - moduc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@j37hr0, Thanks. I think the site only has performance comparison. I would be nice if they can do a different segments, like desktop, laptop, high end, etc. Then for each, benchmark them, and some how calculate a norm value for these bench mark (weighted average of the benchmark). Then take publish manufacturer prices and calculate performance ratio. They can additionally take sample of popular site for single chip cost (not OEM cost), and take average, then also calculate the price/performance.
I actually don't care who has a better performance. For laptop, I can who has a better battery life for a same performance (or similar) as long as the price is not hugely difference. For desktop, I only care about price/performance, since I am not into the fastest chip out there. - tateswayz91, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2@ c6mjohn-
Can someone explain that joke to me? - stoppedcode12, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@doodlebumm
Say hi to the core 2 duo E4300. Core 2 duo E6700 performance for $175.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115013
Review: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2903
Copy and paste the links. There's no way around it :/ - jessejoedotcom, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I think you missed the PD's and X2?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3But the environment! save power!!
- moduc, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2
Just curious. Is there any study (like Tom hardware) about the current price/performance for all segments (low and high end) between AMD and Intel. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -11/+4Intel Core 2 Duo was marketed ....payed people off to report the right marks its still faster but not by a long hall like they claim.
i have two Intel chips the core 2 duo's and i personly think my FX processors were faster.
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