AMD vs. Intel

JEdiWaNNaBE · Post by **JEdiWaNNaBE** » 13 May 2005, 12:08

From theregister.com about the X2

You might feel that the X2 4800+ looks very pretty on paper, but if you have no yearn for the digital lifestyle it may look like an expensive luxury. We wondered about that so we ran the same real world usability test that we performed on the Pentium Extreme Edition and Armari dual 875. We loaded up Bit Defender anti-virus and iTunes, and set the two applications running. While Bit Defender ran a full system virus scan we started to encode three albums of MP3 files to AAC format with iTunes, and then we started to play Doom 3.

With the FX-53 processor in our test system Bit Defender pegged the CPU at 100 per usage, and after we started iTunes encoding, Doom 3 simply refused to open, let alone play.

It was a completely different story with the X2 4800+ which could split the workload between the two cores, so running iTunes barely made an impression. With both iTunes and Bit Defender running we were able to play Doom 3 without any dropped frames, and although the processor was working very hard it was completely invisible to us.

So you see, there is a benefit to gamers from dual-core right now: you can run other applications while you're gaming without shedding game performance. Your favourite game won't get any faster until it's coded to run as more than one thread, but it won't slow down significantly if you want to run stuff in the background.

NV Monitor shows that the X2 4800+ was running at a mere 37°C and the Thermaltake heatsink was cool to the touch.

MrBean · Post by **MrBean** » 14 May 2005, 09:43

So add a graphics card or two (SLi) and you would need at least a 450W PSU just to have a semi stable system. Then you'd need to add watercooling or something better and then your power

Mmm...interesting how everyone is always bitching how much opower Intel consumes, and how little AMD...and how much heat is generated.

Let me tell you a little story: I owed an Intel 3.4EE, overclocked it to 4.2gig, and now have an AMD FX55, overclocked to around 3.1gig. When running both on the VapoLS phase change unit, the FX55 actually managed around 0 to -1 deg C, and the 3.4EE managed around -10 deg C.

Which shows me that the Intel ran quite a lot cooler, or, dissipated less heat. This is not a debate about who is the fastest, the best, yet, as no one here have had their hands on these cpu's, to see what can be had from them.

The new Dual-core Intel Extreme will of course run hotter, and consume more power, if the Hyperthreading side is enabled, enabling it to run 4 threads in parallel.

Always amazes me how people test cpu's, just to highlight strongpoints of one, and downfalls of another.

For the same reason why FX55 can't compare to A64X2 when running dual-threaded apps, for that same reason A64X2 will pale when it have to run 4 apps compared to the Extreme Intel dual.

Give this time to mature before me make assumptions, or draw conclusions. I reckon by a year from now, we will see Dothan duals, and I am willing to put my FX55/SLI rig on the line that those Dothans are going to sweep the floor with every other cpu out there

Guyz, I have mentioned this before, it is ok to be a fanboy, if you have reason to be! It means basically to not shoot down the other guy, until you have tried both. For everything else than gaming, I still would luv to have my old Northwood P4 clocked to 4gig, over my FX55.

And with SLI gfx, it doesn't really matter, the Northwood would give me as much fun as the FX55, and o yeah, before I forget, as some guys say Hyperthreading doesn't mean anything.......I could run a few sessions, be on the net, and do a SuperPI, still coming in at around 40sec when clocked to a nice 4.3gig.

In contrast, doing any of that on my A64 setup, would simply take a minute or longer! While there may be those of us that just play games everyday on their systems, quite a few will also use their systems for actual work? It is always lekker, being able to be connected to the Internet, with Norton Corporate 7.61 running with File System Real Time Checking enabled, burning a DVD in the background, and playing your favorite FPS.

So, as I said before, just because you own an AMD, or Intel, and have never used something else, or maybe used the other brand, like 5 years ago, doesn't make it the best....maybe for you, but, for the other guy, with different criteria, the other brand may be the better option.

I have proven time and time again, give me an Intel, and I will be very competitive to any AMD out there, yes even FX55. Still now, after 5 months, I have the record with an Intel 3.4EE, and 6800 Ultra, where I simply wiped the floor with every FX55/ATI combo in this country. That would be in 3dMark2003.

So, all the Amdroits, explain that one, if Intel is so crap. Yes, the other guys were using Prometeias on the FX55's, and chilled water on their gfx cards as well!

Just for the record, incase you guys wondered, both my rigs at home are AMD A64...mine is FX55/SLI 6800U, my wifes is A64 3500/X800-Plat.

I wonder why it is then that I still miss my Intel 32bit Northwood? For 80% of the things I do on my PC on a daily base?

Have fun, and enjoy.

MrBean.

JEdiWaNNaBE · Post by **JEdiWaNNaBE** » 14 May 2005, 09:55

Ah yes, but you had a Northwood. It's a well known fact that the Northwood does produce less heat then the Athlon 64, so i'm not surprised that the P4 ran colder than your Athlon.

MrBean · Post by **MrBean** » 14 May 2005, 11:00

The Intel P4 EE cpu produces around the same, if not slightly more heat than the Prescott.

It was the Gallatin core, not Northwood

My point is that both AMD and Intel are so close to each other, in terms of capability, heat produced, benchmarks...... they are 2 very different architectures, yet perform so similar.

It is like an argument between 2 petrolheads - which is best...a V8 5.7Liter, naturally aspirated engine producing 350kW, and 600nM torque, or a Turbocharged 3 liter engine, boosted to 14psi, making around the same power?

Both have their strong, and weak points.

Same with Intel, and AMD.

But, I guess it is not really productive to argue over this topic, same with ATI vs nVidia, as no one is really right...or wrong. What is good for you, may not be what I am looking for, and vice-versa.

It is just sad that everyone is dissing Intel, well, almost everyone, and they don't understand the difference between a capacitor and a resistor

But, enough said. It is difficult to prove which cpu is the best - if there is such a thing. Currently there is no single cpu that is best for everything. For any guy here, that wants to argue, bring your best Amd cpu, and I will bring you an Intel that will kill it in some benchies. Same goes the other way

Use whatever you fancy, makes no difference to me.

Not aimed at you, Jedi, just a generalisation.

Enjoy the weekend then. Me back to GTR....hehe.

JEdiWaNNaBE · Post by **JEdiWaNNaBE** » 14 May 2005, 11:17

MrBean wrote: It is just sad that everyone is dissing Intel, well, almost everyone, and they don't understand the difference between a capacitor and a resistor

Well, i do know the difference between a Cap and a resistor. (I had better, I'm 2nd Year electronic Engineering)

But, i guess this argument, like the one about the chicken and the egg won't ever be solved until the one disapears. I remebember about 6-7 years ago when everyone (and his dog) insisted on a Intel, and they wouldn't touch a AMD with a ten foot pole. Looks like it might be slowly turning around.

Thats the way of the world.

dammod · Post by **dammod** » 14 May 2005, 13:42

Another reason you cant compare AMD and Intrl, is that they both run on differnt types of motherboards. In the perfect world we would be able to bench an AMD on a mobo, and use that exact same mobo to bech a Intel. That of course is not possible though.

Soap · Post by **Soap** » 20 May 2005, 21:25

Well Fact is, the Dothan is Socket479 which is only electrically compatible with Socket478 by means of an adapter. Then again this adapter only runs on Asus boards and there's just 5 approved models at the moment, with only one PCI-Express based board, which is anyway no-where to be seen and so Dothan stays more something for the real insider. Yes, I am currently looking to get the CT479 adapter myself and a P4P800-SE, but then again I won't break any records with an AGP card. Dothan will still remain a niche solution until there's some SLI/MultiVPU/whatever boards out there. And as Intel is pretty retarded at the moment and believes their NetBurst architecture is _so_ good, they would never want to have Dothan on the desktop, just for the reason that at 27W it would own their own crappy Prescotts at 60% clock speed. And let's not forget that the FPUs/ALUs of the NetBurst run at twice the core clock and still get owned by their P6/AMD Quantispeed architecture. Some day Intel will probably realise that Pentium-M is the future and their NetBurst architecture was pretty useless. Throw in Hyper-Threading to utilise all those numerous and lousy long pipelines, and heck, everything's fine again. Add some nice numbers like "3.4GHz" and Joe Sixpack wants it just for the nice numbers. Yes, AMD gets the hails, Intel the sales (quote from overclockers.com).
NetBurst is an ineffective architecture, and the 'philosophy' behind it is total rubbish. They compromise for the miss predictions in their CPU by decreasing the clock cycle, but having a far more efficient architecture is more important, and P6 still employs this principle. MrBean, as nice as all your expensive stuff is, 99% of mankind won't be able to buy those things. It's just to darn expensive. And heck, we don't want to compare FX55 and an EE, because well, there's no sense in doing it. We're far more interested in seeing how good a Venice 3200+ clocks, or how good (whatever, anyways) the Pentium-D is. And fact is, I pay less for something similar equivalent from AMD than from Intel. Those Prescott and, worse, those 6xx series prices are horrendous. Sure, Dothan prices are even more horrendous, but I'd pay R200 more for something that I could even cool with a Zalman flower cooler, and performs equivalently. The idea between smooth computing is balancing the CPU load, and HyperThreading manages this somehow, as it utilises the pipelines better. Again, there wouldn't be all too much sense in integrating HyperThreading into a CPU with a 10-stage pipelines. But anyways, RISC has always been better

MrBean · Post by **MrBean** » 21 May 2005, 01:26

Well Fact is, the Dothan is Socket479 which is only electrically compatible with Socket478 by means of an adapter

For now that is

And as Intel is pretty retarded at the moment and believes their NetBurst architecture is _so_ good, they would never want to have Dothan on the desktop,

Have you missed the piece where Intel is removing NetBurst from their lineup? Before 2 years are out we will have new architecture to play with....I think little sooner, but let's be conservative. Should make for interesting times, surely.....

Anyway Soap, if you get the Dothan, keep me posted, my guess is you would have good fun with it. It is a very nice cpu for gaming....not really good for things like Adobe Photoshop or other bandwidth intensive Multimedia apps, but anything to do with number crunching...yummy...

edit; Removed silly/stupid comment. soz guys!

MrBean, as nice as all your expensive stuff is, 99% of mankind won't be able to buy those things.

To compete Internationally, and get in the Top10, that is what you need. It is not for everyone, it is expensive.

There is, however, as much fun with a 6600GT SLI combo, and 3200 Winnie setup. a Lot cheaper, and as enjoyable. Or maybe a Prescott 3.2 clocked to 4.7gig? Anyone...hehe.

I am quite serious about my benching, just as a Professional Cyclist would be about his sport.....or whatever you decide to turn Pro in.

If you can turn Pro in a thing such as Benching.

But, I am off-topic. Let's get back on track

Leprechaun · Post by **Leprechaun** » 21 May 2005, 02:09

But, i guess this argument, like the one about the chicken and the egg won't ever be solved until the one disapears.

We as the consumers dont want this to happen. It'll be like a telkom sinario where we'll pay our buts of or have no choise but to leave pc's all together(which i cant imagine most of use pc freeks can live without

) & they sit back making all the money

Leprechaun · Post by **Leprechaun** » 21 May 2005, 02:10

Damn why dont i get this quote thing right

Fixed it

Soap · Post by **Soap** » 21 May 2005, 11:54

MrBean wrote:
Well Fact is, the Dothan is Socket479 which is only electrically compatible with Socket478 by means of an adapter
For now that is

And as Intel is pretty retarded at the moment and believes their NetBurst architecture is _so_ good, they would never want to have Dothan on the desktop,
Have you missed the piece where Intel is removing NetBurst from their lineup? Before 2 years are out we will have new architecture to play with....I think little sooner, but let's be conservative. Should make for interesting times, surely.....

Anyway Soap, if you get the Dothan, keep me posted, my guess is you would have good fun with it. It is a very nice cpu for gaming....not really good for things like Adobe Photoshop or other bandwidth intensive Multimedia apps, but anything to do with number crunching...yummy...

edit; Removed silly/stupid comment. soz guys!

MrBean, as nice as all your expensive stuff is, 99% of mankind won't be able to buy those things.
To compete Internationally, and get in the Top10, that is what you need. It is not for everyone, it is expensive.

There is, however, as much fun with a 6600GT SLI combo, and 3200 Winnie setup. a Lot cheaper, and as enjoyable. Or maybe a Prescott 3.2 clocked to 4.7gig? Anyone...hehe.

I am quite serious about my benching, just as a Professional Cyclist would be about his sport.....or whatever you decide to turn Pro in.

If you can turn Pro in a thing such as Benching.

But, I am off-topic. Let's get back on track

The only problem with the Dothan is that most bandwidth intensive applications like Photoshop are also heavily optimized for SSE, and so the Dothan isn't optimal. Though overclocking it to a 200MHz bus resulted in the same bandwidth as a real NetBurst CPU. It's all about the bus.

Leprechaun · Post by **Leprechaun** » 21 May 2005, 20:46

I'm confused.Which of the following should i trust:

Easy Tune = 52 deg.
M/B bios = 55 deg.
Sisoft Sandra 2005 SR1 = 25 deg.

When i feel the H/s it's not hot at all.

Post by **Monty** » 21 May 2005, 21:15

Leprechaun wrote:I'm confused.Which of the following should i trust:

Easy Tune = 52 deg.
M/B bios = 55 deg.
Sisoft Sandra 2005 SR1 = 25 deg.

When i feel the H/s it's not hot at all.

i would trust the first 2 as they have similar temps

Leprechaun · Post by **Leprechaun** » 21 May 2005, 21:19

My gut tells me the same thing. I just dont understand why the h/s does'nt feel 50+ deg. Is there another proggie I can use to check the temp's?

Post by **Monty** » 21 May 2005, 21:30

try motherboard monitor 5

Link to topic

also google search Temperature & Monitor

Googled

also search of forums for temperature and monitor

search of forum

Leprechaun · Post by **Leprechaun** » 21 May 2005, 22:04

MBM tells me 51 deg. I suppose it also has to do with where they put the sensor, thats maybe why the heatsink feels cooler.

Post by **Monty** » 21 May 2005, 22:12

maybe. also try speedfan, it is quite good

Leprechaun · Post by **Leprechaun** » 21 May 2005, 22:17

I tried speedfan before. It turns off my gfx cards fan when I exit it.
I'm sure it's save to assume 50 deg. or so is a quite accurate figure.

Post by **Monty** » 21 May 2005, 22:24

Leprechaun wrote:I tried speedfan before. It turns off my gfx cards fan when I exit it.
I'm sure it's save to assume 50 deg. or so is a quite accurate figure.

yeah, its probaly around 50 deg.

Leprechaun · Post by **Leprechaun** » 21 May 2005, 22:26

Thanks for your help Monty.

Post by **Monty** » 21 May 2005, 22:27

pleasure

Soap · Post by **Soap** » 22 May 2005, 20:20

Best would be to check in BIOS.

daBoss · Post by **daBoss** » 02 Jun 2005, 15:48

The best of both worlds,
i think.

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/sho ... i=2431&p=6

daBoss · Post by **daBoss** » 07 Jun 2005, 16:06

Best place to do your CPU Benchmarks!

http://www23.tomshardware.com/index.htm ... 7&chart=26

Quash · Post by **Quash** » 08 Jun 2005, 18:36

Getting back to the topic...

Well there is a very good chance I'll be able to get a new system soon, we talking about within the next month or so.
Now the big question is which CPU manufacturer? Since this determines pretty much the rest of my system. (yeah yeah I know it was expected)

I'm not biased towards either of the two manufacturers and do understand that both have their advantages. I'd just like to get some guidelines though.

I'm predominantly a gamer and movie addict but also use my PC for work. I'm heading into the IT industry either into web design or programming.

I generally have several of the following types of applications running at any given time. Such as: an internet browser, an email client, a media player (gotta have music ^_^ ), an IRC client, an instant messenger, a torrent client, Photoshop, some Microsoft Office app, some text editor for coding, etc... obviously not forgetting all the background apps preventing nasty things from happening to my PC ^_^
This is obviously quite a load, especially if most are running at the same time (which is often the case).

So now, which brand do you think would be best suited to run such a workload?

Some other things to consider is that I'm definitely thinking of going Dual-Core once AMD & Intel DC prices drop and that I want to overclock my system a bit... just enough to get my moneys worth without going crazy =P
So yeah, a dual-core compliant chipset is essential.
As to the overclocking, well that's easy: a nice and spiffy Asus MoBo will do the trick. They own in every respect!

Awaits replies...