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1.5Ghz or 2Ghz....the battle

CaptainRAVE

By CaptainRAVE
in Yoda’s Swamp

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CaptainRAVE Newbie

CaptainRAVE

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AMD is working on the, planned, September release of the 1.5 GHz Athlon. Although this chip is claimed to be the fastest and most stable ever to be released by the company, the problems it will face are great. Most importantly the AMD processor will have to battle the much "heavier" 2 GHz Intel Pentium 4 chip, which will be released later this month.

 

The task AMD are faced with is to convince consumers that clock speed isn't everything. This is no small task considering that both AMD and Intel have fought fiercely over which company will produce the fastest processor first.

AMD are faced with a task similar to that which faced Apple when they fought to convince consumers that what their PowerPC chips lagged in speed, compared to Intel chips, they more than made up for in performance.

 

"Athlon is an extremely competitive processor, even at the lower frequency," said Kevin Krewell, senior analyst with MDR/Instat (formerly MicroDesign Resources).

 

The Athlon trails in clock speed, and "that's perceived to be slower, but it's not," Krewell said. "It's just a perception in that respect."

To date, AMD "hasn't done anything from a marketing point of view to help its case," Krewell said. He went on to suggest that advertising would help AMD deliver its performance message and also build its brand name among less-sophisticated PC buyers as the back-to-school and holiday buying seasons approach.

 

What is certain is that the Athlon chip won't necessarily be slower. The Athlon processor core handles more instructions per clock cycle than the Pentium 4. This allows the Athlon to keep up and in some cases better the Pentium 4 in performance, depending on the application and the hardware configuration.

The 1.5 GhZ Athlon will also carry a pre-fetch Level 2 cache, which anticipates data needed by the processor core and stores it ahead of time in high-speed "cache" memory. The chip will also sport the SSE multimedia instruction set, aimed at enhancing multimedia performance.

 

Although most companies try to convince us that the average consumer is some brain damaged moron who will obey most corporate wishes, there is still hope that this time consumer reaction will be to find out more, before buying any next-generation system.

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Guest ZeroXcape

Guest ZeroXcape

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I really don't think there is much of a battle. Sure there are random consumers out there who will buy packaged "2.0 ghz systems," but they have no clue what they're doing anyway.

 

For the more educated computer user, one would understand that the AMD 1.5GHz (and almost the AMD 1.4GHz) completly out perform Intel's 2.0GHz chip. First off, the athlon chips still own the market in business applications. It's not even a close call anymore. When it comes to 3D Games (what we care about,) Intel is just catching up with their 2.0GHz release.

 

What I'm basically getting at is, you better do a little research before you buy. If you can't decide which processor (Intel 2.0GHz or AMD 1.4GHz) you should go for, maby the price will help you make your choice. Currently, <a href="http://www.pricewatch.com/">PriceWatch</a> doesn't list a single Pentium 4 below the price of the Ahlon 1.4GHz:

 

$574 Pentium 4 2.0GHz

$405 - Pentium 4 1.9GHz

$249 Pentium 4 1.8GHz

$190 Pentium 4 1.7GHz

$163 - Pentium 4 1.6GHz

$127 - Pentium 4 1.5GHz

$120 Pentium 4 1.4GHz

$128 - Pentium 4 1.3GHz

 

$105 - Athlon 1.4GHz 266 FSB

 

If you can save $400 just on your processor, that's a huge step to getting that new 3D video card you've always wanted ;)

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ed_silvergun Newbie

ed_silvergun

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It is, however, worth mentioning that P4 is almost certain to outperform Athlon in Jedi Outcast, as P4s always do in Quake III engine games.

 

Having said that, the Athlon 1.4GHz does still just have the edge on the 2.0GHz P4 in most other games. Factor in the price difference, and the choice is clear: AMD is the only way to go. Also, remember that the Athlon clock-speed ceiling which AMD seem to have hit around the 1.5GHz mark will soon disappear as AMD is about to release the new 'Palomino' cores to supercede the 'Thunderbirds'. This will allow Athlon to scale to new clockspeed heights, so Intel had better watch out.

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WD_ToRMeNt Newbie

WD_ToRMeNt

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I know what most of you think, but the MHz really doesn't show the true speed of the processer. A 1.4 GHz athlon will still smoke a 1.8 GHz Pentium 4. The P4 has a huge 20 stage pipeline, not very efficient at all. When benchmarked against and apple G4 chip at only 800 MHz with a 6 stage pipline, the apple wins in speed in some applications.

 

There are other factors in the efficiency of the chips as well. Over all, AMD has the better design. The problem is that intel has a huge advertising and hype advantage over it's competiters. The average Joe *I know dick about computers but ill buy one anyway* person will judge a chip by 1) The clock speed, 2) brand name.

 

Apple tried to educate the public but failed, i could told you they would fail. The general public does't read /.. I'm rooting for AMD though, and when I get save some cash i'll be building a system around an athlon.

 

Bottem line, better chip for less money, go with AMD.

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Wilhuf Newbie

Wilhuf

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For years, I keep reading about compatibility problems with AMD.

 

Question for those of you who actually own an AMD processor: What is your overall level of satisfaction with the processor in terms of compatibility with existing game software, and hardware drivers. Were there hardware compatibility problems? Do you feel you had to do extra patching to ensure compatibility? Are there games that simply don't run on an AMD?

 

Or was it basically a plug and play situation, or comparable to intel CPUs in terms of the level of effort (e.g. patching) to get your games up and running, good compatibility, minimal crashes, exceptions etc.

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ed_silvergun Newbie

ed_silvergun

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The only thing I've come across that needs to be patched was Win95, and the patch is an easily available 300kb download from the Microsoft website. Plus, if you're still using Win95, you need help anyway... :)

 

Oh, I also had problems with some older games recognising the processor. For example, Hexen II didn't recognise it. But this was only during the installation process, so I just clicked "install anyway" and once the game was on the hard disk, it ran flawlessly.

 

Other than that, most "incompatibility" problems are simply myths. As for hardware, you shouldn't have any problems as long as you keep your drivers and BIOS updated regularly.

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Darien Newbie

Darien

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Currently I have an atholon 1 ghz I got for a good deal at frys. It came with pretty much everything you need for a computer cept hard drives and video cards. The athlon i got will do it for me for a while. My point is that the diffrence between atholons and pentiums dont matter that much today. Maybe later, but for now youll do just as good with an atholon as a pentium.

 

Amd's atholon costs a lot less then the pentium, so i would buy the atholon. Still, if the pentiums came down in prices, it wouldnt be so easy to decide.

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TornSoul Newbie

TornSoul

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I've been using AMD chips for years (ever since 486) and I've never had any problems with compatibility. I know there were some problems with the K6 and K6-2, but I never had any problems.

Some of the problems are because Intel had a deal with Microsoft to support their (copyrighted) technology. I don't think the deal lasted very long though. As far as I know the new Athlons are supported better than the new P3s and P4s.

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Guest Kurgan

Guest Kurgan

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I too have heard about the so-called "problems" with using AMD Athlons, but I have never experienced any of them. Oddly enough it was supposedly to be with the GeForce2 card, which I also have.

 

But I can play Quake3, UT, Rune/RuneHOV, Unreal, Quake2, Alice, Half Life, Jedi Knight, AvP Gold, Outlaws, MotS, Serious Sam, and various other 3d games and have never noticed any problems. My games look and play great.

 

I agree, thus far Athlons afford you the best speed for your money. Sure you could pay more for a 'faster' Intel but you're paying lots more for a minimal benefit.

 

Btw, did you know that there is another product with the name Athlon? It's that divider thing in a men's restroom between the urinals. Athlons rule!

 

My specs:

 

AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.1 Ghz

128 mb pc133 ram

GeForce 2 GTS (32 mb)

Win98SE

Soundblaster Live!

 

Kurgan

 

[ September 03, 2001: Message edited by: Kurgan ]

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OnlyOneCanoli Newbie

OnlyOneCanoli

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I have not yet run into any problems that could be attributed to my Athlon processors. I think it's just a myth. Same thing with Win2k Professional. There are very few real incompatibility problems. Get the service packs from Microsoft and it runs every game I try just fine. And if games have problems, companies patch it anyway (Max Payne).

 

And I won't post my specs, it might hurt your feelings. ;)

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Guest Kurgan

Guest Kurgan

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Haven't heard of any of those, but then I don't own one... so can't say.

 

If you're worried about overheating, get a box fan and have it blow into the case.

; )

 

Kurgan

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Guest Kurgan

Guest Kurgan

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Yup, nice cheap & easy solution. Those pidly pc cooling fans don't do jack compared to this sucker I've got on here.. ; )

 

Liquid cooling may be a definite solution, but it looks to complicated, and I would always be paranoid that it would leak all over my system or something. ; p

 

Just get a nice box fan, take the sides off the case and put that sucker right up on it (not touching of course) at full blast.

 

Kurgan

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TornSoul Newbie

TornSoul

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I've know win2k isn't meant for gaming, but I haven't had any problems. I can run Elite Force with the highest settings and it still runs good.

The reason why I use win2k is because a lot of times I leave my computer on for several days (downloading stuff) and win98 couldn't even run 1 day without getting memory problems or crashes.

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