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[supermop]

Haha, sorry for the non-tech guys, would try and keep it jargon free, but thats quite impossible.

[TheBoy]

Athlon was AMD's worse chip in recent times?? It's what bought them back into the market!!

I have always found the P4 chips to be the hot and power hungry ones, which has been shown in all the benchmarks I've seen comparing the two and real life experience (I used to go to a lot of LAN parties - or geek parties if you like).

My 3200+ for example runs at 2.2Ghz and 39 degrees idle to 42 degrees on load, with standard cooling. Will have to fetch the power consumption specs when I'm home.

Athlon, not a bad chip. Almost a match for same clock speed PIII

Athlon XP is a poor chip (the way its marketed).  Its true clock speed (ie 1.5Ghz for 2000+) is around the P4 it would match.  But trying to sell it as a 2Ghz chip (and hence equal to a P4 2.0Ghz) was riduculous.  AMD did manage to calm down the power/heat requirements with later chips (as did Intel)

Duron, good chip for budget.  One of the reasons AMD had to scrap lower speed Athlon XP's prematurely was that Duron equalled performance...

[TheBoy]

The 2.8Ghz in the W2k3 server that hosts the Redhat VM that runs this place is currently 37C. Chassis temp is around 32C (the DLT unit generates a lot of heat, heating up chassis).  Hasn't been powered off for years, and has to run (currently) 4 VMs as well as all the SQL/Exchange and other rubbish that runs on it....

[supermop]

I don't understand what all these benchmarks ive seen have based their information on, if what you're saying is true.

And no... they weren't from an AMD source

The P4's performance was only marginally better in most that I saw on Tom's Hardware and a few other reliable sources.

[TheBoy]

I don't understand what all these benchmarks ive seen have based their information on, if what you're saying is true.

And no... they weren't from an AMD source

The P4's performance was only marginally better in most that I saw on Tom's Hardware and a few other reliable sources.

Most of the common benchmarking tools (such as Sisoft) traditionally didn't put too much empathsis on floating point and SIMD type instructions.  The Athlon is impressive on integer (hence why their marketing can try passing off a 3000+ as a P4 3Ghz equivilent), which drags the otherwise lagging processor up.

Architecturaly, the P4's Netburst was good, but hit a wall approaching 4Ghz due to its complexity - hence the lean Core range now.  Such complex processors have had their day, and tbh, x86 (inheritently CISC, though both AMD and Intel have been running RISC and an x86 micro emulator for years) AMD need to go through this same radical rethink, else they are going same way (assuming they could get clock speed up in the first place).  I also think that AMD may have become distracted with its merger with ATI...


But the proof in true performance at any given time, look what Workstation and Server vendors are providing for their mid/top class x86 systems - invariably Intel.

[TheBoy]

Slightly off topic, but have you seen the performance and ultra low power requirements of the new SPARC chips - very impressive. I reckon this will help reboost Sun's presence in data centres due to lower electrical requirements, and associated lower cooling requirements....

[Taxi_Driver]

Slightly off topic, but have you seen the performance and ultra low power requirements of the new SPARC chips - very impressive. I reckon this will help reboost Sun's presence in data centres due to lower electrical requirements, and associated lower cooling requirements....

Well must say i like Intel chipsets.....btw dont if they still do.....but PC Worlds own brand used to use intel chipsets.....i bought on a few years ago on that basis......was the cheapest PC in the store.....just coz it had their own brand on it.....but intel inside....carnt be bad  

Low electrical requirements   ......how does (when i worked for a computer manufacturer) you need a 3 phase power source 30amps/phase work now then  

Oh and if your computer room aircon carnt maintain 18C then this is over tolerance and your support contract costing you thousands per year is invalid   ......and we could tell.....as we could dial into the computer over ISDN (yes was a few years back) and check the air intake temp....and usually went along the lines off.....sorry but until you get the comp room temp down to 18C were are not going to come out and look at the comp that cost you hundreds of k's  

Oh and they were sparc based ......but as i said going back a few years....sparc 2's iirc

[TheBoy]

Slightly off topic, but have you seen the performance and ultra low power requirements of the new SPARC chips - very impressive. I reckon this will help reboost Sun's presence in data centres due to lower electrical requirements, and associated lower cooling requirements....

Well must say i like Intel chipsets.....btw dont if they still do.....but PC Worlds own brand used to use intel chipsets.....i bought on a few years ago on that basis......was the cheapest PC in the store.....just coz it had their own brand on it.....but intel inside....carnt be bad  

Low electrical requirements   ......how does (when i worked for a computer manufacturer) you need a 3 phase power source 30amps/phase work now then  

Oh and if your computer room aircon carnt maintain 18C then this is over tolerance and your support contract costing you thousands per year is invalid   ......and we could tell.....as we could dial into the computer over ISDN (yes was a few years back) and check the air intake temp....and usually went along the lines off.....sorry but until you get the comp room temp down to 18C were are not going to come out and look at the comp that cost you hundreds of k's  

Oh and they were sparc based ......but as i said going back a few years....sparc 2's iirc

Thats the point with the new SPARCs, massively lower power requirements (hence heat) as previous generation of stuff. Sun may be on a winner, as its probably low enough to make it worth ripping out the x86 type blades and putting in small SPARC servers...

[supermop]

That explains a bit....

Yeah, I've seen the specs of those new SPARC's. They look pretty awesome. Datacentre bills will be a heck of a lot lower! Will just take time to deploy, since they cost money to invest in.

AMD are also doing well in the server market with their Opteron chips. I think the predominantly Intel thing is a lot to do with the fact companies like DELL, HP and the likes have contracts which will allow them to package Intel chips only. That has recently changed, since they obviously noticed a clear price difference in the two vendors with AMD being the cheaper (which could explain why they, as you say, aren't quite as quick as a pentium).

Also the new Core 2 Duo chips look pretty damn amazing for the desktop. They trounce the competition by far.

[bob.dent]

 

Any chance of creating a Computer Geek section on the forum??

[supermop]

 

[TheBoy]

That explains a bit....

Yeah, I've seen the specs of those new SPARC's. They look pretty awesome. Datacentre bills will be a heck of a lot lower! Will just take time to deploy, since they cost money to invest in.

AMD are also doing well in the server market with their Opteron chips. I think the predominantly Intel thing is a lot to do with the fact companies like DELL, HP and the likes have contracts which will allow them to package Intel chips only. That has recently changed, since they obviously noticed a clear price difference in the two vendors with AMD being the cheaper (which could explain why they, as you say, aren't quite as quick as a pentium).

Also the new Core 2 Duo chips look pretty damn amazing for the desktop. They trounce the competition by far.

Both Dell and HP have offered AMD Opeterons for a while (on servers).  Neither company has had much success - the Xeons easily outperform them.  AMD do not have a large market share in server sector, but do well in low cost hosting shops due to low costs...

[Lawman]

3 Phase computers!!  

That is totally insane! haha

[TheBoy]

3 Phase computers!!  

That is totally insane! haha

Not uncommon for the older big buggers, less common now...

[Del Boy]

I take that as an insult   - seeing as many people in IT just talk 'dangle berries'. And play Wank Word Bingo all day    

I work in I.T ya know hope u didn't mean me!!!