AMD X2 REAL release 7th June, Pentium D 22 June

[zebbedee]

The Inquirer is saying here
that AMD has beaten Intel in the non-paper release of popular (ie not EE) dual core CPU's. This is when Intel have gone out on a leg to win this particular marketing race.

Obviously the sheer bulk of manufacturing capacity that Intel possesses compared with AMD means that the market share that AMD can take from Intel will be limited, so no fundamental change in the near future. It does mean that AMD can charge a premium for having the most powerful CPU's on the planet, and therefore go from strength to strength.

But the real question is: with the enormous resources in terms of people, money and infrastructure that Intel possesses, how on earth are they being beaten up so badly by a much smaller outfit?

 

[bersl2]

Originally posted by: zebbedee
But the real question is: with the enormous resources in terms of people, money and infrastructure that Intel possesses, how on earth are they being beaten up so badly by a much smaller outfit?

They made a bad decision (Netburst), and since they are a huge corporation, it takes them years to reach this conclusion and to correct it.

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: zebbedee
But the real question is: with the enormous resources in terms of people, money and infrastructure that Intel possesses, how on earth are they being beaten up so badly by a much smaller outfit?

Beaten in what sense? Certainly not financially. AMD's performance advantage did shake things up for Intel, and Intel's latest roadmap shows some hope of returning to competition (like it was during the P3 vs. Athlon era).

Intel's biggest roadmap release is probably Yonah (dual-core Pentium M). That is the only one that shows promise of actually competing clock-for-clock against Athlon 64 X2.

Presler sounds more like an effort to reduce the TDP of their desktop dual-core vs. an effort to go for the performance crown...at least this is what I gather from what's been released so far about it.

 

[zebbedee]

I guess when Intel do finally get around to copying AMD's ideas then they will be able to push it further and faster then AMD. Obviously willing to change tack, given the enormous change from GHz to multiprocessor emphasis. But an oil tanker takes a long time to turn around, and it could be that AMD are leading technologically for the next few years.

 

[zebbedee]

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Beaten in what sense? Certainly not financially. AMD's performance advantage did shake things up for Intel, and Intel's latest roadmap shows some hope of returning to competition (like it was during the P3 vs. Athlon era).

The X2 appears to be technologically superior to the pentium duallies in almost every area. The X2 appears to be coming out to market before the pentium D. This is what I meant by beaten. It just seems surprising to me that you can have such a big difference in performance when AMD are so much smaller than Intel. Obviously, being smaller has its advantages, as the second poster highlighted.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: zebbedee
But the real question is: with the enormous resources in terms of people, money and infrastructure that Intel possesses, how on earth are they being beaten up so badly by a much smaller outfit?

Beaten in what sense? Certainly not financially. AMD's performance advantage did shake things up for Intel, and Intel's latest roadmap shows some hope of returning to competition (like it was during the P3 vs. Athlon era).

This is an excellent point. Even though AMD is beating Intel on a performance level, Intel has much better cost structures as far as manufacturing cost per unit, profit margin per unit, and the technical issues don't seem to have hurt them much in terms of marketshare. Intel execs probably don't think it was such a terrible mistake as we 'techies' do.

I know it's sometimes difficult to accept that the people who post here represent only a tiny fraction of the processor market, but the reality is we absolutely do. Intel positioned their dual core for widestream acceptance, and there is no doubt that is what it will get at the prices they are offering... And to the userbase they are after, the AMD dual core is simply not an option due to price, so they will decide between single core AMD, single core Intel or dual core Intel... and many will choose dual core Intel. Given the options they have at their price point, it's probably even the correct decision to choose dual core intel for performance improvements over a faster single core processor given a typical user's computer usage.

I'm willing to bet Intels perspective is that they have beaten AMD handily in the markets they are primarily targeting. And their dual core offering seems focused on continuing that trend... they just aren't focusing on the market segment that posters here tend to be in.

 

[sangyup81]

Totally agreed with Concillian. As much as we mock people who buy Dells, most people who buy computers do. Dell only sells Intel and for AMD, that's a huge problem. It will take AMD a long time to become Intel's financial equal.

So you guys buy your X2s and be happy it's coming so soon. Keep watching TV and looking out on the webpages for the Dell/Intel marketing campaigns and know that for every one of you, there is about 3-5 people that will buy a Pentium D.

 

[Promit]

Ah, so unfortunate. If only the world knew, eh?

 

[sangyup81]

The world doesn't like building their own computers and likes getting other people to handle their computer problems.

 

[zebbedee]

Originally posted by: sangyup81
So you guys buy your X2s and be happy it's coming so soon. Keep watching TV and looking out on the webpages for the Dell/Intel marketing campaigns and know that for every one of you, there is about 3-5 people that will buy a Pentium D.

Turning it around, the average consumer who as you say will buy a Dell box, will in the end be the winner. Because notwithstanding the financial success it has there is no question that Intel will be pushed to increase the quality of their product much more than would have been the case if there was no AMD...

Indeed the exciting thing is that with a strong competition between Intel and AMD we can expect continued rapid technological development from both companies.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Hopefully with the X2 and dual-core Opteron's, AMD will be able to generate enough revenues to do more marketing to educate the public. When more people demand AMD, then Dell, etc. will include AMD's into their line-up. AMD use to market their cpu's, now it's almost like word of mouth.

 

[zebbedee]

I'd be very happy to be corrected on this, but from what I have read AMD are at capacity; they could not supply the demand that would exist if they were adopted by Dell and had a strong marketing campaign demonstrating their current technological superiority over Intel. So, they can charge a lot for their product without having a big marketing campaign knowing they will sell like hotcakes.

Who knows what would happen if they could massively increase their production capacity?

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Originally posted by: zebbedee
I'd be very happy to be corrected on this, but from what I have read AMD are at capacity; they could not supply the demand that would exist if they were adopted by Dell and had a strong marketing campaign demonstrating their current technological superiority over Intel. So, they can charge a lot for their product without having a big marketing campaign knowing they will sell like hotcakes.

Who knows what would happen if they could massively increase their production capacity?

They are getting close to a major Foundry opening. FAB 36 in Dresden with 300mm wafers and 90/65nm production at start will great increase AMD's chip supply. It should be online Q1 '06 barring any last minute catastrophes.

AMD did not paper launch dualcore. They released the 800 series dualcore when they said they would, they released the 200 series when they said they would, and it remains to be seen if the X2's will come out as they said they would

 

[coomar]

The new dell user is losing out if these new dual-core chips of intel have DRM

 

[Gogar]

it's probably even the correct decision to choose dual core intel for performance improvements over a faster single core processor

Have you seen the reviews of Xbitlabs? Most benches show a performance DECREASE with the dual core intel, even some multi threaded ones, yet there the X2 leaves everything in the dust.

Turning it around, the average consumer who as you say will buy a Dell box, will in the end be the winner.

If today you buy a Dell.... The force is definitely not with you! 😀

 

[theMan]

wow, intel really screwed up. geez. how many things can go wrong with 1 company. they need to completely redo everything.

 

[BlingBlingArsch]

Imo Intel wasnt ready for Dual-cores but they had to bring at least something to show the world they were still n1... Too bad the only CPU available and powerful enough was the Prescott...."but sir, we cant do that, its a prescott already, we cant double that sh1t ....Do it anyways, we wont need to many of them anyways!" And they doubled the Prescotts....Its hard to believe, still....i mean, how desperate must they been? Or is dual-core biz not that a big deal until 2006, or 2007? Maybe dual-cores are just a small piece of the pie? In Intels case maybe but iam sure AMD gonna get good money from enthusiasts and priceless reputation until 2006 when - as Intels PR wants to make us believe - 65nm Stuff like Yonah and Presler enters the stage - for now we can enjoy watchin David beating up Goliath...again.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: Gogar

it's probably even the correct decision to choose dual core intel for performance improvements over a faster single core processor

Have you seen the reviews of Xbitlabs? Most benches show a performance DECREASE with the dual core intel, even some multi threaded ones, yet there the X2 leaves everything in the dust.

Did you read the context of the entire rest of that paragraph you quoted?

The people I was referring to who would receive benefit from dual core are NOT the kind of people that run apps that care about single threaded performance. Email, browser, iTunes, CD burner and maybe a word processor. Switch out their P4 3.2 GHz machine with a 1GHz P3 and they'll never notice the difference because they don't use apps that get benefit from single threaded performance.

But they DO multitask. The download from iTunes while playing MP3s while browsing or reading email, maybe even burning a CD at the same time. This is where dual-core shows a clear and significant benefit according to all the review sites.

I wasn't talking about ME or AT forum participants, I was talking about Joe consumer who buys an Intel because "It's got more Megahurtz" These people will be paying a small premium over a base CPU for dual core, and they will actually see a performance benefit. For a LONG time these people had been paying more for better CPUs and hadn't really seen all that performance benefit, as witnessed by when I'm doing mundane tasks like browsing, Excel, email, etc... I don't even notice the difference between my work PC (P3 1GHz) and my home PC (overclocked A64). Ther ARE tasks which I notice a difference between these PCs, of course. But for the most part, these are tasks that the 'average' computer user does fairly rarely compared to basic multitasking.

 

[BlingBlingArsch]

but Joe shouldnt buy a pentium-D anyways cuz he will pay the price later with his electricity bills.

Iam not sure, if i myself will buy a duallie, i do alot of multitasking, simply cuz i dont close the appz when i finished and they are still running in the background using CPU-Power, or when i play games, i still want to RIP a DVD or check my emails and downloads or whatever. But the question is, how remarkable is the difference between dual-core running 90% single-core appz and a singel-core CPU? U cant bench those differences. But i totally agree, its one of the most annoying problem of a multi-tasker, that when u try to switch between the different applications while they are heavily working, the whole single-core system is becoming terribly slow and stuttering. IF, and only if dual-cores can help in that direction, so that multiple appz with high cpu-usage are running smoothly and wont make the whole system run like crap, than i might think about buying a duallie. Other than that, single-core is the better deal.

 

[Zebo]

Exciting times ahead..🙂 When i get the 4400 I think I'm going to have to claim "sick" for a few days.... well it's true, I will be, That's what happens when you don't sleep for 48 hours staight overclcoking doing benchmarks😛

 

[imported_michaelpatrick33]

Originally posted by: Zebo
Exciting times ahead..🙂 When i get the 4400 I think I'm going to have to claim "sick" for a few days.... well it's true, I will be, That's what happens when you don't sleep for 48 hours staight overclcoking doing benchmarks😛

I have said it before and I say it again, you are my proxy voice on these threads. It is like we have same brain process LOL. I will also have the 4400+ watercooled around the end of July beginning of August hopefully. MMMM 4400+ overclocked

 

[Lithan]

Originally posted by: Concillian

Originally posted by: Gogar

it's probably even the correct decision to choose dual core intel for performance improvements over a faster single core processor

Have you seen the reviews of Xbitlabs? Most benches show a performance DECREASE with the dual core intel, even some multi threaded ones, yet there the X2 leaves everything in the dust.

Did you read the context of the entire rest of that paragraph you quoted?

The people I was referring to who would receive benefit from dual core are NOT the kind of people that run apps that care about single threaded performance. Email, browser, iTunes, CD burner and maybe a word processor. Switch out their P4 3.2 GHz machine with a 1GHz P3 and they'll never notice the difference because they don't use apps that get benefit from single threaded performance.

But they DO multitask. The download from iTunes while playing MP3s while browsing or reading email, maybe even burning a CD at the same time. This is where dual-core shows a clear and significant benefit according to all the review sites.

I wasn't talking about ME or AT forum participants, I was talking about Joe consumer who buys an Intel because "It's got more Megahurtz" These people will be paying a small premium over a base CPU for dual core, and they will actually see a performance benefit. For a LONG time these people had been paying more for better CPUs and hadn't really seen all that performance benefit, as witnessed by when I'm doing mundane tasks like browsing, Excel, email, etc... I don't even notice the difference between my work PC (P3 1GHz) and my home PC (overclocked A64). Ther ARE tasks which I notice a difference between these PCs, of course. But for the most part, these are tasks that the 'average' computer user does fairly rarely compared to basic multitasking.

Or just have them buy a low end dual Xeon, Athlon XP, or P3 rig and actually have a true multiprocessor rig. It's the same arguement that Intellers used with Hyperthreading. Ignoring that A64's beat P4's in almost everything people actually do. They started coming up with crazy scenarios (I want to rip dvd's while Im burning another dvd and playing doom 3!) where the P4 could actually win. Then they convinced themselves that these were actually real world situations. The truth is, for low utilization apps Single core rigs have NO PROBLEMS AT ALL multitasking. For high utilization apps, unless you have a true multiproc rig with independant memory for each processor, a very expensive disk array, and many other very expensive parts, multicore STILL wont run multiple processes smoothly. You'll just shift the blame for the lag from the cpu to other parts of the system.
Multicore will become just like Hyperthreading (that works better) in that the only real-world scenarios it will help will be single applications specifically programmed to benefit from it. And significant amounts of those are a year or more away.

 

[Duvie]

Actually in a few test of review sites when the 840 and 840 XE was reviewed did worse then dual xeons at 3.2ghz (even a few running prestonia 533fsb cores)....Look at dual core opterons...they did better then 2x older opterons...Intel design is hardly efficient they have bottlenecked this bastard. They need to be running 1200+fsb to be used with 667 DDR2....