Anand's Athlon XP2400/2600 review does wrong by intel.

[sean2002]

Why did Anand use an 850E based motherboard for the P4 setup but only use PC800 RDRAM, by now quality PC1066 is readily available. He used CAS 2 DDR333 but cripled the Intel system

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: sean2002
Why did Anand use an 850E based motherboard for the P4 setup but only use PC800 RDRAM, by now quality PC1066 is readily available. He used CAS 2 DDR333 but cripled the Intel system

technically the 1066 stuff is unofficial.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: sean2002
Why did Anand use an 850E based motherboard for the P4 setup but only use PC800 RDRAM, by now quality PC1066 is readily available. He used CAS 2 DDR333 but cripled the Intel system

technically the 1066 stuff is unofficial.

As much of an Intel whore I am, I have to agree. Intel has not officially supported 1066 RDRAM yet. Though, to be fair, most every mobo maker has. He probably should have included it on a side bar or something.

 

[Hardware]

is was bull to takre a RDRAM VS DDR to bench a cpu you should compare DDR vs DDR

 

[sean2002]

Originally posted by: Hardware
is was bull to takre a RDRAM VS DDR to bench a cpu you should compare DDR vs DDR

That would not have been fair, DDR can't supply the bandwith needed by the 533Mhz FSB Pentium 4, either can PC800 RDRAM, thats why he should have used PC1066. DDR 333 is more than enough to feed the Athlon XP

 

[Sunner]

So just cause the P4 "needs" it, he should use an unsupported memory type with the P4, while using a standard supported memory type for the AXP?
Yeah that sounds fair.

Had he overclocked the AXP bus to 166 MHz or something it might have made sense since both had been running out of spec that way.

 

[Hardware]

whats next the p4 system needs a 15k rpm scsi drive?

this was a cpu review not a system review
point

 

[sean2002]

By using PC800 he's limiting the P4 from performing at it's best. How can you compare CPU when you let perform to the best of it's ability and limit the other, is that fair? NO.

 

[SocrPlyr]

Anand just made another official review for himself when Intel finally comes out w/ a chipset that officially supports PC1066 (if he did it now that article would have no meaning), for the most part Anand has strayed away from using overclocked or nonofficial items...

Josh

 

[Maggotry]

Hardware sites review "unofficially" oc'd cpu's all the time. Some of the sites reviewing the 2600+ included oc benchmarks in their review! I don't see why 1066 couldn't have been unofficially included.

Edit: Also, I think Anand is one of the most respected hardware geeks on the 'net and I do not believe that he intentionally tried to skew any data away from Intel for AMD's benefit.

 

[dexvx]

If you dont like it go to some other review site who does.

Almost all the other major review sites, toms, hardOCP, etc, included PC1066 RDRam. And BTW, i845G with DDR 333 at CL2 or SiS648 with DDR 400 at CL2 comes pretty close to a PC1066 RDRam system.

 

[Markfw]

I like AMD, BUT I have to agree that by using RDRAM, it makes the P4 look its best, and DDR333 makes AMD look its best, and that is the point of the review: To compare the best performing STANDARD systems from each manufacturer, and compare them. Also, to comment, it looked to me as if Anand (and Tomshardware) both agree, that each has its strong points/areas/benchmarks, but essentially the P4 2.53 and the 2600+ are about tied overall.

 

[zzzz]

probably because the board he used did not support PC1066.

 

[paralazarguer]

Aceshardware used DDR333 and it performed very well against the 2600+.
What I did like about the article was that he mentioned that it was a paper release kin to the P3 1ghz. We won't be seeing these processors for a while.
What I Didn't like was that he neglected to mention that while this comes close to matching the 2.53, the 2.8 will be released in a couple of days and both will be hitting the market at the same time.
He didn't make mention of the fact that the 2600+ will be competing with the P4 2.8 not the 2.53.

 

[paralazarguer]

P.S. I'm aware that Anand prolly can't talk about the P4 2.8 yet but you can pre-order it at most online retailers! Come on....
Aslo,

whats next the p4 system needs a 15k rpm scsi drive?

this was a cpu review not a system review
point

The point is that the P4's bus will allow it to use faster memory while AMD's will not. This is a limitation of the processor for AMD so it is very relevant.

 

[Rectalfier]

I would like to see a review of the P4 with DDR. Most P4 systems are sold with either Sdram or DDR, so I think that would be an interesting review.

 

[paralazarguer]

I would like to see a review of the P4 with DDR. Most P4 systems are sold with either Sdram or DDR, so I think that would be an interesting review.

So read one here The P4 still bests the Athlon XP with the same stick of DDR333.

"We are not absolutely sure what happened here. More testing is necessary, and our latest tests indicate that with some different BIOS settings we might get 5% better performance out of the Athlon XP. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Athlon XP 2600+ is not even close to the Pentium 4 in this kind of workload. We suspect that VIA's AGP driver and chipset implementation might not be so effective and rather poorly optimized for professional OpenGL applications. Typically these kind of applications move around huge amounts of geometry data, and therefore memory bandwidth and AGP drivers can make a big difference. Both systems were running at AGP 4x, though. In any event, the 2.53 GHz Pentium 4 is the clear leader in this benchmark"

"Four out of seven gaming benchmarks proved to be faster on the Athlon XP 2600+ than on the 2.53 GHz Pentium 4. So, for gamers, the Athlon XP 2600+ lives up to its QS rating and will be a very attractive alternative considering its price.

"However, the 2.53 Pentium 4 outperforms the Athlon XP 2600+ by a significant margin in typical workstation creative work. For those kinds of applications, AMD's platform will not outperform Intel's before the Hammer family arrives. We strongly suspect that the Athlon has enough firepower on board to perform well in CAD and 3D-modeling workloads, but that the AGP port and memory bandwidth of the current AMD platform is simply not up to par with Intel's. On the flipside, the Athlon XP 2600+ is clearly the fastest processor in the scientific workloads."

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: 7757524
Aceshardware used DDR333 and it performed very well against the 2600+.
What I did like about the article was that he mentioned that it was a paper release kin to the P3 1ghz. We won't be seeing these processors for a while.
What I Didn't like was that he neglected to mention that while this comes close to matching the 2.53, the 2.8 will be released in a couple of days and both will be hitting the market at the same time.
He didn't make mention of the fact that the 2600+ will be competing with the P4 2.8 not the 2.53.

He didn't mention it because it's not true. First of all, the 2600+ model number is obviously aimed by AMD at the 2.53 ghz P4. Even if that wasn't the case, I suspect the 2600+ and the 2.53 will be much closer in price than the 2600+ and the 2.8 ghz P4. When a consumer looks to buy something, they typically don't look at two items with very different prices as a comparison. I know that in the minds of a lot of people on this board it's "Intel vs AMD for the performance crown". While this is somewhat true, the real battle is for price vs performance. And as Anand said...

With the Thoroughbred Revision B core AMD has given new life to the Athlon XP, and it couldn't have come at a better time. The Athlon XP 2600+, for the most part, offers performance competitive with the Pentium 4 2.53GHz; the same can be said about the Athlon XP 2400+ and the Pentium 4 2.4B. There's no clear performance advantage in either case for the vast majority of applications, but where AMD does hold the advantage is in price. The Athlon XP 2600+ and 2400+, once available, will retail for significantly less than their equivalently performing Intel counterparts.

 

[kgraeme]

Originally posted by: Maggotry
Hardware sites review "unofficially" oc'd cpu's all the time. Some of the sites reviewing the 2600+ included oc benchmarks in their review! I don't see why 1066 couldn't have been unofficially included.

When I read any review site that uses OC'd hardware, I just close the window. For instance, I was just reading a comparison of the Radeon 9700 vs. the Ti4600 and I noticed the test setup included a "P4 1.7 overclocked to 2.4Ghz". Whatever. It's a test on such a unique configuration that the numbers really don't mean anything. Heck, I don't even bother paying attention to HardOCP reviews after finding out they remove the HSF on a video card and put on new thermal compound. Use spec hardware at spec. Anything else is pointless.

 

[NOX]

Some of you need to check out all of the reviews. Ace's has a great good review P4 DDR333 vs. AMD 2600+ DDR333. And yes, the P4 does still win in many benchmarks.

Anand did a great review IMO, no overclocking for one, and two he used the best offerings from both AMD and Intel. Not some water-cooling stuff, which only small fractions of people even attempt to consider.

 

[Hardware]

anyway its a mistake to compare two cpus on 2 different systems
the complete compare is crap then

 

[Actaeon]

Though, I do believe the P4 was not running at its best, if its unoffical, then it shouldn't be benchmarked, espically in a CPU comparison.

Though, I would like to see the P4 running at its best in benchmarks, I'd like to see a seperate review comparing PC1066 to PC800.

 

[Rectalfier]

Aces results are similar to Anand's because the i845G performs on par with PC800 configurations. I think AMD's processor is worthy of it's PR rating. AMD's performance will further increase with the release of the Nforce2 and 166FSB. This is good news for everyone because it will keep Intel's prices down as well.

 

[NOX]

Originally posted by: Hardware
anyway its a mistake to compare two cpus on 2 different systems
the complete compare is crap then

Yes Hardware, it's everyone else?s fault that AMD has no RDRAM solution.

 

[Tanked]

Quote by 7757524
So read one here The P4 still bests the Athlon XP with the same stick of DDR333.

The P4 doesn't "best" the 2600+. It's about a 50/50 split in the winner of the benchmarks, and most of the ones Intel won were Intel optimized.

The point is that the P4's bus will allow it to use faster memory while AMD's will not. This is a limitation of the processor for AMD so it is very relevant.

Rephrased, that means AMD isn't dependant on memory and FSB speeds as much as Intel, which is not a negative thing. An Athlon can still perform well with a slower memory subsystem while an Intel system cannot. This arguement can be taken both ways, but both AMD's and Intel's situation has its benefits.

Considering the P4-2.53 GHz and the 2600+ will be in the same price range, I don't see anything wrong with comparing the two. The P4-2.8 GHz will probably have an extremely inflated price, and won't be a viable upgrade path for many.