Has the AMD PLATFORM been outclassed for good? (***NO FANBOYS***)

[Megatomic]

Thanks for all the replies everyone. You've given me me lots of different viewpoints to mull over. I'm going to have to agree with RedRonin on the price/performance ratio thing. My nForce2/XP2100+ combo cost me $200 and I used an existing hsf. The CPU easily overclocked to 2700+ and beyond on the same cooler. My computer turns in very respectable benchmark scores and runs the most grueling games I own very well. I shouldn't complain at all.

But now this question remains for me, can nVidia provide better drivers? It seems that the nForce2 drivers are neglected by nVidia. Or is it just me?

 

[orion7144]

I don't disagree that you can get a cheaper AMD and overclock. But you can also get a cheap P4 and overclock as well, you don't have to buy the top of the line. When I got my first P4 I had an XP1700, XP1800, and a duron 800. I bought the P4 2.26/533mhz with a Gigabyte 8PE667 Ultra from Frys for $269 that I have running at 2.72 gig. It runs perfectly stable at 2.9 plus on default voltage/default cooling but since 2 of my XP's (non OC'd) were RMA'd due to temp failure, I don't want to have to worry about the P4 so I bumped it down. So you can't say that you can just go buy a slower AMD and OC. You can do the same thing with the P4 and you don't need a "Pit crew" to run it. I like what cheapgoose said about the HSF. On the P4 you can use the stock cooler to get good overclocking results, but with the AMD you needs to spend some extra cash since the stock cooler will barley keep it alive.

Originally posted by: RedRonin
A very good thread! There are a lot of excellent responses here, which point to one's intended use of a platform as a clue as to which is best for the individual. I'll answer the question in the topic line with a simple, "No". I haven't felt jealous about the speed of Intel processors as compared to AMD. Like others here, I am looking for price perfomance ratio. Those who are overclocking can find much more benefit than most, that's for sure. But for me, the plain old retail prices of components is enough for me to go with AMD. I too want to encourage competition, to keep it as healthy as possible. This is another reason why I am inclined to support "The Underdog" that is AMD.

I compare this to the perception of cars. What about the notion that "...every Ferrari can do 200 MPH..." for instance? People who know cars realize that is a rarity for any vehicle, no matter how exotic. If you have two cars that can each do 180 MPH as a top speed, does it matter how they do it if that is your only goal? There is a difference between value and worth. If a Ferrari and a Corvette each have 300 HP engines and each have a top speed of 180 MPH, which do you buy? If you have the cash to pay for the pit crew, you get the Ferrari. My point is that the Ferrari may have a smaller engine, but a higher peak rev limit. That doesn't change the fact that the work its engine does is equivalent to that of the Corvette. Meanwhile the Corvette may cost a third as much. For some it is "worth it" to buy a top-line Pentium 4 processor. That does not mean the value of an Athlon XP processor is thereby non-existent and worthless.

I believe there are some low-end benchmarks that show the Duron 1300 is not outclassed by Celeron 2.0 MHz machines. Knowing that I can put together a couple of Duron 1300 + M7VIG Pro or K7VMM+ systems to meet the needs of friends/family for the price of a single eMachines or HP Wal*Mart special is pretty rewarding. Once more, I'm not really into overclocking, but it is rather tempting considering what folks have been able to manage with AMD Athlon XP 1700+ chips. So similarly, I would rather build two AMD Athlon XP 2200+ machines than waste all my dough on a single high-end Intel setup. Who cares if it takes a few seconds or minutes longer to rip a DVD, encode to MPEG1 or whatever? Not me - I can be using the second computer while that is being done on the first.

HUN-YA!

Red Ronin

 

[RedRonin]

Once more, it really depends upon where you want to spend your money. Some guys will buy a 1984 Monte Carlo for $900, then spend $15,000 modifying it with sound system, paint job and hydraulic suspension. Others would prefer to put that money down on a BMW Z3. Someone else would gladly buy a used Acura CL Type S and be done with it. There are multiple solutions to any given situation and all need to be considered. We are not denying that those who go with the Intel platform can find joy there, even on a tight budget. We are merely relishing in our own joy with AMD. So when someone asks why we are with AMD, we say why, that's all.

Like I said, overclocking isn't my scene. When people were taking a 400 MHz chip to 600 MHz and saving $150 in the bargain, that made sense to me. I figure when the price difference between a retail AMD Athlon XP 1800+ and 2200+ is like under 20 bucks, I'd rather spend the money on a processor, get a cheaper non-overclocking motherboard and lower cost, yet effective RAM and be happy with a 3 year warranty. So I don't incure the cost of matched, balanced, blueprinted, laboratory tested and approved memory, heatsinks, hyperturbofans and motherboards. Why should I spend $50,000 on a Saleen Mustang when the Camaro SS exists? Oh wait, they killed that, didn't they? DOH!

HUN-YA!

Red Ronin

 

[qquizz]

What if you could get a $60 Athlon XP 1700+ T'bred (b) and OC it to a 2800++ with stock heatsink and fan with just decent ram (decent ram anybody would want anyway cas2 = performace perk on any cpu) with a $135 mobo that has features out the ***, and that wont let you burn your chip. Would you then reconsider your position?

 

[Cerb]

Qquizz, that would likely be possible, if you used a retail 2800+ cooler and the 1700+ could hit 2.25GHz (more and more are every day) with no overvolting (unless the 2800+ runs at a higher voltage--I'm not sure there).

 

[qquizz]

Its possible all right. I am doing it right now. No glitches now for 5 days straight.

 

[orion7144]

No it would not change my mind. Like I said before, the feel of using the P4 is much smoother to me and I was once in the same boat as alot of other AMD users. However since using the P4 my opinions have changed. No more problems with VIA chipsets (I know not AMD's fault), no random crashes, and not having to reinstall every once in awile (again not AMD's fault but most software is designed around Intel). Not only that but I have seen what overclocking the XP's do over a period of time. You see alot of people saying how good they are overclocking but rarely do you hear when they have to RMA their chip cause of premature failures. My failures were not the result of OC'ing since I did not start doing that until I got the P4. However I build computers on the side and see alot of return costomers wanting thier CPU replaced. I have yet to have an Intel chip returned. I did get one from Fry's that was bad however. I have nothing against AMD just simply responding to this topic.

Originally posted by: qquizz
What if you could get a $60 Athlon XP 1700+ T'bred (b) and OC it to a 2800++ with stock heatsink and fan with just decent ram (decent ram anybody would want anyway cas2 = performace perk on any cpu) with a $135 mobo that has features out the ***, and that wont let you burn your chip. Would you then reconsider your position?

 

[orion7144]

Oh it's nice to see a thread like this not turn into a bashing session.

 

[qquizz]

Point well taken

 

[Cerb]

Orion7144, I disagree and have had completely different experiences, though both of our views are coming to that: Experience. The more in one area you have, the fewer problems. So I'll disagree, but we can probably both go through such a discussion all day long.

 

[Byte]

gawd, i wish nforce3 would have gigabit network. I would totally AMD everything if it did. Not i have to consider canterwood with hyperthreading to upgrade my server (2.5GHz P4 feels like a P150 with all the crap i'm doing on my server). Integrated serial ata RAID is gonna be awesome with some Raptors. Anyone know of the Athlon64 will have dual proc configurations? Its turning into Athlon = gaming, P4 = everything else.

 

[mechBgon]

nForce3 Pro 250 does have gigabit network edit: to expand on the gigabit situation a little, if you want a gigabit solution, the very efficient PCI implementation of the nForce classic and nForce2 chipsets may be your ticket to ride for the meantime. I got PCI throughput upwards of 120Mb/second from my SCSI card to my PCI bus with both nForce and nForce2, which approaches the practical limit of PCI when you take overhead into account. That would be *almost* enough bandwidth for gBE to run free, if you weren't using other PCI devices.

My work fleet of ~75 systems is presently about 30% AMD. I haven't seen any CPU failures, and the systems are so stable it's uncanny :Q Of course, I don't have spyware, viruses, trojans, pr0n dialers or five flavors of media players installed either... we are running a pretty tight ship: Win2000, Office2000, Acrobat Reader, and FilZip on most systems, as well as corporate-edition McAfee VirusScan/ePO Agent. I don't play with skimpy off-brand power supplies or memory.

I have another three of these hummers due in for building later this week, with 2200+'s this time around. They have been so reliable that we're not even going to bother changing them for next fiscal year, other than maybe going to 2400+'s or 266MHz-based 2600+'s (and there will be two or three with 15000rpm Cheetah 15k.3 SCSI drives for my super-users, yeah baby! Who loves ya?! ).

If there are any troublesome systems in my fleet, it's the Celeron2 566's on i810... some of them are getting strange, like they're senile or something :Q LOL! The P3's on i810E are doing ok, and so are the Cel2 600's on VIA. We've got one P4/RDRAM that's hopeless, it's a 1.3GHz Williamette. There are undoubtedly "smooth" P4's out there, but this isn't one of them

 

[Compddd]

P4's have a long pipeline so they can reach high clock speeds but they do less work per cycle, xp's have a short pipeline, cant go that high MHz wise but can do alot of work per cycle. So blah blah of course a XP clocked the same as a P4 will beat it because it does alot more work per cycle, but problem is you cant clock to 3GHz+ on an XP so no point in saying blah blah it'll beat it at same clock speed. Intel designed there CPU's one way, AMD designed theres another way.

 

[Megatomic]

Wow, I'd forgotten about this thread. Good time to bring it back up though as I still feel somewhat envious of the Intel guys having lots of fun with the new i875 and i865 chipsets and the 800MHz FSB P4s. But nVidia will be rolling out new Platform drivers soon so maybe that'll revitalize the AMD scene for a while. They sure have taken their time with them, it's been almost 5 months since they've released the last set. And it's not like there are no issues that need to be fixed either. I hope nVidia has gotten their stuff straight with the new drivers.

I also am looking forward to the release of the Athlon64/nForce3 platform. No matter how tempted I get to buy a Canterwood system the prospect of the A64/NF3 keeps my wallet shut. Has anyone seen any leaked specs/benchmarks recently?

 

[Wurrmm]

I don't think AMD is totally out classed. Performance of and AXP on an nf2 platform is still pretty darn good when matched against a comparable P4 system. Granted Intel has some cool features especially Hyperthreading, but AMDis by no means really out classed. The AXP is definately aging and in need of replacement, but a 400FSB and the new NF2 Ultra will be a nice refresh and help AMD compete with Intel's 875s and 865s. Although I have been a pretty solid AMD consumer since the K5, I myslef like many others have made the switch to Canterwood. Although AMD is competative, one thing that gets me is their total lack of release of a 400FSB in good time. Intel is more consistent with releases and I want my stuff now, so I am forced to go with what is here now.

 

[smahoney]

I have been working with PC's as long as I can remember and listiening to AMD vs. Intel for almost as long - The tide seems to go back and forth year to year between which overclocks the best, what is the best value, the newest features, the flops - and there have been a lot on BOTH sides. But the reality is simple - AMD vs. Intel has only benefited the consumers - faster, cheaper and more reliable chips and chipsets. The same has been true in Video cards. Sure Intel has more money and AMD has some tremendously innovative designs - but it comes down to what the individual user is doing with their machine, Their budget and their comfort and expertise in putting together a system.

My personal opinion is that I have found AMD more difficult to support and build for most users - Intel isn't perfect either. NVidia saved AMD's bacon with a fast chipset and the 1700+ is a great overclocker. People still need to remember that 90% of systems are purchased and used by people who have no inkling of what the term overclocking means, never mind dual channel memory or the advantage of CAS 2 latency. My latest machine was built after careful consideration of what I wanted to do with it and how much I was willing to spend and I am very happy with the decisions I made. Of course three months from now my choices would be different but that is part of the at imes exaspirating fun of buying and building our own PC's.

AMD - Biggest Gripe - Stop anouncing chips that aren't going to ship for another 3-6 months already.... The whole cache/speed $%&@ was second.
Intel - Biggest Gripe - Fix your floating point for real already.... i820 and socket changes are a close second.
AMD - Biggest Win - Unlocked FSB with kudos to chipset support.... Jury still out on Opteron and their Floating Point performance next on my list
Intel - Biggest Win - Tough Choice, HT is pretty good, Making quality mobo's and forcing everyone else to as well is pretty high on my list, The endless Faster, Cheaper, Smaller...Actually listening to consumers - bye-bye RDRAM

Favorite Overclockers - 1700+ or 2.4B/2.53 C1 stepping
Least Favorites - 423 Pin P4's, Egg Frying Athlons