How is AMD better than INTEL in games?

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: Capt Caveman

Originally posted by: geekified
If it hasn't been said, I believe the 3DNOW! instruction set also plays a role in the gap, as well as AMD's better memory management with the lack of the external front-side bus. In general, the tech community thinks AMD X2 (dual-core processors) to be better than their Pentium D equivalents due to performance superiority, less energy usage and all in all better stability. That being said, Intel's entry-level processor the 820 costs significantly less than the X2 3800+.

The debate will always rage on, but the margin doesn't seem to change much, AMDs are not dramatically better than Intels of similar quality for gaming, on the whole, besides maybe the FX processors. If you want better game performance, you're way better off buying a new video card in most cases.

Completely wrong. Programs needs to be coded for the 3DNow instruction set and almost none are due to Intel's large market share. So, that's not the reason for AMD's better performance.

An X2 3800+ can be had for a little over $300 and in the course of a year, will be cheaper(lower electricity bills) and vastly outperform a 820.

All you need to do is look at any gaming benchmarks and a AMD dual-core destroy's any Intel Pentium D(not including the Presler).

Dual-core is pretty much the only way to go nowadays. Nvidia and ATI's latest drivers have been developed w/ dual-core in mind(not mature yet but will get better). Newer games will become multi-threaded. And if you're like any normal user, a dual-core will free-up cpu resources for gaming, as one core will take the load for any anti-virus/background programs that you maybe running.

3dNow and its variants are useless. Barely any programs use them. THe programs that do use them are programs such as SuperPi and math intensive applications. Games will show no improvement.

Instead of 3dNow! designers followed intels SSE(I)(II)(III) instructions. Notice again that there is no difference in gaming, only in encode decode, and calculations (Super Pi).

Once again, nether SSE (Streaming SIMD) nor 3dNow have ANY affect whatsoever in gaming.

As for AMD's performance advantage (for the 9999 time):

AMD's instruction pipeline is much wider and shorter than intels. While Intels is IIRC 31 stages, AMD's is estimated to be around 14. THis means that the instructions reach the execution stage of the pipeline much faster, whereas Intel must increase the clock speed in order to keep up.

This also is where Hyperthreading comes into play. Because Intel's pipeline is so long, a cache miss or error halts the entire pipeline for IIRC 12 Clock Cycles (If it is L1 Cache at least). Hyperthreading sends another packet through the pipeline before the first is completely executed. Therefore the entire long stretch of pipeline is filled and working as close to the theoretical maximum as possible.

in all better stability

A Processor has nothing to do (unless over clocked) with the systems stability. THat lies in the chipset and the software within.

ohhhh i see, now for gaming.... a amd 4000+ is like a 1 lane highway at 100kmph and the amd x2 4800 is like a highway with 2 of those lanes. but one is closed... for now.

Ummm no not really. If in the sense you mean that each lane equals an instruction pipeline, memory controller, ALU (etc...) then yes the lane parts would be correct. However, i am not sure what you mean by "one is closed". Both cores are working. However when you are only running one task at a time, or when you are running a task that is not SMT (Multithreaded) the other core isn't used and remains idle until it is needed.

Play at a high enough resolution and the GPU always will become the bottleneck. Intels processors can still be used for gaming, they just aren't as quick at it at the lower resolutions as an AMD based system.

Most definitely. However, AMD still holds a couple frames per second lead at high resolution. Nothin to write home about or anything, just ~2fps here and there.

Get the highest Mhz AMD - or - highest Mhz Intel you can afford.

I still dont know why people say the highest Mhz/Ghz. WOuldn't the correct terminology be "the highest clockspeed".

At any rate that is a waste. The absolute best bang for your buck right now is, if you can find it, the Opteron 165. If you cant find it then get the X2 3800+. There is no need to go for the 4000+ or the 4200+, the 3800+ is only marginally slower and if you are so compelled you can EASILY overclock to reach that clockspeed.

Ill try to find some information on SSE and 3dNow and MMX if you want to read them.

-Kevin

 

[Philippine Mango]

Originally posted by: Lord Banshee

Some nice advance AMD has which makes it better for gaming is, the onboard memory controler, better pipe/Ghz speed rateing, better Float-point performance, and i am sure there are many more.

Floating point? Last time I checked, the only thing an FX 57 had on my processor was MIPS calculations but otherwise I whooped it's ass like no other on floating point calculations, I think you just simply mixed this up.. Though I have to say, since the Athlon XP days, the athlon 64 floating point performance has increase dramatically..

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango

Originally posted by: Lord Banshee

Some nice advance AMD has which makes it better for gaming is, the onboard memory controler, better pipe/Ghz speed rateing, better Float-point performance, and i am sure there are many more.

Floating point? Last time I checked, the only thing an FX 57 had on my processor was MIPS calculations but otherwise I whooped it's ass like no other on floating point calculations, I think you just simply mixed this up.. Though I have to say, since the Athlon XP days, the athlon 64 floating point performance has increase dramatically..

No the Athlons are superior to the Pentiums in everything except some Video Encoding Apps.

-Kevin

 

[Ludootje]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
I still dont know why people say the highest Mhz/Ghz. WOuldn't the correct terminology be "the highest clockspeed".

What's the difference? Isn't MHz/GHz the unit in which clockspeed is expressed?

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
At any rate that is a waste. The absolute best bang for your buck right now is, if you can find it, the Opteron 165. If you cant find it then get the X2 3800+. There is no need to go for the 4000+ or the 4200+, the 3800+ is only marginally slower and if you are so compelled you can EASILY overclock to reach that clockspeed.

Why the Opteron 165? What makes it so good? Overclockability?

Thanks!

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: Ludootje

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
I still dont know why people say the highest Mhz/Ghz. WOuldn't the correct terminology be "the highest clockspeed".

What's the difference? Isn't MHz/GHz the unit in which clockspeed is expressed?

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
At any rate that is a waste. The absolute best bang for your buck right now is, if you can find it, the Opteron 165. If you cant find it then get the X2 3800+. There is no need to go for the 4000+ or the 4200+, the 3800+ is only marginally slower and if you are so compelled you can EASILY overclock to reach that clockspeed.

Why the Opteron 165? What makes it so good? Overclockability?

Thanks!

Mhz/Ghz are the same unit. Additionally they are the same basic term as clockspeed. However when typing in a sentence the grammar is incorrect when you say "This processor has more Mhz than this processor". Instead it sounds much more professional when you say "This processor has a high clockspeed than this processor".

As for the Opteron 165, well it has 2x1mb Cache, instead of the 512kb you would get with the 3800+. Additionally, it tends to OC more because the opterons go through a much more rigorous series of tests for stability since they are server processors. Finally, it is, well at least supposed to be, cheaper. However, AMD may be changing that.

-Kevin

 

[Ludootje]

I see, thanks for the explanation Gamingphreek!

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: Philippine Mango

Originally posted by: Lord Banshee

Some nice advance AMD has which makes it better for gaming is, the onboard memory controler, better pipe/Ghz speed rateing, better Float-point performance, and i am sure there are many more.

Floating point? Last time I checked, the only thing an FX 57 had on my processor was MIPS calculations but otherwise I whooped it's ass like no other on floating point calculations, I think you just simply mixed this up.. Though I have to say, since the Athlon XP days, the athlon 64 floating point performance has increase dramatically..

Pentium 4's are faster when it comes to SIMD floating point, but most things aren't SIMD. Video editing is about it.
Athlons are faster than the Pentium M's and Pentium 4's for MIPS and FLOPS, but fall behind to the SIMD + hyperthreaded performance of the Pentium 4's.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Pentium 4's are faster when it comes to SIMD floating point, but most things aren't SIMD. Video editing is about it.

Not much anymore. Not much at all. In fact, AMD wins in most Video Encoding applications, i think Intel only holds DivX.

-Kevin

 

[fstime]

Shorter pipeline. The Prescot uses a 32 stage pipeline.

A64's also use an on-die memory controller.

 

[Cooler]

Originally posted by: BouZouki
Shorter pipeline. The Prescot uses a 32 stage pipeline.

A64's also use an on-die memory controller.

QFT

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek

Pentium 4's are faster when it comes to SIMD floating point, but most things aren't SIMD. Video editing is about it.

Not much anymore. Not much at all. In fact, AMD wins in most Video Encoding applications, i think Intel only holds DivX.

-Kevin

I meant video encoding was one of the few operations that are heavily SIMD oriented. Of course, a non SIMD optimized video encoder would have AMD blowing Intel away.

Anyhow, of course Intel has nothing to match AMD, the FX-57 is equivalent to like a 4200+ athlon 64 right? Well Intel only ever had about a 400mhz advantage at most in video encoding, and 3.8ghz is their fastest chip. That, and AMD dual cores just blow Intel away as Intel doesn't really have a dual core that qualifies as 'high end'.

But in single core chips at equivalent speeds, Intel chips with SIMD + hyperthreading best AMD chips at applications optimized for SSE and hyperthreading. In fact, I seem to recall that the new Quake 4 patch that's dual core optimized has a 3ghz P4 with hyper threading performing about as well as an Athlon 64 3400+. Too bad dual cores are replacing all need for hyperthreading, if games had started that optimizing years ago then AMD may not even be around as a company today.

Anyhow though, AMD is faster now primarily because of the integrated memory controller. With video cards handling all the heavy leg work, quick memory access is king. And in multicpu situations, AMD is faster because of the integrated memory controller and the superior hyper transport bus.