I Bought Intel Friends Tell me AMD better...

[Lithan]

Umm It's a lot more than 5*C, more like 10-12*C (with top notch reasonably quiet cooling...with stock coolers even worse, 15-20*C), you start overclocking and it only gets worse, More over, you are dumping that heat into the air, which causes other problems. And cpu's running hotter require more expensive and louder cooling, are less forgiving to rises in ambient temperatures, and contribute to an increase in overall system temps.

Let's not even get into the motherboard deaths caused by Prescotts.

 

[Wingznut]

Don't worry about what your friends (or fanboys) say... If you are happy with what you have, then enjoy it.

This is good advice for anything in life.

A rich man is not someone who has the most... But rather someone who needs the least.

 

[gururu]

Originally posted by: Lithan
Umm It's a lot more than 5*C, more like 10-12*C (with top notch reasonably quiet cooling...with stock coolers even worse, 15-20*C), you start overclocking and it only gets worse, More over, you are dumping that heat into the air, which causes other problems. And cpu's running hotter require more expensive and louder cooling, are less forgiving to rises in ambient temperatures, and contribute to an increase in overall system temps.

Let's not even get into the motherboard deaths caused by Prescotts.

where do you get these numbers?
this small poll puts the majority of prescotts under load between 50-60 C

poll

Are you trying to tell me that northy's run between 35-40 under load. that is so wrong. mine runs at 65.

does ANYTHING run between 35-40 under load under air? I say BS. that'd be cooler than your very own body temperature.

 

[Lithan]

That small poll is mostly/totally using board sensors. I run at 3*C under room temp @ 1.60vcore 3.9ghz on xp120 with a silent fan.

My numbers come from c/w performance tests of top-end heatsinks with low noise fans and maximum heat output numbers of the processors.

And if 40*C is cooler then your body temperature you should seek medical help as soon as possible.


Incidentally, it's VERY easy to have the 35w chips run under 40*C on air as long as your ambient temps are good.

 

[CaiNaM]

guys.. don't let personal experience or first hand knowledge you've been told by others to sway your thoughts. listen to lithan, he is quite unbiased in matters of intel vs amd :roll:

i have both, and imo both have their strengths and weaknesses. for reasons already discussed to death, i prefer my p4. fyi my athlon64 runs a bit over 52c under 100% load. my p4c runs 53c under the same load. no first hand exp with a p4e tho.

seems to me most are happy with either, so unless you have a specific issue with one or the other, i wouldn't worry about what other ppl say, as for the most part they are talking out their ass.

 

[Lithan]

Cainam, thermal diodes are misleadingly calibrated and read. Math doesn't lie. There isn't a magical heat hole that lets a processor put 100w of heat into a heatsink/fan with a c/w of .30 and wind up with temperatures fifteen degrees above ambient. As much as you'd like to believe your "first hand experience" the fact is that your opinions derived from it simply don't mesh up with known and provable fact.

And 3.4 p4c runs about 23w cooler than 3.6 p4e according to tech docs.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Tom
you are right, the differences are small to non-existent. Either processor is great.

I can guarantee you that the upgrade path on S939 will be much better than with S775. AMD has confirmed dual-core S939 CPUs by the end of 2005.

The A64 is the better gaming processor and IMO is more "well-rounded" than intel's offering. It doesn't suck at encoding as much as the P4 Prescott sucks at gaming.

Intel motherboards are also more expensive, and lack many of the features offered by nVidia's chipsets.

I used intel CPUs back in the P1/P2/P2-celeron days, but since the Athlon was released I've been with AMD. There's no going back until intel changes many of its policies, including the semi-annual socket/chipset change, lack of an onboard memory controller, and crappy 64-bit performance.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: CaiNaM
i have both, and imo both have their strengths and weaknesses. for reasons already discussed to death, i prefer my p4. fyi my athlon64 runs a bit over 52c under 100% load. my p4c runs 53c under the same load. no first hand exp with a p4e tho.

Try comparing a 0.09um A64 w/ a 0.09um P4E.

 

[gururu]

Originally posted by: Lithan
That small poll is mostly/totally using board sensors. I run at 3*C under room temp @ 1.60vcore 3.9ghz on xp120 with a silent fan.

My numbers come from c/w performance tests of top-end heatsinks with low noise fans and maximum heat output numbers of the processors.

And if 40*C is cooler then your body temperature you should seek medical help as soon as possible.


Incidentally, it's VERY easy to have the 35w chips run under 40*C on air as long as your ambient temps are good.

just give us some links to back up your claims. so under load your cpu is ~20 C with air cooling? give us a screenshot or something because that according to your watt/generated heat theory would be more preposterous than anything we are claiming.

last time I checked 35 C is less than 37 C.

 

[gururu]

according to anandtech:

idle:
3.2E: 34 C
3.2C: 28 C
A64 3200: 28 C

load:
3.2E: 50 C
3.2C: 45 C
A64 3200: 36 C

anandtech


bottom line:
idle or load, the prescott is only 5-6 degrees higher than the northwood.

 

[Wingznut]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I can guarantee you that the upgrade path on S939 will be much better than with S775. AMD has confirmed dual-core S939 CPUs by the end of 2005.

How in the world can you GUARANTEE such a thing... What you are saying is total speculation. Even if AMD's dual core cpu's use the same socket, there is no direct corolation that it will still be compatible, let alone optimal. Remember, Socket A has been around for a while, but you won't be seeing anyone running a later model Athlon on an early Socket A board.

Secondly, you have NO IDEA what Intel has in store for the end of 2005. I, however, can guarantee that fact.




Lithan, based soley on the fact that your motherboard doesn't read temps correctly, you can't draw a factual conclusion about ALL motherboards. Statisticallly speaking, they can't all be inaccurate by the amount you are concluding/assuming. Not only that, but they cannot all be inaccurate in a negative direction.
And if they are all so inaccurate, how can you presume the Northwood and A64 ones aren't?

 

[mnarciso]

Wow, I come back and there are around 50+ posts here. I guess this whole CPU War thing really is always such a great topic.

I thank everyone for their comments and willingness to get the point across. When I said I thought the P4 would be a well rounded processor is because I came from an AMD XP Barton Core. I remember when they were benchmarking the AMD XP's I found that most applications ran better on the P4 compared to the AMD XP's. So few years later in come the A64's and Prescotts. I saw how low the prices were for Intel and I was like wow... thats awesome thats gotta be the way to go.

Well, I didn't do my research well. I was looking at old benchmarks that looked at the old A64 cores. Then after buying the P4 I discovered a more updated benchmark, the 90nm core A64's had totally wasted Intel in almost every aspect. Sure the percentages were small but it bothered me with all the things that people were saying, that it was a waste. This is what made me think I wasted my money however, as I'm playing Doom 3 with no lag at all on my 6600GT and just enjoying how responsive my system is you just begin to realize the comparison really is insignificant between the A64 and P4. I got my P4 for cheap (at least I thought it was cheap $240 Boxed).

My friends play Doom 3 on the same exact machine except with an A64 and honestly I can't tell the difference anymore. At this point it seems foolish to just say that the Prescott was a waste. I only think people are bashing the Prescott because Intel has always been the superior processor until recently with AMD showing up on top of nearly every benchmark its easy to say that Intel didn't live up to their expectations because people really do have high expectations for Intel. I always thought Intel was on top. The only reason I never went Intel in the past was because of its price. Now that Intel is the "underdog" in this A64/Prescott comparison the prices have dropped and so I jumped the gun. Not saying the Prescotts run cheaper then the S939's 90nm processors but very affordable and Intel has always given me that image in the past through professional marketing and expensive prices that its just more reliable. I am definitely not saying that AMD is NOT reliable or professional because in the past I've never had one bad CPU.

My point is that even though theres all this Intel bashing going on, I believe its only because theres a lot of dissapointment in Intel, as I expected to be on top. All in all I really don't care about being on top and I am definitely not a fanboy, I just went with what I thought was a good processor for a good price and purchased. Anyway, just wanted to respond to everyone and all your comments are awesome and its helped me to realize the bigger picture and that it really just comes down to overall performance and that I notice no difference in speed. The only difference I notice is the increase in frags I make in UT2k4 with smoother framerates =).

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Wingznut

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I can guarantee you that the upgrade path on S939 will be much better than with S775. AMD has confirmed dual-core S939 CPUs by the end of 2005.

How in the world can you GUARANTEE such a thing... What you are saying is total speculation. Even if AMD's dual core cpu's use the same socket, there is no direct corolation that it will still be compatible, let alone optimal. Remember, Socket A has been around for a while, but you won't be seeing anyone running a later model Athlon on an early Socket A board.

I think you're speaking for intel corp. 😛

AMD has *confirmed* that the dual core Opterons will be compatible with current motherboards with a simple bios update. I have no reason to believe S939 will be any different.

I am almost positive that in a year's time, AMD users will still have an upgrade path on S939 but intel users will be using an obsolete platform with S775. On top of that I'll bet that the soon-to-be released NF4 motherboards will be compatible with the dual cored A64s with an updated bios.

I obviously cannot 100% guarantee this situation, but based on intel's long history, this is a very likely scenario. Compare Socket A to Slot 1 or Socket 370 and you'll see what I mean.

I'm running an XP Mobile 2500+ at near 4000+ speeds right now. It goes toe-to-toe will all but the most cutting edge processors that are available today. I have never had this kind of PC experience with intel. I've been using Socket A for so long now, I'm not even sure how many years it's been.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Wingznut
Secondly, you have NO IDEA what Intel has in store for the end of 2005. I, however, can guarantee that fact.

Of course not. I would assume that they're starting to get desperate seeing as they have not had the performance crown for quite some time. Maybe they'll pull off something brilliant. Based on what I see currently, nothing in their arsenal can touch the A64, not even the Dothan. A dual-cored A64 would be faster than a dual-cored Prescott or Dothan. This has been the industry speculation. If intel can produce something faster it will either:

A: Have a considerable clockspeed advantage, potentially from 0.65um.

B: Be based on an entirely new CPU design (unlikely).

The integrated memory controller on the A64 will potentially be a huge advantage for the A64 over intel's offerings.

 

[Markfw]

Secondly, you have NO IDEA what Intel has in store for the end of 2005. I, however, can guarantee that fact.

I think you just did speak for Intel. Sorry bro, but unless Intell can put a rabbit out of their hat, right now, they are in the toilet. The Opteron and the Athlon64 with the integrated memory controller, simply rule the field right now. Of course you can't say otherwise, or you'd get fired. And you don't know what AMD has up their sleve right now, so you need to sit back and wait for the play to unfold. Right now AMD rules, and that may be short lived, but at least they are keeping Intel on their toes for the moment.

 

[3chordcharlie]

it doesn't matter what features are in your processor.

HT - 'Integrated memory controller' - SSE3, and so on.

None of them matter; what matters is which one is faster, and more imortantly, which one is faster for the money.

Since prices are pretty close, and so is performance, buying intel amounts to a bet that 64-bit will not become important until sometime when you are prepared to buy again. That's all it really is.

AMD still has a slight performance and price/performance lead, but it is easily erased at times by promotions, package deals, and considerations like wanting PCI-e.

you haven't done anything wrong😉

 

[Paratus]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Paratus

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: ALIEN3001
There is another problem with high consumption. High consumption = higher electricity bill.
The difference is pretty high when comparing a Winchester A64 3500+ and Prescott 3.4GHz (both priced around the same). Not only the Athlon64 is faster, it also saves you money in the long tearm.
And imagine Prescott based Xeons 4P (Nocona) server, all the heat must go somewhere, and if you have 100's of them...

But we dont, we are home users.

Power consumption on a prescott vs an A64... even in california youre talking $2 a month.

Acanthus don't bother, it was a good try but this is going nowhere. 🙁

A good try? whatre you talking about?

People are tossing around a bunch of points that mean nothing to anyone but nerds in a pissing contest.

OMGZ P4 is hot and ineffecient look at your power bill LOLOLOL!@!!!!

Really, the difference is smaller than many think, and just because AMD has a SLIGHT upper hand right now, doesnt mean Intel is a bad choice either.

Thats what I mean, trying to interject a little rationality into the pissing contest. Didn't work but nice try.

 

[Wingznut]

Originally posted by: Markfw900

Secondly, you have NO IDEA what Intel has in store for the end of 2005. I, however, can guarantee that fact.

I think you just did speak for Intel. Sorry bro, but unless Intell can put a rabbit out of their hat, right now, they are in the toilet. The Opteron and the Athlon64 with the integrated memory controller, simply rule the field right now. Of course you can't say otherwise, or you'd get fired. And you don't know what AMD has up their sleve right now, so you need to sit back and wait for the play to unfold. Right now AMD rules, and that may be short lived, but at least they are keeping Intel on their toes for the moment.

I was simply referring to SickBeast's "guarantee" on the upgrade path for each respective socket. I spoke to nothing more, nothing less, and 100% of my own opinion.

Despite your barbs, my statement (that I'm certain SickBeast doesn't know Intel's plans) has nothing to do with my employer... But it does have everything to do with the fact that NOTHING has been said regarding socket type or upgrade path for Intel, 14 months from now. If you can show me where I'm inaccurate regarding that fact, I'm more than willing to listen.


I'll give you an excellent (probable) example on how a S939 board today may not be a viable upgrade option when dual core comes out, regardless of SickBeast's "guarantee"... Chances are, that in 14 months, power users are going to want a faster memory speed than what DDR1 can provide. If the optimal AMD configuration in 14 months contains a dual-core chip which supports DDR2 memory, then today's board isn't going to be an option. The chip will still be S939, but not an upgrade path from the best board today.

That was the point I was trying to make, when I referred to Socket A.

 

[Markfw]

Wingznut, You are still dancing around the topic that I speak about. AMD with it's on-board memory controller is light years ahead of Intel in that respect, and have proven it many times, in that they are not memory starved. And socket 939 indeed has many more times a chance of being compatable in the future vs socket 775. It's a crap shoot ! Where are you putting your money ? On Intel ? ( well you work for them, but...)

 

[justly]

Originally posted by: mnarciso
Wow, I come back and there are around 50+ posts here. I guess this whole CPU War thing really is always such a great topic...

Yes, it always is. 😉

Enjoy your new computer and have a nice day. 🙂

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Wingznut
I'll give you an excellent (probable) example on how a S939 board today may not be a viable upgrade option when dual core comes out, regardless of SickBeast's "guarantee"... Chances are, that in 14 months, power users are going to want a faster memory speed than what DDR1 can provide. If the optimal AMD configuration in 14 months contains a dual-core chip which supports DDR2 memory, then today's board isn't going to be an option. The chip will still be S939, but not an upgrade path from the best board today.

That was the point I was trying to make, when I referred to Socket A.

I'm guessing you know very little about the A64 architecture. Running dual-channel memory on an A64 has at best a 5% performance increase. A dual-cored CPU will not require faster memory than DDR1 for quite some time. Anand wrote an article on this exact subject not long ago.

Chances are that users who spend $200+ on an NF4 SLI board now will want to be able to upgrade to a dual-cored CPU 14 months from now. Anyone in their right mind would want to double their computing power with a simple CPU upgrade. Motherboard upgrades are a huge hassle. On top of that, who wants to buy new memory? For a photoshop user, 2GB of DDR1 will surely be faster than 1GB of DDR2. This was the same situation when DDR1 came out. I used the KT133A chipset long past the introduction of DDR chipsets, while intel users were stuck using Rambus.

I can't believe you're downplaying upgrade paths. A year ago you were probably downplaying the importance of AMD-64. :thumbsdown:

 

[SickBeast]

I suppose it would demoralize the intel engineers if they were told to dissect the A64 in an attempt to bring the P4 design up to snuff. They've known about the onboard memory controller for years now but have done nothing about it. It's obvious to me that they view themselves as the market leader and pay little attention to what AMD does.

 

[Philippine Mango]

In this situation, I think you got a VERY GOOD DEAL! I paid $200 for a P4 2.8C and you paid $230 for a 3.4GHZ Prescott! You should be happy with the deal you got, then agian I purposly got mine for overclocking (@3.51GHz). If you overclock yours past 3.4GHZ or 3.5GHZ, it should beat a northwood clock for clock performance wise because thats how they are (I'm sure some will agree). The northwoods beat prescotts up to 3.4-3.5GHZ then after that the prescotts do better. Be happy with what you got and if I were you, I would overclock it. Then agian I overclock anything with a way to change the FSB or multiplier. Put it this way, if your still disappointed with what you purchased, atleast you didn't buy a mac! 😛 IMO!

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
socket 939 indeed has many more times a chance of being compatable in the future vs socket 775. It's a crap shoot ! Where are you putting your money ? On Intel ? ( well you work for them, but...)

It's not really a crap shoot. All signs are pointing to the Dothan as being the future for intel's CPUs. The P4 has been discontinued AFAIK. They recently cancelled the 4ghz model. This means that S775 is already a dead platform.

History tends to repeat itself, and intel has a history of changing its socket design at least once per year. They make gallons of money on chipset sales and this type of corporate behaviour helps fuel the fire.

 

[Lithan]

Hmm... Gururu. I said The difference between A64 and and P4E would be 10-12*C @ load with a very good heatsink and 15-20*C with a very poor heatsink. Their testing found the difference to be 14*C with a heatsink that falls somewhere between the two, and you think that disputes me? Also, do I need to point out that their A64 was reading under 40*C


23w*.30c/w = 6.9*C when compairing a slightly faster clocked p4e to a p4c... so my numbers fall almost perfectly in line with their testing. Didn't you notice that?

Wingznutz, I've owned about 20 motherboards in the past two years. About 18 of them read low. About ten of them read REALLY low. Without overclocking (and on some, such as p4p800, with overclocking) I could easily get subambient readings on silent air or water. 2 or three read low in an amount that varied from bios to bios, but was always low. Two of them tops were even close to accurate. And reading about them in forums, everyone said things like "Just subtract 15*C from whatever (motherboard X) reads because it reads high." What were these people basing this on? That's right, their "hands-on experience" with their other board telling them their processor was 15*C cooler than this board.