P4 assessment links...I'm worried INTEL is getting away with it.

[Rigoletto]

The Links

I have seen P4 reviews on various sites but the most prominent is Tom's Hardware. Here I have listed the "conclusion" kind of page on various sites of P4 reviews and graded them broadly.

Negative(ish):

Anand

<a target=new href="http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/p4preview/page16.asp

Particularly mixed:

[L=Tom's latest Intel modified benchmark]http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/00q4/001125/index.html">FiringSquad</a>

Tom's harsh revision to P4 benchmark

Tom's original P4 review

Register


&quot;Positivish&quot; though mixed:

Ace's Hardware

Sharkyextreme

Hothardware

Hardocp

I would not say that Sharkyextreme or Hothardware have proved balanced in their appraisals, but that leaves plenty other more credible reviews.

Now I spent a little time a month or so ago looking up the details on Pentium 4 architecture. I also zoomed over to Tom's Hardware for a lot of P4 reviewing.

The Point

What I am really concerned with is with the prompt rejigging Intel does with reoptimising whatever programs they can find in time in order to create new articles and confusion about whether the P4 is good or bad. We KNOW that SSE2 will make a difference if support really rematerialises. But think,
does this reoptimising really reflect the applications you will be able to find or cost effectively use in the foreseeable future? What happened to MMX and 3DNow!, or even SSE?
what is important in practice, performance with legacy applications which you have already paid for and learned, or a possible performance gain in usually a year down the road, which you'll have to pay for all over again? People, 90% these software houses don't really care about you. They will use SSE2 optimisation in new upgrade products and won't be giving away SSE2 patches for free. It would erode the difference and motivation for their future upgraded version.

What we have basically is what looks like a theory question. Do we prefer legacy performance or the potential for added gains in certain tasks in the future?

I would however say that there is too much obviously against the latter suggestion of going for the P4. Because now this chip doesn't actually perform better in many applications, so adoption of the P4 is premature. Intel has gone for clock speed and memory bandwidth, and seemingly treated raw FPU and Integer performance with contempt.

What I was basically concerned enough to write the article about is that Intel is trying to cloud the issue. It got negative performance results so now is rewriting a few benchmarks (as if trying to put pressure on reviewers' methodology was not enough before). What saddens me is that they are creating a confusion amongst the buying public, who will end up saying &quot;well, it does very well in some things and not quite as strong as others. It has its good points. And it IS Intel. If we want modern performance, reliability and compatibility there's no reason not to go for this&quot;
The old corporate lobotomy trick.

 

[Rigoletto]

I have discovered a bug in this forum: my post when I try to edit it is different from the version on the screen before.
Tom's postitive appraisal of P4

 

[astroview]

I saw cnn while I was waiting for my plane at the airport, and their &quot;review&quot; mentioned that AMD was good at a lot of stuff. Also, they said that gamers would benefit from the P4, and office users wouldn't notice the difference.

Although they didn't use numbers, it looked like the average consumer was getting some of our rumblings.

 

[mschell]

It may interest you to know that most OEM system buyers(where most of Intel?s chips go)do not read Internet hardware reviews. Purchase decisions are made from test and evaluations in the print media - ZD publications, PC World, Computer Shopper ect, or the OEM's themselves.
Many previous Intel based systems owners replace their systems with newer Intel based systems just like many Chevy owners trade the old Chevy for a new one, regardless of the fact that Chevy's aren't the best performing cards in the world. So whatever anyone says on the Internet is really a moot point except to the hardware performance enthusiasts who get grossly overexcited about small performance differences.
They say the P4 performs really badly but the reality is it performs ten times better than a P-II 300MHz system it's most likely replacing, most OEM owners replace systems every three to four years at best.
The subject of you're post reads &quot;I'm worried INTEL is getting away with it&quot; - what exactly are you worried about? That people will be fooled into buying a dog of a computer system when they could have bought an Athlon based system and lived happily ever after.
Or that the P4 won't be a failure to add to the list of Intel past failures, who knows, if the P4 flops it could drive Intel out of the CPU business - AMD could then charge whatever it wished for CPU's and then everyone should be very happy and not worried a bit about anything.

 

[Wingznut]

&quot;... regardless of the fact that Chevy's aren't the best performing cards in the world.&quot;

Chevrolet makes video cards now? Wow.

So, if I were to buy a Camero video card, would I have to get a mullet haircut too?



( Just kidding, man. )

 

[FreakyD]

I just realized that with closeness of performance between the Pentium 3 and 4, basically not a 50% increase in performace with a 50% increase in clock speed, wouldn't a nice dual Pentium 3 be a much better alternative as a workstation? I looked at the Dell website to see what exactly they were selling the Pentium 4 as.. and it's an entry level workstation! So despite the brand new chip, it's still nothing new in terms of performance. At least that's how Dell sees it. I don't know what market the Pentium 4 is currently going to be good for. Real workstations should just go with a dual Pentium 3 format. Gamers would be happy with a nice Athlon 1.2, unless you're really a Quake 3 die-hard and are willing to spend tons just for those extra meaningless frames at that level. So, what's left is an expensive system which underperforms for serious users.. I have to believe that what's left is the ignorant user. People who do no research on what they buy and see a flashy Pentium 4 with 1.5 ghz and consider it's the latest and greatest and have to have it. I can believe this because only recently I was asked to replace a machine at work because the user just had to have a Pentium 3 over his Pentium 2. He had no comprehension of what speed either system was but just saw that some people were getting Pentium 3's and assumed they were so much better because of the little sticker on front. He did however have a Pentium 2 450 with a BX chipset and the Pentium 3's were 500 on an i810 chipset... Just thought I'd make a point of how people don't care to pay attention to what they're getting, just what the sticker says.

 

[Rigoletto]

I think people could be a bit shocked at the FPU performance for a budget workstation... horrible. These kind of people use familiar apps and want a chipset that doesn't make mistakes. That is not what new model lines give you.
But yeah, the tragic thing is that no matter how hard Intel's techs thought in order to make this chip, people buy it on brand recognition!