Poll: Opinions on the Athlon 4.

[IdahoB]

I've always been an AMD boy, ever since I ditched my first Pentium (100MHz) for a 350MHz K6-2, then the Athlon A 700MHz, and now my lovely AXIA Y Thunderbird C running sweetly at 1500MHz.

I've been looking forward to the Athlon 4, hoping it was truly going to murder the Pentium 4, but from everything I've read it's not exactly stunningly new technology, rather a slight refinement of the core. While it does perform well in benchmarks, I still feel a little disappointed. When is AMD going to give us something really impressive so that we can point and laugh at Intel users? What do people know about the forthcoming Thoroughbred and Barton cores. Are we really going to have to wait until the Hammer family makes it to the desktop (not even on their roadmap) before we see something really special?

 

[Athlon4all]

Athlon 4 will not be worth upgrading lets say a 1.5GHz T-Bird to a 1.5GHz Athlon4, but it should be able to achieve higher clock speeds and hold it's own against Pentium 4 and Northwood up to 2.2GHz assuming it reaches to about 1.7-1.8GHz when Northwood gets to 2.2, by then (This is about end of 1H 2002) Thoroughbred comes out and then that will take it to 2GHz at least, with Northwood going up to 2.6. We will have to see.

 

[Swanny]

I think the first thing to be really new will be SOI technology in the Barton core. Until then I think it will be just core refinements and minor new features. But remember, those minor new features can add up to a lot of performance.

 

[IdahoB]

SOI doesn't actually mean all that much, it just allows them to ramp up the clock speed even more - so it doesn't excite me all that much.

 

[IdahoB]

^bump^

 

[Wingznut]

"SOI doesn't actually mean all that much, it just allows them to ramp up the clock speed even more..."

Maybe not even that. There are ways to get the same benefits that SOI gives, by using other methods in the process.

SOI is becoming arguably less attractive as time goes on.

 

[Eskimo]

I'm afraid you'll have to wait until K8 arrives to get something 'truly special'. Remember Intel took 5 years to take the Pentium Pro and radically change it (P4). The K7 will probally recieve minor updates, larger cache, maybe some more minor architectural changes. But the major changes will come when it's "hammer time"

 

[IdahoB]

^hot bumping^

 

[aznmist]

it's hammer time!

 

[jscobie]

well AMD needs to start worrying about the tualtulan...AMD needs a 64 bit processor to help them float in the server field, AMD and servers arent too happy right now especially since this INTEL tualtulan

 

[Pabster]

Huh? Tualatin isn't a "server" chip. Why should AMD be worried about the second coming of a 1.13+ GHz Pentium III?

 

[Raspewtin]

I think Intel will find the adoption of 64-bit chips will not be as good as they expected, even in the server arena.

 

[IdahoB]

AMD have their own 64bit offering as well, remember, and it has a lot of features the Intel64bit doesn't.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

my opinion: stupid name, awesome chip. Not worth upgrading from my 850 OC'ed to 7.5x133 yet though.

 

[igiveup]

You just have to love a company that doesn't require a freakin motherboard upgrade every time you want to do a CPU upgrade. GO AMD!!!!