So Long CPU Wars. It Was Fun.

[mafia]

This should be in the CPUs and overclocking section. :S

 

[fleabag]

Originally posted by: techs

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: techs

Originally posted by: Fox5

Originally posted by: LikeLinus

Originally posted by: dighn

Originally posted by: FetusCakeMix
I didn't know there ever was a war. Intel makes superior chips.

you must have short memory. there was a period when AMD kicked ass (around the P4 era)

What was the cause of that though? Intel created the P4 to compete against AMDs whole Mhz war. Intel won the Mhz war, but lost a bit of marketshare because the overall performance wasn't as good clock for clock. It was a lesson learned and Intel came back strong. So yes, AMD had a couple of good years and good chips (I had 2-3 of those chips), but Intel is now dominating again. I doubt they will let their grip slip again for awhile.

At this point AMD is a niche market for enthusiest and nothing more. They simply cannot compete against Intel in production volume and sales. It's good to have them around to keep Intel on their toes..but they really need something revolutionary to beat Intel at this point.

Based on the research time frames involved, I really doubt the P4 was a counter to anything AMD did. The Athlon was on the market for what, less than 2 years before the P4 came out, and only clearly took a Mhz lead toward the end of that.

No, the Athlon represented the best of microprocessor design at the time it came out. The P4 represented what most thought would be the next big thing (including AMD, IBM, and Intel), and only physical limitations held it back. And even despite that, IBM is still going down the path of high clock speeds, but can handle it since they're high priced chips, and Intel outdid AMD at making an Athlon like processor.

BTW, AMD isn't as far behind in processor design as everyone thinks. They're more behind in manufacturing, with a manufacturing process a generation behind Intel in both performance and size. Add a generational improvement to AMD's cpus (~25% increase in speed, ~50% size reduction) and suddenly they'd become a hell of a lot more competitive. I have a feeling AMD's 32nm cpus will be a return to true competition. They won't beat Intel, but Intel will no longer wipe the floor with everything AMD has.

I think you meant to say p3 there? The Athlon caught up to the Pentium 3 in mhz about the 600-800 megahertz range. AMD was the first to 1 ghz.
And from what I remember at the time, the P4 WAS a result of the Athlon catching up to the Pentium in actual clock speed and that Intel was determined not to let that happen again so the skewed the P4 towards greater clock speed at the expensive of real world performance. When the P4 came out it was a something like 1.6 ghz and then it could only beat the Athlon 1ghz in benchmarks that favored clock speed. Athlons still ruled the roost until they upclocked the P4's into the 2.4 to 2.6 range. Even then on a price performance basis the AMD's were ahead.

And I agree the only thing holding back the AMD chips is Intels manufacturing prowess that allows it to put much larger cache on the cpu.

In fact, I don't think either chip has much of a design advantage anymore, since executing x86 instructions has pretty much evolved to its limits. Its now a question of who can put the most cache on the chip and the most cores and who can do it most cheaply.
In that area intel is about, I guess 2 years ahead.

Microprocessor design takes a long time, especially for a radically new design like the P4. The p4 was probably 5 years in the making when it came out. The effects of the Athlon's mhz advantage was only felt shortly before the P4 hit market, I really doubt the P4 was a reactionary design, especially because microprocessor design was skewing in the direction of the P4 anyway. Intel was the first with a P4 like design and the first to find it didn't work all that well, but everyone had one in the works.

I wish I had the old Toms Hardware articles from those times. Intel really didn't make a decision on how to proceed after the p3 until pushed by the athlons (actually the p2's since that what the p3's really were). They were working on several designs. When the Athlons came out Intel, or if you believe what you read, the marketing department, pushed intel towards the design that would produce the greatest clock speed. Intel's designers revealed a few years later that they were going to produce an improved p3 on the P4 die process and make a great processor. When the p4 proved a dead end, especially in laptops, Intel went back and took that improved p3 design, improved it some more, and made it on the latest process and added a lot of cache. You and I know the design as the Core processors.

You forgot the major step and that's the Pentium Ms which then led to the Core Processors.