The truth about AMD's PR rating.

[CTho9305]

Some people claim it's based on the P4, some claim it's based on Thunderbirds, some claim it is arbitrarily made up. AMD's explanation and a mirror (and on AMD's site, doesn't seem to work right now)

web archive of AMD's site around the time of the initial release

 

[mechBgon]

Summary, for those of us on dial-up?

 

[THUGSROOK]

i thought it was based on the P3?

 

[Corporate Thug]

Originally posted by: THUGSROOK
i thought it was based on the P3?

i thought it was based on the P4 400 mhz FSB :Q

 

[Sahakiel]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Summary, for those of us on dial-up?

Model numbers based on TBird.

 

[Megatomic]

Originally posted by: Sahakiel

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Summary, for those of us on dial-up?

Model numbers based on TBird.

True, though most refuse to believe this.

 

[mechBgon]

The last time I searched AMD's site for "Quantispeed"... well, let me try it real fast.

*tries it real fast*

link

Q: What does the 3200+ model mean?

A: This is a model number. AMD identifies the AMD Athlon XP processor using model numbers, as opposed to megahertz. Model numbers are designed to communicate the relative application performance among the various AMD Athlon XP processors. As additional evidence that performance is not based on megahertz alone: the AMD Athlon XP processor 3200+ operates at a frequency of 2.2GHz yet can outperform an Intel Pentium® 4 processor operating at 3.0GHz with an 800 FSB and HyperThreading on a broad array of real-world applications for office productivity, digital media and 3-D gaming.

Whether you buy that or not... (shrug). I guess AMD is not all on the same sheet of music Someone smack the violinist... thank you.

 

[Duvie]

Summary....

Initially looked quite good compared to a P4 with the Pr rating often times easily beating a p4 clocked at the pr rated speed...By the time it got to the end of the Barton line...Laughable and losing credibility....

I have always heard it was based on the tbird line and not just the 200fsb ones but the actual 266ddr boys...The problem was in the area everytime they jumped 66mhz or 1/2 a multiplier they constituted this to be a 100 pr rating points...It didn't even make sense against tbirds since the fsb was the same and only real xp advantage was the SSE commands...Against a P4 this would have never made sense....

Next blunders were what amd thought 333fsb, 400fsb and 512kb of L2 CACHE equated to...the barton line actually moved backwards in clock speed versus the xp 2800+ yet gained 400 pr points....I guess they looked silly when the 2800+ xp could beat the 3000+ Barton all day as well as the 3200+ in many applications....


If they meant to compare it to a P4 the reason it may have got ridiculous was that the P4 went from 400fsb and 256kb of l2 cache to 800fsb, 512kb of l2 cache, and HT....as well as the chipsets went dual channel ddr from pc2100 to current dual pc3200 stuff....Bottom line comparing to a P4 would make it difficult to hold same formula all the time yet they did for quite some time and then just lost us all with the Barton line....


Now these new mobile bartons are stating to look whacked as well with some rather confusing pr ratings....

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
The last time I searched AMD's site for "Quantispeed"... well, let me try it real fast.

*tries it real fast*

link

Q: What does the 3200+ model mean?

A: This is a model number. AMD identifies the AMD Athlon XP processor using model numbers, as opposed to megahertz. Model numbers are designed to communicate the relative application performance among the various AMD Athlon XP processors. As additional evidence that performance is not based on megahertz alone: the AMD Athlon XP processor 3200+ operates at a frequency of 2.2GHz yet can outperform an Intel Pentium® 4 processor operating at 3.0GHz with an 800 FSB and HyperThreading on a broad array of real-world applications for office productivity, digital media and 3-D gaming.

Whether you buy that or not... (shrug). I guess AMD is not all on the same sheet of music Someone smack the violinist... thank you.

Well, they never actually say that they picked the number based on the P4, only that it happens to be superior to a P4 whose clock is similar to the rating.

Originally posted by: Duvie
I have always heard it was based on the tbird line and not just the 200fsb ones but the actual 266ddr boys...The problem was in the area everytime they jumped 66mhz or 1/2 a multiplier they constituted this to be a 100 pr rating points...It didn't even make sense against tbirds since the fsb was the same and only real xp advantage was the SSE commands...Against a P4 this would have never made sense....

There's a LOT more than the SSE support that is different between the Tbird and Palomino (and all the other XP cores)

Next blunders were what amd thought 333fsb, 400fsb and 512kb of L2 CACHE equated to...the barton line actually moved backwards in clock speed versus the xp 2800+ yet gained 400 pr points....I guess they looked silly when the 2800+ xp could beat the 3000+ Barton all day as well as the 3200+ in many applications....

They probably used a similar sets of benchmarks to the paper I linked to in the original post and came up with that.

 

[mechBgon]

This isn't meant as a flame, but personally, I don't care a whole lot what the Quantispeed rating was based on in 2001, what it is based on now, or what it will be based on in the future. None of that changes how the processor actually performs, and how it actually performs is not very hard to establish by reading reviews, reading what people say here, and trying it for myself.

Cue the "yeah-but" arguments. I'm only gonna bother with the first one:

"yeah, but the average consumer doesn't do that research and so it misleads them" You're right, the average consumer doesn't do that research, and that's to Intel's advantage because Intel has 2.8GHz Flufferons. Yes? Yes. My personal opinion is that the Celeron is borderline morally-objectionable. I can respect Pentium4s as legit processors, starting with the 400MHz-bus Northwoods.

AnandTech's "Clash of the 'rons" article really underlined the ridiculousness of Celerons, when they are consistently humiliated by a P4 1.8A, to the point where the reviewer uses the phrases almost disturbing and truly dismal to describe the 2.6GHz Celeron. Why not keep making P4 1.8A's, then? Because 2.6GHz and 2.8GHz sound so much faster to the uninformed consumer.

People who live in glass houses... yeah. AMD's PR ratings aren't perfect, but they're the lesser of two evils by a long shot, IMHO.

 

[dqniel]

[In the beginning] I thought it was based more on a comparison against Pentiums than against their own 266fsb t-birds. But you are definitely right about it being laughable today...a 3.2c vs. a 3200+ Barton isn't even a competition in most cases. The Intel destroys it (and I'm even a proud AMD user)