Thunderbird Rules The Pentium 4

[Zephyr]

<< Why are AMD people so uptight >>


See the whole point you're not getting is that some people actually has a problem with other people lying. Us AMD folks have for years now been subjected to listening not only to Intels FUD lies (at least they're excused, they do it for the money, though I'd say it's at the very least morally questionable, and wouldn't be allowed where I live, but that's really a different discussion) Worse is the lies Intel zealots have been spreading about AMD in order to justify spending big bucks for their Intel system. When most of these people first encountered the Athlon classic and saw it sweeping the floor with their pityful Katmai's most of them were in denial and then resorted to arguing at the lowest level in the book by claming these machines were unstable without a single proof for this. Needless to say now, a year later, most of them are running Tbirds and thanking us AMD people for showing them the light. Still there are a few left who are unwilling to realize times have changed and still live in a dreamworld where they can still, in their own mind feel, superiour to AMD users because since they spendt more money on Intel it must be a better product.

 

[BW]

Even if i had a p4 i wouldve posted the same. It seems like this place is getting like the old 3dfx forums. Sure i could not come back in but this place used to be pretty good.Just so you know i have ben thinking of getting a p4 but dont want to get the board and cpu and have intel change it all in a few months.Atleast thats what i heard. If i knew they were going to stay with the same setup for atleast a year then i may go ahead and biuld one. I always like to try new things when they come out.Thats why i want to try the p4.Then i'll decide on my own what i like.

 

[NOS440]

Zephyr that was a pile of AMD zealot whinning BULL !!!!!!!!

BW In this fast passes CPU world we live in there is no secure upgrade path ever. Now if you want a P-4 don't let the motherboard scare you. Yes it is going to get changed at the end of 2001 and the thing you have to understand is that by that time the P-4 for the current Motherboard will most likely be reaching at least 2 GHZ and will easily OC to say 2.4 ghz the first releases are going 122 FSB without a Hitch 122 X 20 = 2.44 GHZ. I would say that that kind of speed will be all anyone needs well into 2003 in my opinion. When thats not enough then you can change the Motherboard so you see there is a upgrade path that people aren't shedding a light on. let me tell you once you have one you will not regret it they are by definition Stable and smooth as I have ever witnessed.

 

[joohang]

Ditto zephyr,

Windows 2000 automatically installed and configured everything for me for both my Duron and Athlon setup.

 

[Zephyr]

<< Zephyr that was a pile of AMD zealot whinning BULL !!!!!!!! >>


Call it what you like NOS. It's the truth as I see it

 

[cpars]

No need to get excited!!!!:disgust::frown:
Couple a years ago when I had intel I was proud of them too :Q

Soon as Dewalt comes out with a processor Im gettin one of those

 

[Jarhead]

Hey here is the scoop for those dense folks out there....

NOS440 is yanking on your leg.

He is all mixed up topside and he is getting this board mixed
up with his online Amway customers. He has is working ever so
hard to get to the Emerald or Diamond level.

At least we didn't hear much while he was watching the
700 Club this morning.

Whats that about Faye Baker, NOS440?

You must have some life pal, looks like you live here.

My 1.2Gb T-bird screams, +15k 3DMark99, no sweat, MB+CPU=300.00 USD
(and that is with a TNT2 pal!)

 

[RichieZ]

&quot;My 1.2Gb T-bird screams, +15k 3DMark99, no sweat, MB+CPU=300.00 USD
(and that is with a TNT2 pal!)&quot;

Um what does it score in 3dmark2000? 3dmark is a pretty useless comparison, but if you are going to compare at least use the same program.

The AMD system @1.2gHz should be getting more that 7828, i score 6821 w/ a P3@791.
click here

Obviously there is some tweaking to be done.

 

[NOS440]

Jarhead your name say's it all doesn't it !!! As if anyone cares what your weak Athlon does in 3Dmark99 I will run it in a minute and completely bury that score. To bad you have to resort to such silly tacyics to defend your weak CPU and system

 

[NOS440]

Hey Private Pile (a sh!t)

hows 21647 3Dmark99 loving make your Jarhead feel !!!

 

[Priit]

Since when is the 3DMark most important measurement of computer's speed ? I found it to be pretty inaccurate and it's overall score is meaningless number. When P4 can get bigger random numbers out from a demo, it's okay with me, but what has that to do with computer's performance in other (useful) apps ? Oh yeah, P4 seems to be clearly faster in Quake3 that T-bird, too. Now, is there any other apps that P4 owners would agree to benchmark against T-bird on their system ? What's that bull about &quot;apps are not optimized for P4&quot; ? If P4 is only good for playing Quake3 I would buy some Playstation instead...

For NOS440 who likes to call everyone &quot;AMD zealots&quot;: You are the biggest INTEL ZEALOT i have ever seen I have nothing against older Intel products, I have no problem with buying sth. that has Intel logo on it. I'm planning to put dual-P2 box together for toying with linux at home cause I love SMP and AMD hasn't released SMP-capable mobos/chipsets (yet). P3 (Coppermine core) is nice processor, only way too expensive. P4 isn't even as powerful as P3 and it's even much more expensive...

 

[cpars]

LOL NOS. Does it play pac-man and donkey kong really really fast too. :Q

 

[NOS440]

Pritt I wasn't the one that came in here bragging about some score in a 3 year old benchmark beating my chest like king kong. Jarhead did I just fired up the benchmark to show him the benchmark is meaningless today 93Dmark99. As far as 3Dmark2000 what you don't seem to understand is that it is a good measure of over all system performance for GAMERS which is what I am. I will repeat I know the P-4 is not the fastest at all Apps and am sick of saying this. However it is blazing fast and ultra smooth in every game I throw at it. The other apps I use it runs just fine so FOR ME it is the perfect CPU/System for the $ I got it for if you feel that the Thunderbird is your best choice then more power to ya.

 

[Priit]

NOS440: Mostly agreed, but to be more exact, P4 overall performs a little bit better than T-bird on 3D FPS games, it's not so hot in strategy games and RPG's. If you are die-hard Quake3 fan, doesn't care about money and performance on apps/other games, then maybe really P4 is suitable for you. In other cases, T-bird is more sensible choice. Agreed ?

 

[NOS440]

Most definitly I wouldn't go out and buy one and pay full boat right now I would wait till the price dropped drastically even though I'm a FPS player.


I still think that most of you aren't looking into the near future as far as what a CPU will need to run its potential in a short time. The Thunderbird and the P-3 are crying for memory bandwidth that there design will not produce even with DDR. When the Thunderbird scales up it is going to have great difficulties keeping up with the P-4. At this point the thunderbird has a edge but I think without a major system design change it is in for a rough time by years end.

 

[Priit]

T-bird doesn't need huge memory bandwidth to perform well, that's why DDR-RAM T-bird systems aren't so much faster that SDRAM ones (but DDR-RAM still brings about 20% performance increase overall). P4 on the other hand lives on memory bandwidth and looks really bad when we take that away from it (Tomsharware tests). I don't know about T-birds future, but currently avalible P4 looks like dead end to me (sth. like the first Pentum 60 and Pentium 66 were). I think we better wait and see what Palominos and next-generation P4 will bring us...

 

[NOS440]

well reviews I've read state 0 to 10% on DDR

you also have to take the fact that future released apps are going to demand more memory bandwidth. I have heard rumors of AMD looking at Rdram themselves and from a Intel supporters view that scares me.

 

[Zephyr]

<< well reviews I've read state 0 to 10% on DDR
you also have to take the fact that future released apps are going to demand more memory bandwidth. >>


On todays apps yes.. simply because they do not benefit heavily from more memory bendwidth. By the same measurement the P4's high memory bandwidth doesn't help it either. Basically it boils down to that future apps will benefir from both DDR and RDRAM. True RDRAM has a higher BW, but IMO the weak achitechture of the P4 more than makes up for this small benefit. In terms of buying a furture proof machine it's a moot point nayway since the money you save on buying a similar or better preforming Tbird over a P4 today is better spent on future upgrades anyway.


<< I have heard rumors of AMD looking at Rdram themselves and from a Intel supporters view that scares me. >>


Actually AMD had RDRAM on their roadmap on the WinHEC '99 presentation of the K7. It was however later dropped due to the high cost of RDRAM. However AMD do have the neccesary licensing to make RDRAM based cpu's and chipsets. It may make sense eventually to do this, if RDRAM does succeed, I for one however agree with industry analysts who doubt that will happen. SDRAM is a much more cost effective way to produce ram and it has by no means reached the end of it's life cyclus yet, QDR will be the next step. With RDRAM needing s increadibly high clockspeeds compared to SDRAM in order to compete, I don't see it as better technology, in fact it seems like using the serial interface over a parrallel is a huge tradeoff iin the quest for more bandwidth for which there is really very little need at this time.

 

[AdamK47]

<< He is all mixed up topside and he is getting this board mixed
up with his online Amway customers. He has is working ever so
hard to get to the Emerald or Diamond level. >>



Hey now! I work for Amway.... errr Alticor now. I don't do that distribution and sales crap. I work at their world headquarters in Ada, MI as a Computer Operator. I monitor their International AS400, Quixtar web servers, and Mainframe jobs.

 

[frustrated2]

Well said Zephyr/Priit I to think that any platform that you buy right now probably will change in the very near future the computer industry seems to be on the verge of some major reconstuction to allow it to jump to the next performance level. But I am also sure that my p4 platform will take me to lets say 2-2.5 ghz before they make the change and they may even continue to make cpus to fit it for a while after the change so this should have a reasonably long life (although a long lived platform for me is 1 year anymore ). I could easily stay with what I have for many years with probably only hdd and video card upgrades.

 

[NOS440]

Zephyr I agree with most of what you said but balk at your below statement.



<< On todays apps yes.. simply because they do not benefit heavily from more memory bendwidth. By the same measurement the P4's high memory bandwidth doesn't help it either. Basically it boils down to that future apps will benefir from both DDR and RDRAM. >>



Now the story is being twisted to defend DDRs weakness. When the benchmarks were done at tom's hardware. Clock for Clock the P-4 Coupled with Rdram in Memory intensive Apps smoked the Thunderbird with DDR. I see this only getting worse without a complete system overhaul for AMD in the near future.

Pentium 4 versus Thunderbird another recount !!

 

[Zephyr]

<< Now the story is being twisted to defend DDRs weakness. When the benchmarks were done at tom's hardware. Clock for Clock the P-4 Coupled with Rdram in Memory intensive Apps smoked the Thunderbird with DDR. I see this only getting worse without a complete system overhaul for AMD in the near future. >>


First of all, niether cpu &quot;smoked&quot; the other in any of the bechmarks in the link you provided. In FlasK, we were talking highly SSE2 vs. poorly E3Dnow! opmized code, in exactly the kind of application that can really benefit from SSE2, large amounts of huge code chunks that fits nicely into the 128bit SIMD that SSE2 is. Not a huge surprise, however neither a good allround measurement of cpu strenght. If your primary needs is to encode MPEG4 and money is not an object, by all means go with a P4.
In Sysmark, the Tbird won, regardless of BapCo having same mail address as Intel inc.
In Q3A, (we've beaten the Q3A horse to death, but you Intel guys seems to keep bringing it up for some reason ) yes Q3A does benefit from RDRAM, in 640x480, but since nobody plays in these low resolutions anyway but rather in resolutions where the vid. card is the bottleneck it becomes quite moot as a sellingpoint. This point of view is quite in accordance with my statement that system memory BW is not the bottleneck today in most apps, and games is certainly no exception not even Q3A. Your precious P4 will not yield more FPS in Q3A than a <200$ AMD cpu when you play in eg. 1024x768x32. (or higher)
About BapCo's socalled Webmark.. well did I mention thye have the same mail address as Intel inc.?

 

[NOS440]

Zephyr you never get the point do you!! The point I was making is that Memory intensive apps the P-4 gets better benifits from Rdram then the Thunderbird does from DDR the link wasn't for this beat that and so on.

The thing that you better start thinking about and Intel engineers carefully laid out was a balanced and semi future proof CPU AND SYSTEM. Thats what I will never figure about you AMD guy's is that you require so little from AMD!! All you think is important is that the thing has raw power not that it is well balanced smooth and does all apps well and when needed it comes thru with real Horse Power.

Now the Quake 3 issue. I like to bring up quake 3 because that its known far and wide as a vary memory hungry app and for the most part is a good indicator of games and other apps that are going to come at us in the future. I could careless about the difference between the FPS of the T-Bird and P-4. The one thing I do know is guy's that run T-Birds on the servers I play on used to give me fits trying to beat them and after the first night of the P-4 they were asking what I did to whip them so bad !!
I don't mean that the extra FSB did this its the smoothness it never misses a beat it take the game in Stride. Just to clarify the only thing that was changed in my system was CPU, MB and RAM. All other thing were equal. Also the same is true for Unreal !!

 

[Zephyr]

<< Zephyr you never get the point do you!! The point I was making is that Memory intensive apps the P-4 gets better benifits from Rdram then the Thunderbird does from DDR the link wasn't for this beat that and so on. >>


You can't reach that conclusion, unless you've seen a P4 on SDRAM that nobody else in the world has??? You've only seen the P4 on RDRAM so you can't determaine how much comes from the RDRAM's increased bandwitdht, howmuch comes from SSE2, how much from the 4x100MHz FSB... and so forth.


<< The thing that you better start thinking about and Intel engineers carefully laid out was a balanced and semi future proof CPU AND SYSTEM. >>




<< and for the most part is a good indicator of games and other apps that are going to come at us in the future. >>


I still say, buy a Tbird and the money you save are better spendt later down the road when those apps you speak of are actually released


<< Thats what I will never figure about you AMD guy's is that you require so little from AMD!! All you think is important is that the thing has raw power >>


Bigger is better! Sorry NOS but that's the way it is. Besides, real x87 FPU power is more flexible than some kind of SIMD crap that depends on wheter software developers feel like optimizing their apps for it or not.


<< not that it is well balanced smooth and does all apps well and when needed it comes thru with real Horse Power. >>


Yes that's right.. join the G3 whiners *LOL*
Basically it comes down to this... real x87 FPU is still the best allround solution, and bechmarks prove this...


<< The one thing I do know is guy's that run T-Birds on the servers I play on used to give me fits trying to beat them and after the first night of the P-4 they were asking what I did to whip them so bad !! >>


Most likely the latencies on the network you play on by far exceeds the cpu diffrences so it will matter very little really when we talk highend systems. I'm inclined to believe you're experiencing a positive psycological effect, a morale boost if you like, of having a new system which you like

 

[NOS440]

Zephyr as much as I like you I am going to have to advise you to go to a head shrinker you have odviously lost your mind