What a load of BS (Intel marketing)

[CTho9305]

Text

The Intel(r) Pentium(r) 4 Processor
with HT Technology.

Enables virus scans and other
security tasks to run in the background
with minimal impact on performance.

That's their response to AMD64's NX memory protection? You'd be SIGNIFICANTLY more secure with XP SP2 or Linux on an AMD64 CPU than some lousy incomplete overpriced knockoff. What pisses me off most is that a lot of PHB's will probably think it's remotely similar to AMD's Enhanced Virus Protection.

edit: It's a flash add. (One of I think two cycled here)It starts off with:

Security-hardened PCs start off with this shield.

Intel Pentium 4 with HT Technology

 

[fs5]

kinda like their centrino commercials where the guy connects to wi-fi like a cell phone..
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=38&threadid=1228276&arctab=arc

 

[NikPreviousAcct]

Well, it's not bullshiot, but it's a way to describe to JoeDumbass what the benefit of a P4 is, over .... um... a P3. 😛 I agree, Intel needs a new marketing team.

 

[AFB]

Originally posted by: FFMCobalt
Well, it's not bullshiot, but it's a way to describe to JoeDumbass what the benefit of a P4 is, over .... um... a P3. 😛 I agree, Intel needs a new marketing team.

AMD needs a marketing team.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Ummm... that is one of the uses of HT technology, what's wrong with marketing it that way? Oh and FYI, AMD NX = Intel xD (not available yet from Intel, though)...

 

[sandorski]

It's true, but Lame.

 

[blakeatwork]

Originally posted by: CTho9305
Text

The Intel(r) Pentium(r) 4 Processor
with HT Technology.

Enables virus scans and other
security tasks to run in the background
with minimal impact on performance.

That's their response to AMD64's NX memory protection? You'd be SIGNIFICANTLY more secure with XP SP2 or Linux on an AMD64 CPU than some lousy incomplete overpriced knockoff. What pisses me off most is that a lot of PHB's will probably think it's remotely similar to AMD's Enhanced Virus Protection.

Aside from the fanboi frothing, I'm not sure where you see Intel=NX in that quote? All it says it that the HT reduces the CPU impact of background usage...

I suggest a reading comprehension course, followed by detox... or maybe just electrotherapy...

😛

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: blakeatwork

Originally posted by: CTho9305
Text

The Intel(r) Pentium(r) 4 Processor
with HT Technology.

Enables virus scans and other
security tasks to run in the background
with minimal impact on performance.

That's their response to AMD64's NX memory protection? You'd be SIGNIFICANTLY more secure with XP SP2 or Linux on an AMD64 CPU than some lousy incomplete overpriced knockoff. What pisses me off most is that a lot of PHB's will probably think it's remotely similar to AMD's Enhanced Virus Protection.

Aside from the fanboi frothing, I'm not sure where you see Intel=NX in that quote? All it says it that the HT reduces the CPU impact of background usage...

I suggest a reading comprehension course, followed by detox... or maybe just electrotherapy...

😛

The rest of the add implies that this improves security. It's a flash ad.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: sandorski
It's true, but Lame.

Is it even true? I did a timed antivirus scan...

Xeon 2.4B with HT
1GB DC DDR333
Serverworks GC-LE
SCSI RAID1 on cacheing controller
WinServer2003

versus

Athlon64 3000+
1GB DDR400
K8T800
Single SCSI drive
Win2000SP4

and its trusty sidekick

AthlonXP 1800+
256MB DDR266
nForce2
Single SCSI drive
Win2000SP4


Results:Xeon:
11m 53sec

AthlonXP:
~10 min (didn't get to time it to the second)

Athlon64:
6m 32sec

All three scanned the same set of files with the same settings and the same antivirus definitions. These are files you'd find on many servers (a Microsoft Office2000 Administrative Installation Point for distribution to network clients). This is a task a server would do once a day (at least). It would also do them when the files needed to go out to a client system. The A64 is a baby Opteron and it pretty much mops the floor with a HT Xeon. Even an AthlonXP 1800+ is faster. With 1/4 the RAM! :Q

I don't think HT is necessarily the magic bullet for antivirus scanning. Antivirus software wants control of everything. If the processor is trying to run another thread, the AV software will want to babysit that thread too, and I don't know if AV software is multithreaded itself. So... another data point to consider. 😉

 

[blakeatwork]

Originally posted by: CTho9305

Originally posted by: blakeatwork

Originally posted by: CTho9305
Text

The Intel(r) Pentium(r) 4 Processor
with HT Technology.

Enables virus scans and other
security tasks to run in the background
with minimal impact on performance.

That's their response to AMD64's NX memory protection? You'd be SIGNIFICANTLY more secure with XP SP2 or Linux on an AMD64 CPU than some lousy incomplete overpriced knockoff. What pisses me off most is that a lot of PHB's will probably think it's remotely similar to AMD's Enhanced Virus Protection.

Aside from the fanboi frothing, I'm not sure where you see Intel=NX in that quote? All it says it that the HT reduces the CPU impact of background usage...

I suggest a reading comprehension course, followed by detox... or maybe just electrotherapy...

😛

The rest of the add implies that this improves security. It's a flash ad.

I'm still not sure where you derive a direct comparison to NX... Yea, the first bit "Keep your PCs secure while keeping your workforce productive" is a little misleading, but the rest of the ad is quite plain in saying it reduces CPU congestion and whatnot.

Still you should go for the electrotherapy... 😀

 

[Zebo]

Little A-XP owning a xeon...LOL. Love to see real world tests instead of Intel bankrolled benchmark suites😛

Hey Mech why panda as opposed the AVG?🙂

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: CTho9305
The rest of the add implies that this improves security. It's a flash ad.

Then put up the rest of the ad. As it is, the part that comes up makes you look like a fool.
Hyperthreading dramatically increases performance when virus scan kicks in.

Edit I see your edit now. I was slow. Still it says nothing about AMD nor the NX capability nor Intel's upcoming version of NX. It just says the truth that a P4 with HT is minimally impacted when the virus scan kicks in when an Intel chip without HT is majorly slowed down.

 

[gsellis]

Think of this though, you have to have an OS that supports NX. Coming, but not here until August for XP. And yes, theoretically, HT can benefit an AV monitor as stated. It does not state that it will stop viruses without AV software, which we know NX can do.

I don't see this as any big deal. Did you drink a Jolt for breakfast? 😀 (note that this is humor)

As for PHBs, they can be worse than virii, and NX does not stop them!

BTW, Intel did not magically decide to add xD to the Prescott chip in this last month. Already there, like HT was in the Northwood. Just not visible to the naked eye. 😉

 

[InlineFive]

You do realize that all the NX engine does is help prevent Buffer Overruns?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Zebo
Little A-XP owning a xeon...LOL. Love to see real world tests instead of Intel bankrolled benchmark suites😛

Hey Mech why panda as opposed the AVG?🙂

John uses online AV scanners quite a bit, and particularly recommended the Panda one to me so I added a link to it. The Symantec one has port-scanning capabilities so I left it in there for that reason. Does AVG have a free online scan too? I need to just make a whole page of security links and then link to that, I guess.

Yeah, the Little AthlonXP That Could... 😀 I was quite amused to see it pull that off. The kicker is that all three of the systems in the test actually HAVE had this exact role at work (serving the Office AIP on the LAN), or will have it in the future in the case of the Xeon, which is a Dell that my employers bought.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

mechBgon,
A) Either he 2.4B doesn't have HT, or it uses the first version of HT Intel came out with, that version wasn't as effiicient as the one used in P4's and more modern Xeons.
B) HT helps when multitasking. For example, you're working on a Powerpoint presentation while your AV does a scan in the background. AFAIK, antivirus software is not multithreaded.
C) the benefits of HT are only comparable between two similar processors with and without HT
D) You can't directly compare these three results for the benefits of HT because of wide differences in the computer configurations, in this case clearly AMD's architecture is faster for the task than Intel's (as can be seen by the 1800+ beating the 2.4B).

CTho, like I said in my earlier post, Intel's xD bit is their response to AMD's NX bit. I don't know what you have against that ad, it's completely factual and only claims that HT enhances speed when running background tasks such as an AV, which is true.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle
mechBgon,
A) Either he 2.4B doesn't have HT, or it uses the first version of HT Intel came out with, that version wasn't as effiicient as the one used in P4's and more modern Xeons.
B) HT helps when multitasking. For example, you're working on a Powerpoint presentation while your AV does a scan in the background. AFAIK, antivirus software is not multithreaded.
C) the benefits of HT are only comparable between two similar processors with and without HT
D) You can't directly compare these three results for the benefits of HT because of wide differences in the computer configurations, in this case clearly AMD's architecture is faster for the task than Intel's (as can be seen by the 1800+ beating the 2.4B).

CTho, like I said in my earlier post, Intel's xD bit is their response to AMD's NX bit. I don't know what you have against that ad, it's completely factual and only claims that HT enhances speed when running background tasks such as an AV, which is true.

A) It's brand-new as of a couple months ago, and yes, it does have HT. I can't believe you'd think I can't tell if a computer has HT or not 😕

B through D) well duh. 😉 But the reality is, we bought a computer to do this job in the real world, day in, day out. I'm daring to compare it to some competing products that might have given us more performance for our money. Something wrong with that? Didn't think so. 😉

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle
B) HT helps when multitasking. For example, you're working on a Powerpoint presentation while your AV does a scan in the background. AFAIK, antivirus software is not multithreaded.
C) the benefits of HT are only comparable between two similar processors with and without HT.

Yeah I thought it was funny to say HT does nothing and then run a single program benchmark. Why not instead do the same test with two programs (one CPU intensive and one being the virus scanner) and post here again? Then it will address the thread topic: does HT help minimize performance drops when the virus scan kicks in.

Yes there are better processors for less money. But that doesn't mean the ad is incorrect (that HT minimizes performance drop when the virus scanner kicks in).

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
A) It's brand-new as of a couple months ago, and yes, it does have HT. I can't believe you'd think I can't tell if a computer has HT or not 😕

B through D) well duh. 😉 But the reality is, we bought a computer to do this job in the real world, day in, day out. I'm daring to compare it to some competing products that might have given us more performance for our money. Something wrong with that? Didn't think so. 😉

My apologies, on point A: I was misinformed, 😱. The Xeon 2.4B not only has HT but I'm pretty sure it has the newer HT after checking Intel's website. Again, my apologies I thought the Xeon 2.4B's architecture was closer to the P4B's (feature-wise) when it wasn't.

As for the rest, that's all well and good but what exactly does that have to do with HT and this thread then? 😉 Sure these benchmarks may be relevent in your specific case, but these aren't competing products (Xeon and AXP 1800+ in the same market?!?! 😕 )

IMHO, if you're a company looking for a server right now, dual Opterons are looking mighty fine. You should talk your company into buying those instead 😀

 

[mechBgon]

If I ever find free time and a suitable second benchmark, I'll certainly try to oblige 😉 I'm not saying HT has no uses. I'm sure it does. But if you want your antivirus scan over quickly, so your Office-deployment GPO can finish applying and your employee can log onto their computer and begin their workday, it sure looks like there are better architectures for accomplishing that. Call me crazy. 😛

Background: At work, we use VirusScan Enterprise 7.0. It is very thorough and I've had scans on my A64 that run ~ 2 hours and total about 900 thousand files when I have several AIP's laying around after an update of my AIP-making batchfiles. Even a normal scan goes through about 450000 files. The extreme filecount is because VSE 7.0 extracts layer after layer of compressed files to get at their insides, so a .CAB file containing .CHM files containing a bunch of HTML help files gets exhaustively expanded and examined. With .CHM's being a vector for Web-based attacks, I'm certainly not going to exempt them either.

Bigger picture: people wanting high performance during an AV scan might want to think about SCSI. Yes, the heretic speaks! :evil:

 

[Wingznut]

Enables virus scans and other
security tasks to run in the background
with minimal impact on performance.

Multitasking is the gist of this ad, and I don't see why you'd call it BS. It is a completely separate issue from buffer overflows (NX and xD).

Also, if you don't think similar (and even more misleading) slides can be found from AMD, ATi, nVidia, etc... You are sorely mistaken.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
If I ever find free time and a suitable second benchmark, I'll certainly try to oblige 😉 I'm not saying HT has no uses. I'm sure it does. But if you want your antivirus scan over quickly, so your Office-deployment GPO can finish applying and your employee can log onto their computer and begin their workday, it sure looks like there are better architectures for accomplishing that. Call me crazy. 😛

Background: At work, we use VirusScan Enterprise 7.0. It is very thorough and I've had scans on my A64 that run ~ 2 hours and total about 900 thousand files when I have several AIP's laying around after an update of my AIP-making batchfiles. Even a normal scan goes through about 450000 files. The extreme filecount is because VSE 7.0 extracts layer after layer of compressed files to get at their insides, so a .CAB file containing .CHM files containing a bunch of HTML help files gets exhaustively expanded and examined. With .CHM's being a vector for Web-based attacks, I'm certainly not going to exempt them either.

Bigger picture: people wanting high performance during an AV scan might want to think about SCSI. Yes, the heretic speaks! :evil:

They're not talking necessarily about completing the scan *quickly*; they're talking about running the scan in the background and not having it impact your *other* programs (so that you don't *have* to wait for the scan to finish before you start doing 'real' work). I admit the ad makes it sound like more of an improvement than it probably is in real life, but since when has advertising not been dumb? 😛

 

[Regs]

Also, if you don't think similar (and even more misleading) slides can be found from AMD, ATi, nVidia, etc... You are sorely mistaken.

Oh please, you know AMD has been getting the shaft for years. Why don't you buy my Celeron back?

 

[Wingznut]

Originally posted by: Regs

Also, if you don't think similar (and even more misleading) slides can be found from AMD, ATi, nVidia, etc... You are sorely mistaken.

Oh please, you know AMD has been getting the shaft for years. Why don't you buy my Celeron back?

"the shaft"??? 😕

Wtf are you talking about, and what has this got to do with ads?

 

[mechBgon]

All right, I'm being an anti-Intel grouch, sorry 😉 Need more coffee, I guess. 😀

A point to ponder: when I began working here, I brought in my own dual-Pentium3 733. I had built it for this type of job, figuring you couldn't beat a true dualie for antivirus scanning while doing office work... right?

Wrong. From a subjective point of view, my AthlonXP 1700+ was far better in performance at the same total MHz (2 x 733 versus 1466). I sold the dual-P3 and haven't looked back. Make of that what you will.