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Sep 9th, 2002, 06:09 AM
#1
Thread Starter
Fanatic Member
Athlon versus Pentium
I get the feeling this has been asked before ( ), but is there any reason why I should spend loads of money on a PC with a 2.0 Pentium 4 when I can get a much cheaper one with an Athlon 2000?
Cheers, m'dears.
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Sep 9th, 2002, 06:15 AM
#2
Not really - in most cases an Athlon XP is faster than the equivalent Pentium IV (i'm not sure which cases it isn't)
From what I have seen, the main reason Pentiums are so popular is because people know the name (all the advertising!).
I was going to buy a processor myself I would go for Athlon. But as I sometimes get bits for free from work (all Pentium based), I haven't got one yet
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Sep 9th, 2002, 06:47 AM
#3
Thread Starter
Fanatic Member
That's pretty much how I understood it.
Cheers, Si.
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Sep 9th, 2002, 06:56 AM
#4
PowerPoster
I don't think there are any cases where the P4 performs better than an equivelent speed Athlon
Don't forget though that the Athlon 2000 actually runs at 1.67 GHz, all they are saying is that it performs as well as a P4 2GHz
Athlon 2100 and 2200 are 1.73 and 1.8Ghz
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Sep 9th, 2002, 08:26 AM
#5
Fanatic Member
Although pentium currently does have the speed advantage, you don't see me running out to get one. Pentiums are $$$. I would get a little less speed for a lot less money. Better yet, i would wait for the clawhammer
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Sep 9th, 2002, 11:10 AM
#6
Thread Starter
Fanatic Member
Originally posted by chrisjk
Don't forget though that the Athlon 2000 actually runs at 1.67 GHz, all they are saying is that it performs as well as a P4 2GHz
Athlon 2100 and 2200 are 1.73 and 1.8Ghz
I wasn't aware of that. Sneaky buggers.
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Sep 9th, 2002, 12:26 PM
#7
New Member
The new athlon chipsets use quantispeed architecture that has a more efficient use of time splicing. This allow a 1.53 GHz machine to run as fast as a pentium 1.8 Ghz.
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Sep 9th, 2002, 03:39 PM
#8
Frenzied Member
I would put speed differences down to code optimization. Pentiums before the 4, if I remember correctly, have a pretty short instruction pipeline, while the 4 has something like a 20 stage pipeline. Thus, anything optimized for the short pipelines is going to run SOOO much slower then something optimized for a longer pipeline. So, until developers start optimizing for the p4, its going to run slower.
Z.
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Sep 9th, 2002, 04:46 PM
#9
Frenzied Member
Simple as this, Athlons can process more instructions per clock cycle. P4s can make more clock cycles per second, but what good is it if it take them so much longer to do a task.
Yes, the 2.8 Pentium 4 is the fastest chip available, but it's also the most expensive chip available, ringing in at around $500...
There are some nice Athlons out there, one of the most popular Athlons is the XP1600, since you can overclock it to 1.8GHz (XP2200+) or even higher on air-cooling (default speed is 1.4GHz) . If you aren't into overclocking check out the XP2200s, they are pretty cheap.
Originally posted by chrisjk
I don't think there are any cases where the P4 performs better than an equivelent speed Athlon
Yes, there are two examples. First of all anything SSE2-optimised, but I think there are like 3 applications known to man that are
And of course, BAPco Sysmark *ta-tssssh*
I'm bringing geeky back...
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Sep 9th, 2002, 08:30 PM
#10
Fanatic Member
there is no way in hell that an unbiased price/performance conscious buyer would ever consider a P4.
done and done.
-C
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Sep 9th, 2002, 09:27 PM
#11
Frenzied Member
Like I said, its not chip performance that is the issue here. The software needs to be written with a p4 in mind to take advantage of the chip.
Z.
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Sep 10th, 2002, 05:30 AM
#12
Thread Starter
Fanatic Member
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Sep 10th, 2002, 07:48 AM
#13
Addicted Member
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Sep 10th, 2002, 02:26 PM
#14
Hyperactive Member
Its like this..
The Pentium four is like a bug. the atholon is like that really slow person in your class. Now, that little ant is moving its legs real fast(2.5ghz) but itch time it moves its legs, it gets almost nowhere. Meanwhile the person walks and gets much further
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Sep 10th, 2002, 04:53 PM
#15
Fanatic Member
The P4 is an old school 1980s muscle car: mad horsepower and torque, but raw.
The Athlon is your modern Porsche 911: only V6, but incredibly refined.
and the Athlon costs less too
-C
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Sep 11th, 2002, 12:13 AM
#16
Junior Member
Originally posted by siyan
The P4 is an old school 1980s muscle car: mad horsepower and torque, but raw.
The Athlon is your modern Porsche 911: only V6, but incredibly refined.
and the Athlon costs less too
-C
very good example but in our case the 911 will cost less (being an athlon)
-Emo
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Sep 11th, 2002, 05:14 AM
#17
Addicted Member
Don't be so mean on Intel. They have the performance lead for now. Is it worth it? IMO, no. But their Northwood P4 is a LOT better than its predecessor Willamette P4.
Come on AMD get me those yummy Barton's for me to play games with!
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Sep 11th, 2002, 06:13 PM
#18
Fanatic Member
i suppose i do have to give kudos to intel for playing the PR game 100% right...although that will change with time..
AMD still wears dogma from the K6-2 days sadly
-C
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Sep 12th, 2002, 04:29 AM
#19
Addicted Member
What dogma from the k6-2 days?
I have a k6-2 at 300MHz since January 1998/99 (don't remember already) at it always worked just fine!
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Sep 12th, 2002, 04:38 AM
#20
The K6-2's were noticeably slower than the Pentium equivalents for some programs (I think is was for any that were floating-point intensive). Most well known was the Quake series, which were about 20%-30% slower on the AMD processors than their Intel equivalents
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Sep 13th, 2002, 04:23 AM
#21
Thread Starter
Fanatic Member
Thanks for the analogies, folks; it all now makes sense.
Athlon, here I come.
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Sep 22nd, 2002, 09:04 AM
#22
Monday Morning Lunatic
There were some comparisons of the difference the compiler made as well.
If you use the Intel C/C++ compiler, you can get *huge* speed increases on a P4
I refuse to tie my hands behind my back and hear somebody say "Bend Over, Boy, Because You Have It Coming To You".
-- Linus Torvalds
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Sep 22nd, 2002, 04:26 PM
#23
Fanatic Member
Originally posted by parksie
There were some comparisons of the difference the compiler made as well.
If you use the Intel C/C++ compiler, you can get *huge* speed increases on a P4
heh it probably has Anti-AMD deoptimizations too
-C
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Sep 22nd, 2002, 04:53 PM
#24
Frenzied Member
Is there an AMD optimized compiler too?
I'm bringing geeky back...
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Sep 22nd, 2002, 05:38 PM
#25
Monday Morning Lunatic
I don't think so.
GCC has the ability to optimise for an Athlon, though, whether it's had input from AMD I have no idea.
I refuse to tie my hands behind my back and hear somebody say "Bend Over, Boy, Because You Have It Coming To You".
-- Linus Torvalds
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Sep 22nd, 2002, 06:19 PM
#26
Frenzied Member
Nobody listened when I posted the same info, parksie... what am I doing wrong? =).
Z.
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Sep 23rd, 2002, 06:28 AM
#27
PowerPoster
Still, without Intel, we wouldn't be getting the sort of speeds that were getting today.
Can anyone else think of a company who made cpus when Intel started to become popular?
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Sep 23rd, 2002, 06:33 AM
#28
Monday Morning Lunatic
DEC, Motorola, ARM.
In fact, Intel bought the StrongARM, which was manufactured originally by DEC, I think.
You find them in PDAs and mobile phones now, because they're fast, efficient, and use very little power.
I refuse to tie my hands behind my back and hear somebody say "Bend Over, Boy, Because You Have It Coming To You".
-- Linus Torvalds
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Sep 25th, 2002, 07:29 AM
#29
So Unbanned
I've noticed ackward cases where an Intel is faster than an Athlon.
In VB for example.
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Sep 25th, 2002, 08:03 AM
#30
Addicted Member
Are you sure that's processor related?
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Sep 25th, 2002, 08:10 AM
#31
So Unbanned
Well when I use transparent gifs in a picture box, then blt. There's slow-down.
Could be my video card though....
Maybe.
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