If any of you have been following the saga on Tom's Hardware
for the past 2 weeks:-
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050603/index.html
this soap-opera is nearing its end. Tomorrow should see the final
report.
In the 4-synchronous apps setup, the AMD system did very poorly
on Divx. The testers jumped to the wrong conclusion that HT on
the Extreme 840 was the reason for the apparent far-superior Intel
performance. Much to their credit, the test team decided to run the
apps individually and discovered the real reason -- the Windows
process scheduler was giving slice-priority to the 840's 4-cores
(Dual-HT) in the Divx app.
Running the apps individually, the X2 4800+ is superior to the
Extreme 840 in all respects.
Meanwhile here are some other facts from the test:-
1. The AMD X2 system ( originally set up for SLI ) did not crash
once during the whole test sequence !!!
2. The Intel CPU ran at 68 degrees C case (just under the spec
limit of 69.8 ). The AMD CPU ran at 55 degrees C max.
3. The Intel system(s) crashed multiple times with multiple board
replacements - finally stable with a 955 board -- non-SLI
of course. ( For comparison, the AMD system had to be
reconfigured to non-SLI.... )
4. The AMD X2 4800+ is computationally superior to the Intel 840
in all 4 of the applications chosen. The very odd initial results
when all 4 apps were running in parallel were due to the
(automated) Windows process-scheduler allocating an
inordinately large time-slice to the Intel processor on Divx.
and here are some known facts from other tests.
The Extreme 840 takes roughly 80 watts (YES!) more power
( all from +12V ) than the AMD X2 when both cores are fully
loaded. Pretty obvious from the difference in case temps -- the
fan/heat-sinksare the 'boxed' versions from the respective
manufacturers. Add to that another 10-20 watts from the
Northbridge on Intel boards - AMD's memory-controller is
built-in. Buy a room air-conditioner..........
Intel dual-core requires a new Socket 775(T) motherboard. It
will not retrofit into existing 775 motherboards. The X2 will
generally retrofit into Socket 939 motherboards that have the
power-capacity to accommodate A64 4000+ or FX-53. Requires
a BIOS update - check with the manufacturer. The BIOS update
docs will specify X2 when/if the BIOS is updated for the
X2 processor. Some X2 exceptions due to careless MB chip-
design and/or MB design -- Via K8T890 and some Via K8T800
motherboards will not work with the X2. nForce 4 motherboards
should all work fine with the X2, provided the power-regulators
are adequate (and the BIOS is updated ).
Regardless of marketing hype and Dell's subservience, it
seems as if the Emperor really has no clothes with regard to
the first-generation desktop dual-cores. Intel will recover
once they move off P4 Netburst to dual/multiple-cores based
on architectures derived on the Pentium M.
For anybody contemplating a dual-core desktop system in the
near future and expecting reasonable price/performance/reliability,
it seems that it would be very wise to avoid Intel -- in spite of the
deliberately loss-leader price of the Pentium-D 820, which is
functionally far inferior to the either the AMD X2 4200+ or
4400+. Also the Pentium-D 820 has some typical Intel internal
cheese-pairing; no power-management - hence probably very
limited overclockability with air-cooling-- and it does not run
properly ( for reasons not yet explained by either Intel or nVidia )
on Intel nForce4-SLI boards -- it only runs if one core is
disabled in BIOS..
