amd vs. intel

[George Macdonald]

It is in my opinion that if you get a chip from both companies with
the same clock speed and L2 cache: Intel is generally faster, but AMB
is usually more stable (don't know why, just is)... You also gotta
look at features; Intel boasts hyperthreading on the new P4's (making
one CPU almost act as if it were two) and AMD boasts it has the only
64bit proccessor. Fiannally cost-wise AMD processors are usually
cheaper, but Intel's MoBo's are usually cheaper :evil: which is kind
of ironic. I still prefer Intel though.

Sorry but you have it all wrong - RTFT.

 

[keith]

Lets not forget the other silly levels like RAID 2 and RAID 7.
Fortunately these have mostly disappeared.


Uhh.. so would that then be a redundant Redundant Array of Independent
Disks? :>

Ah, you've finally come over to the dark side! (the original acronym had
"inexpensive" in there somewhere ;-).

 

[keith]

Tanya wrote:

hi and thanks again, Keith
[...below...]

:



hi and thanks again for answering!
[...below...]

keith wrote:



On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 21:39:21 -0500, Tanya wrote:

[SNIP]


i got a question here (i cannot find the article though -- i read that there are several
raid levels and some are great in keeping *copies* soToSpeak of the drive's data...)

Sure, but none will protect you against the biggest source of data
loss; the loose nut behind the keyboard. RAID only protects against
one source of data loss - the hard disk itself.

An old mantra that was tossed around in the late 80's was that
RAID can protect your data from hard drive failures but only
backups can protect your data from your users. Still valid today.


however, say that the kb user is *conscious* if there was a hd (mechanica)l failure wouldn't
raid (level 4 for ex) be useful?


"Level 4" ????

Sure. You don't think they skipped from three to five without thinking of
something silly inbetween?

Each drive has a gerbil in an exercise wheel to keep the drives
going if the power dies ?

Sure, though I'd thik it would be an rat, antelope, iguana, or dragon.
Ok, what is the fastest animal on the planet? (beware trick questions)

Sounds like what I've always thought of as 3 is technically 4. What he
describes as 3 is a nightmare.

Actually I didn't analyze it all that much. I simply knew that there
were other silly RAID "solutions" and did a quick search (time to make
chips). You could easily be right.

If you compare the drives in a 0+1 against drives containing the same
data from a 1+0, then superficially you will have two identical sets of
drives. However 1+0 and 0+1 differ in how the drives are arranged on
the controller(s) to achieve the best performance.

I've never seen them listed on how the drives are attached. It's obvious
that one would do it one way for performance and the other for reliability
though. Journaling would suggest performance (the stripes should be
on different interfaces).

 

[Ed]

It is in my opinion that if you get a chip from both companies with
the same clock speed and L2 cache: Intel is generally faster, but AMB
is usually more stable (don't know why, just is)... You also gotta
look at features; Intel boasts hyperthreading on the new P4's (making
one CPU almost act as if it were two) and AMD boasts it has the only
64bit proccessor. Fiannally cost-wise AMD processors are usually
cheaper, but Intel's MoBo's are usually cheaper :evil: which is kind
of ironic. I still prefer Intel though.

Buy a clue.

 

[MAGGOT VOMIT]

I am building my first machine and decided to go with the Athlon64
3000+ and the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe nforce4 MoBo and ordered it last
week and installed them both last night. A friend had some Arctic
Silver5 and so I removed the stock Thermal Paste and used the AS5.

Can't wait to get the other hardware and finish it!! :wink:

Got my MoBo for $173.99 from here:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=240418

 

[Rob Stow]

On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 19:33:23 +0000, Rob Stow wrote:



Tanya wrote:


hi and thanks again, Keith
[...below...]

:




hi and thanks again for answering!
[...below...]

keith wrote:




On Mon, 28 Feb 2005 21:39:21 -0500, Tanya wrote:

[SNIP]



i got a question here (i cannot find the article though -- i read that there are several
raid levels and some are great in keeping *copies* soToSpeak of the drive's data...)

Sure, but none will protect you against the biggest source of data
loss; the loose nut behind the keyboard. RAID only protects against
one source of data loss - the hard disk itself.

An old mantra that was tossed around in the late 80's was that
RAID can protect your data from hard drive failures but only
backups can protect your data from your users. Still valid today.



however, say that the kb user is *conscious* if there was a hd (mechanica)l failure wouldn't
raid (level 4 for ex) be useful?


"Level 4" ????


Sure. You don't think they skipped from three to five without thinking of
something silly inbetween?

Each drive has a gerbil in an exercise wheel to keep the drives
going if the power dies ?

Sure, though I'd thik it would be an rat, antelope, iguana, or dragon.
Ok, what is the fastest animal on the planet? (beware trick questions)

Sounds like what I've always thought of as 3 is technically 4. What he
describes as 3 is a nightmare.

Actually I didn't analyze it all that much. I simply knew that there
were other silly RAID "solutions" and did a quick search (time to make
chips). You could easily be right.

If you compare the drives in a 0+1 against drives containing the same
data from a 1+0, then superficially you will have two identical sets of
drives. However 1+0 and 0+1 differ in how the drives are arranged on
the controller(s) to achieve the best performance.

I've never seen them listed on how the drives are attached.

They aren't described/specified that way - its just that
practical reasons often make one a better choice than the other.

 

[Tanya]

It is in my opinion that if you get a chip from both companies with
the same clock speed and L2 cache: Intel is generally faster, but AMB
is usually more stable (don't know why, just is)... You also gotta
look at features; Intel boasts hyperthreading on the new P4's (making
one CPU almost act as if it were two) and AMD boasts it has the only
64bit proccessor. Fiannally cost-wise AMD processors are usually
cheaper, but Intel's MoBo's are usually cheaper :evil: which is kind
of ironic. I still prefer Intel though.

thanks for the info!
i am going to put together an intel and an amd i think......

 

[Tanya]

hi,

I am building my first machine and decided to go with the Athlon64
3000+ and the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe nforce4 MoBo and ordered it last
week and installed them both last night. A friend had some Arctic
Silver5 and so I removed the stock Thermal Paste and used the AS5.

Can't wait to get the other hardware and finish it!! :wink:

Got my MoBo for $173.99 from here:

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=240418

i was looking at the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe nforce4 board but the SLI was
possible problem???
thanks

 

[Tanya]

hi Rob,
thanks for replying!
[...below...]

keith wrote:

[SNIP]

i read that there are several
raid levels and some are great in keeping *copies* soToSpeak of the drive's data...)

Sure, but none will protect you against the biggest source of data
loss; the loose nut behind the keyboard. RAID only protects against
one source of data loss - the hard disk itself.

An old mantra that was tossed around in the late 80's was that
RAID can protect your data from hard drive failures but only
backups can protect your data from your users. Still valid today.

however, say that the kb user is *conscious* if there was a hd (mechanica)l failure wouldn't
raid (level 4 for ex) be useful?

"Level 4" ???? Common RAID "levels" include 0,1,0+1,1+0,3,5 and
JBOD. There is also a new and rare 1.5 that I don't expect to
gather a large - if any - following. And, of course, 0 has no
redundancy and hence offers no protection at all.

(i'd meant level 5
....however...
from webopedia:
"Level 4 -- Dedicated Parity Drive: A commonly used implementation of RAID, Level 4 provides
block-level striping (like Level 0) with a parity disk. If a data disk fails, the parity data is
used to create a replacement disk. A disadvantage to Level 4 is that the parity disk can create
write bottlenecks"
url:
http://itmanagement.webopedia.com/TERM/R/RAID.html

Don't take AMD's word for it. That's like asking a barber if you
need a haircut. There are lots of independent reviews out there
- most of which confirms AMD's claims.

i'm not only taking amd's info (although they're pretty convincing the independent reviews also
rate amd to be at least as good if not better (usually better) than intel

[SNIP]
The original Opteron specs proclaimed support for 4 GB DIMMs,
even though no such DIMMs existed at the time.

There are a few vendors, Polywell and HP for example, that will
sell you Opty boxes with 4 DIMM slots per cpu and will happily
stuff a 4 GB DIMM into each slot for you. You do, however, have
to settle for PC2100 if you want 4 GB DIMMs.

As well, you need to keep in mind that motherboard manufacturers
and system builders very often specify what CPUs and what RAM
types are supported based on what CPUs and DIMMs were available
at the time they published the specs for the board or computer.
For example, the Tyan S288x motherboards supposedly only support
DIMMs up to 2 GB, but I have seen eight 4 GB DIMMs successfully
demoed in an S2881 based system.

Also: HP sells a Opty server, a quad if I recall, that has 8 DIMM
slots per processor. Each CPU and its DIMMs are on a daughtercard.

Sun seems to be restricting itself to using 1 GB and 2 GB DIMMs.

actually i read that > 4 gbs is not supported unless one has windows xp with 64 bit support.
(and in any case even 3 gb's would be great.!)

Forgot about Linux, have you ? So far Linux is light-years ahead
of MicroSoft in supporting x86-64 processors.

i didn't forget linux (mentioned linux in another post)

However, in the Windows world there has also been versions of NT
Server, W2K Server, and W2K3 Server for a dozen years now that
support more than 4 GB. The limit with NT4 was 32 GB but I
believe the limit with W2K3 is 64 GB.

currently using a win95b pc (p55c; 200mhz) which has 96 mbs of ram (simms) 32 mbs of which are

[snip]

i guess intel cannot win can it?

Sure they can. In the AMD64 vs (P4 and Xeon) battle, AMD easily
wins on quality, but quality is not everything. Intel has
marketing, a large loyal user base, entrenched relationships with
manufacturers (can you say "Dell"?), etc., ...

And wasn't Mao Tse-Tung the one who said "Quantity has a quality
all of its own." ?
lol

thanks
sincerely
Tanya

 

[Tanya]

hi Tony,
appreciate the reply
[...below...]

To the best of my knowledge the only 1066MT/s bus speed P4's available
now are the P4 Extremely Expensive Edition chips, which really just
aren't worth it IMO.

The P4 600 series is the chip to get from Intel if you ask me. Both
that and AMD's Athlon64 line are very good choices, you should be ok
with either one of them.

i found the 640 3.4 ghz which costs more than the motherboard AND cpu i want (the 630 3.4 ghz
is *a bit* more reasonable...)

my original plant was to spend (relatively) more on the motherboard (and save a bit on the cpu
until they are cheaper) also i noticed that the 6xx series have prescott cores (which i've
been told create a lot of xs heat)
(although the heat i guess is more related to the process?)

the mother board (P5GDC-V Deluxe) (lga 775) will supposedly support the 6xx series.
i've heard that there is barely any noticeable difference between for ex: 2.8 ghz and 3.0 ghz)

(and i read in an overclocking article (i do not plan to oc) that increasing the operating
frequency can cause instability (somehow related to heat) so i'm assuming that the number of
ghz may be related to heat
(i. e. 2.8 ghz would produce less heat than a 3.4 ghz cpu))

That's a bit dated and not entirely accurate. PCI bus, for the most
part, works at 33MHz and is 32-bits wide. There are also 66MHz and
64-bit wide versions of PCI, but these aren't widely used in desktop
computers.

AGP started out as a way to get the VERY bandwidth-hungry video cards
off of the shared PCI bus. The original AGP spec was basically a
dedicated 66MHz/32-bit PCI bus only with a few changes to make it
specific for graphics. Since then we've seen AGP 2x, AGP 4x and now
AGP 8x, each time doubling the effective clock rate of bus.

i guess a pci-e 16x would be 16 * the pci bus?
(iow 16 * 33 mhz)?

ISA bus mostly ran at 8MHz. Originally it was only 8-bits wide, then
it grew to 16-bits wide and even 32-bits wide in the form of EISA. It
was designed (using the term loosely) for the original IBM PC way back
in the dark ages of computing. It's also a complete and utter piece
of crap, and not just because the technology is dated. Fortunately
ISA is mostly gone from modern PCs.


"The best" depends on the application. For servers where a large
quantity of data storage and high reliability are most important (ie
most servers), RAID5 is probably the best. For servers were top speed
and reliability are important, RAID 0+1 (aka RAID 10) is probably
best.

For desktops you're mostly looking at RAID 0 or RAID 1. Simple
explanation is that RAID 0 splits your data between your two drives.
This way, when you read a file, you get half of it from each drive,
there by doubling the amount of data that can be read at a time. This
is good for performance, but the downside is reliability. With RAID 0
you cut your reliability down by more than half because if EITHER
drive in the array dies on you, you lose all your data. What's more,
if your RAID controller dies on your then you tend to also be hosed.

RAID 1 is kind of the opposite. Here your data is copied in full to
both drives. When you write out a file, instead of just writing it
out once, the RAID controller writes it out twice, once to each drive.
This greatly increases the reliability since if either drive dies you
still have all your data. All you have to do is replace the bad hard
drive, rebuild the array and you're back up and running again. The
downside to RAID 1 is that it doesn't improve performance by much.
New RAID 1 controller do have some smarts so that their read
performance is nearly as good as RAID 0, but the write performance
isn't helped at all (in fact, it would be slightly slower than a
single drive due to a small amount of extra overhead). Of course with
RAID 1 you also cut your storage capacity in half when compared to two
independent drives.

raid0 is out...

Personally I wouldn't touch RAID 0 for anything even remotely
resembling important data, I've seen just far too many hard drives die
to trust it. However for certain applications it does have it's uses,
and RAID 1 can definitely be a good thing IMO.


That's kind of along the right lines, though it's a bit more
complicated than that. What you're referring to would be more along
the lines of prefetching which can (and is) be implemented with an
off-die memory controller as well.

First off, there are two measures of speed for getting data back and
forth. The first is bandwidth, ie the total amount of data you can
send in one block of time. In this situation the Athlon64 and P4 are
fairly similar since they generally both use dual-channel DDR400
memory.

The second measure of speed is latency, and this is where things get a
little trickier. Latency is the measure of time between when a piece
of data is requested and when it's received. Now most data that a
processor needs sits in the cache memory, right on the processor
itself, and can be accessed fairly quickly (though cache latency
definitely does exist and plays a role in performance), however
eventually the processor needs to go to main memory to get some chunk
of data. It sends out the request and then has to pretty much just
sit around, twiddling it's electronic thumbs, until that data arrives.
Usually with today's systems this takes around 50-100ns, which may
seem instantaneous to us mere mortals, but to a multi-GHz processor
that is a LONG time.

Now, with the P4, when it needs data it first has to send out a
message over it's processor bus to the chipset. The chipset than has
to translate that request into a message that it can pass along to the
memory over the memory bus. The memory chips answer that request and
send the data back to the chipset. The chipset then again translates
this data back to the protocol for the processor bus and sends it back
to the CPU.

With the Athlon64 they eliminate the middle-man. The data request
goes directly out of the processor and onto the memory bus and then
comes directly back into the processor. The result is that the
round-trip time is reduced by about 30%, which is HUGE.

thank you for the explanation -- makes sense!

(it can be upgraded to 512 kbs!

LOL, I guess I should have specified a "new chip" rather than just a
chip in general!


The memory limits are determined by both the memory controller
(chipset in the case of the P4, CPU in the case of the Athlon64) and
the motherboard. For most single-processor systems these days 2-4GB
is the normal maximum.


Hmm... maybe I'm confusing the boards. Asus site seemed a bit odd as
to the specifications. Just be sure to check the specs closely before
you buy. Some stores do mis-print info and occasionally the specs may
change without much notice.

i saw what you mention on the asus Web site
http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=P5GDC-V Deluxe&langs=09

http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socket775/p5gdc-v-d/overview.htm

(but it mentions that one does not need a video card)
looked up this "Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900" on intel's Web site and it also mentions
that one doesn't need a video card
http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/graphics1/gma900/index.htm
(the reviews (several) discuss the good quality onBoard video chip)

thanks very much again!
sincerely
Tanya

 

[Tanya]

hello George and thanks!
[...below...]

I have to wonder why he said "raw data processing" - it doesn't really
describe any particular sub-set of computing. It's true that the Athlon64s
are the current favorites of gamers; the P4s score better at things like
video, and to a certain extent audio, processing... i.e. data streaming
applications. In between there's all the general processing, including
data base, which tends to have a mix of some streamable data and a lot of
random accesses. Here the difference is less marked but AMD still scores
better from what I observe.

this is <essentially> the info i received from a retailer:
"Intel for raw processor
cycles (databasing, [...] Photoshop, or multi-tasking)..."

"...gaming
systems [...] more towards an AMD system [...] have a bit better price
at the cost of the lost power..."

Considering the cost of the rest of the system, I'd try to bump that a
little to say a P4 630 3.0GHz - the extra cache, EM64T and enhanced power
management/control is worth it IMO. Take a look at
http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2005q1/pentium4-600/index.x?pg=1 for a
reasonable comparison, though all benchmarks should be taken with a pinch
of salt. I got an Athlon64 3500+ 90nm(Winchester) in November and I still
think it's the sweet spot there; the 90nm core runs significantly cooler
than the 130nm Newcastle. Availability on 3500+(90nm) is spotty though and
synchronizing with the purchase of the right mbrd, which is also spotty,
can be frustrating. To save a few $$ and still get 90nm, and a 1000MHz
Hypertransport, there's also the 3200+.

thanks for the link!
i don't see a 2.8 ghz 6xx (which is the op freq in the 520)
the 6xx series costs too much right now...
plus the 6xx series have prescott cores (i thought that prescott cores produced xs heat)
(although i guess heat has more to do with the process)
(fwiw intel states that their fan and heatSink are adequate for the p4 520 (2.8 ghz)
(i'm getting the boxed one) (and not intending to overclock)
also (this might be total fiction) an article on oc'ing states that when one increases
the operating frequency the system can become unstable (relation to heat) (i am
extrapolating that a cpu spinning at 2.8 ghz would produce less heat than a cpu at 3.0
ghz)
???

thanks again!
sincerely
Tanya

 

[Tanya]

thanks
[...below...]

You *can* get the same memory... but depending on the choice of P4
mbrd/chipset you may not want to. There are some P4 mbrds which take
DDR-SDRAM but DDR2-SDRAM is the trend there.

i now see that the same cannot be used -- that the cpu (actually the memory
controller) determines which wrt buffered vs. unbuffered and p4's would use
buffered (for the sake of the chipSet) whereas amd64's use unbuffered (since the
memory controller is onBoard)

thanks!
sincerely
Tanya

 

[Tanya]

hi Keith,
thanks...
[...below...]

From: ftp://download.intel.com/design/Pentium4/datashts/29864312.pdf

The 130nm P4 has an 8K D-cache and a 12K I-cache. The 90nM P4s have a
16K D-cache, and I don't recall how big the I-cache is.

The P4's I-cache is interesting because it's after the instruction
decoder so once a loop has been decoded it doesn't have to be decoded
again. The theory is that this improves performance. Decoded
instructions tend to be bigger than the undecoded instructions and
compiler optimizations may thwart this strategy though. It's
interesting, though I'm not sure it's a clear win. No one else has
gone here, so it looks like others agree.

interesting -- thanks!

My Opteron has 1.5GB and it (as opposed to my CFO) would easily

I'm 90% sure the real limit is 3GB (and the other 10% 3.5GB ;-). You
are correct though, a 32bit processor can only address 2^32 bytes of
memory, which happens to be 4GB. This isn't strictly true, since Intel
has address extensions (PAE) that will allow 36bit addressing (64GB),
but Windows doesn't use PAE either.

64-bit Computing is on Track to Become a Practical Reality
http://www.quepublishing.com/articles/article.asp?p=366536&rl=1

Somewhat, but not all that much more these days. Crucial has 512MB
registered (CL-3 ECC) for $120 a stick vs. $94 for unbuffered (CL=3
ECC). OTOH, if you go with non-ECC the unbuffered price drops to $69
(yikes! ECC has gotten expensive). So, I guess it's about 2:1
difference between registered ECC and unbuffered nonECC. I guess that
makes it expensive.


Yes, at least Socket-940. Some chipsets were selectable, the AMD64
processors are not. The selection is done when you order (socket 939
vs. socket 940).

this is what i read now:

http://www.18004memory.com/category.asp?catid=6


"Buffered Memory
A buffer isolates the memory from the controller to minimize the load on the chip set. It is
typically used when the system has a high density of memory and/or when a system has more
than 3 memory module sockets."

"Unbuffered memory
This is where the chip set controller deals directly with the memory. There is nothing
between the chip set and the memory chips on the module as they communicate"
(i assume the amd64 would use unbuffered and the p4 would use buffered?)

No. That another kettle of over-ripe fish.


No, but I'm sure others will chime in here.

sorry -- i'm repeating myself b/c don't know how to link posts
this is the asus that you posted (i think)
asus board
A8V-E Deluxe
http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=A8V-E Deluxe&langs=09
it looks very good to me...
(the nforce asus have SLI (which seems to limit the type (make) of video card))


GIGABYTE GA-K8NS ULTRA-939 MOTHERBOARD S939 NFORCE 3 ULTRA 5PCI DUAL DDR AGP SATA 2LAN
AUDIO 1394
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-128-259&depa=0

DFI LANPARTY UT NF4 ULTRA-D MOTHERBOARD ATX S939 NFORCE4 ULTRA DDR 2PCI-E16 PCI-E4 PCI-E1
2PCI ..
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-136-152&depa=0

and here is the cpu:
AMD ATHLON 64 3000+ PROCESSOR S939 1.8GHZ 512KB L2 CACHE RETAIL BOX
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=19-103-501&DEPA=0

<snip>

thank you!
sincerely
Tanya

 

[Tanya]

hi and thank you for replying!
[...below...]

Ah, you have no nose. I hope you have perfect vision, or you're going
to be in real trouble. ;-)

sorry -- between the ears

Sure, RAID (except for RAID0) will help one recover after a *disk*
hardware failure. While this isn't rare it's not the most common cause
of data loss. It is usually a massive loss when it happens though. A
decent backup strategy would be better, in most cases. Ok, no one uses
such a strategy... ;-)

The disadvantage of RAID is that it takes CPU cycles somewhere. The
more complicated the RAID system the more cycles. Software RAID (like
what you're normally going to find on PC motherboards) takes those
cycles from the main processor. RAID 0 and RAID 1 use relatively few
cycles, so that's what you're going to get (perhaps RAID10) in PC class
systems.

raid0 sounds like a total waste...

RAID isn't the solution to all problems.



Even 4GB isn't supported under XP. IIRC it'll support "only" 3GB
because it uses 1GB virtual address space for itself and I/O. Since
virtual address range = real address range on an x86, this 1GB must be
subtracted from the maximum real memory.

i thought that virtual memory was space that the cpu "claims" on the hard drive?

I believe the nForce4 is relatively new, so Asus may not have theirs
out yet. I'm not one to say whether it's worth waiting for though.

i actually found asus with nforce4 (2 boards) however they have ?sli (which seems to limit the type of
video card usable)
found 3 other *brands*
DFI "LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D" NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra Chipset Motherboard For AMD
Socket 939 CPU -RETAIL
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-136-152&depa=0

GIGABYTE GA-K8NS ULTRA-939 MOTHERBOARD S939 NFORCE 3 ULTRA 5PCI
DUAL DDR AGP SATA 2LAN AUDIO 1394
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-128-259&depa=0

and the asus that you (i think) posted (not sure about the chipset but the board looks very good)
A8V-E Deluxe
http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=A8V-E Deluxe&langs=09

the cpu i want is:
AMD ATHLON 64 3000+ PROCESSOR S939 1.8GHZ 512KB L2 CACHE RETAIL BOX
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=19-103-501&DEPA=0

"We" like it that way. ;-)

thanks
sincerely
Tanya

 

[George Macdonald]

hello George and thanks!
[...below...]

I have to wonder why he said "raw data processing" - it doesn't really
describe any particular sub-set of computing. It's true that the Athlon64s
are the current favorites of gamers; the P4s score better at things like
video, and to a certain extent audio, processing... i.e. data streaming
applications. In between there's all the general processing, including
data base, which tends to have a mix of some streamable data and a lot of
random accesses. Here the difference is less marked but AMD still scores
better from what I observe.

this is <essentially> the info i received from a retailer:
"Intel for raw processor
cycles (databasing, [...] Photoshop, or multi-tasking)..."

I disagree with the "databasing" - in general use type work: web browsing,
word processing, spread sheets, database etc. the Athlon64 scores higher.

thanks for the link!
i don't see a 2.8 ghz 6xx (which is the op freq in the 520)
the 6xx series costs too much right now...
plus the 6xx series have prescott cores (i thought that prescott cores produced xs heat)

The 600 series is the new Prescott with imroved power management; the 500J
series is the previous Prescott which has had some reports of overheating -
presonally I've no experience with it.

(although i guess heat has more to do with the process)
(fwiw intel states that their fan and heatSink are adequate for the p4 520 (2.8 ghz)
(i'm getting the boxed one) (and not intending to overclock)
also (this might be total fiction) an article on oc'ing states that when one increases
the operating frequency the system can become unstable (relation to heat) (i am
extrapolating that a cpu spinning at 2.8 ghz would produce less heat than a cpu at 3.0
ghz)

Yes increased frequency increases power draw - faster voltage swings is
more current... and heat.

 

[George Macdonald]

hi,



i was looking at the Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe nforce4 board but the SLI was
possible problem???
thanks

SLI is dual PCIe video cards... for top-end gaming. Not a "problem" but a
waste of $$ if that is not your interest - IOW save the $$ for something
else, like a better CPU.

 

[Rob Stow]

hello George and thanks!
[...below...]

I have to wonder why he said "raw data processing" - it doesn't really
describe any particular sub-set of computing. It's true that the Athlon64s
are the current favorites of gamers; the P4s score better at things like
video, and to a certain extent audio, processing... i.e. data streaming
applications. In between there's all the general processing, including
data base, which tends to have a mix of some streamable data and a lot of
random accesses. Here the difference is less marked but AMD still scores
better from what I observe.

this is <essentially> the info i received from a retailer:
"Intel for raw processor
cycles (databasing, [...] Photoshop, or multi-tasking)..."

I disagree with the "databasing" - in general use type work: web browsing,
word processing, spread sheets, database etc. the Athlon64 scores higher.

And I would disagree on the "Photoshop". I have built several
dual-Opteron boxes for video processing and the owners of those
boxes typically have Xeon boxes too. The feedback I keep getting
is that the employees fight over who gets to use the Opteron
boxes - they are much faster for editting, apply visual effects,
editting the soundtrack, and so on. The Xeons only have an edge
- and often a substantial one - in the vary last phase of
processing the video: the final encoding. And that last
encoding phase doesn't much matter because they can leave it
until the end of the day, and then let it run overnight.

 

[keith]

hi and thank you for replying!
[...below...]

Ah, you have no nose. I hope you have perfect vision, or you're going
to be in real trouble. ;-)

sorry -- between the ears

....but that wouldn't have given me nearly the opportunity to have some
fun. ;-)

raid0 sounds like a total waste...

Not a waste at all. Its purpose in life isn't reliability, but
performance. RAID0 does give measurable performance. Is it worth it?
Not in my opinion. Then again, neither is any other RAID, IMO.

i thought that virtual memory was space that the cpu "claims" on the
hard drive?

Yes, virtual memory can get paged out to disk. However, the OS has to
live somewhere. If virtual > real, then much of it too can live on
disk. If virtual = real then the OS *requires* part of the real
memory space to be reserved for it, since there can be no pageing.

Also the I/O has to be in the real address space, since it is sorta
"real". ;-)

i actually found asus with nforce4 (2 boards) however they have ?sli
(which seems to limit the type of video card usable) found 3 other
*brands*

Why would you need a video card with on-board SLI? IIRC you don't do
games, so a PCI 2D card woild likely work too.

DFI "LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D" NVIDIA nForce4 Ultra Chipset Motherboard
For AMD Socket 939 CPU -RETAIL
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=13-136-152&depa=0

YOY do companies use words like "Deluxe" and "LAMEPARTY" to describe their
technical wares?

and the asus that you (i think) posted (not sure about the chipset but
the board looks very good) A8V-E Deluxe
http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?m=A8V-E Deluxe&langs=09

Yes, I posted the reference, but I know nothing about it. Search-engines,
you know. ;-)

the cpu i want is:
AMD ATHLON 64 3000+ PROCESSOR S939 1.8GHZ 512KB L2 CACHE RETAIL BOX
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=19-103-501&DEPA=0

Good choice. I went for the Opteron nine months ago (wanted the larger
cache) so I'm stuck with registered memory, but Santa brought me a couple
of PC3200 512MB sticks to add to the two 256MB sticks I had originally, so
I'm a happy camper. ;-)

 

[keith]

hello George and thanks!
[...below...]

George Macdonald wrote:

I have to wonder why he said "raw data processing" - it doesn't really
describe any particular sub-set of computing. It's true that the Athlon64s
are the current favorites of gamers; the P4s score better at things like
video, and to a certain extent audio, processing... i.e. data streaming
applications. In between there's all the general processing, including
data base, which tends to have a mix of some streamable data and a lot of
random accesses. Here the difference is less marked but AMD still scores
better from what I observe.

this is <essentially> the info i received from a retailer:
"Intel for raw processor
cycles (databasing, [...] Photoshop, or multi-tasking)..."

I disagree with the "databasing" - in general use type work: web browsing,
word processing, spread sheets, database etc. the Athlon64 scores higher.

And I would disagree on the "Photoshop". I have built several
dual-Opteron boxes for video processing and the owners of those
boxes typically have Xeon boxes too. The feedback I keep getting
is that the employees fight over who gets to use the Opteron
boxes - they are much faster for editting, apply visual effects,
editting the soundtrack, and so on. The Xeons only have an edge
- and often a substantial one - in the vary last phase of
processing the video: the final encoding. And that last
encoding phase doesn't much matter because they can leave it
until the end of the day, and then let it run overnight.

Interesting, but I guess not surprising. Photoshop tends to optimize
for the platform better than most software.

I'm surprised that at the cost of keeping a graphics designer in a chair,
they wouldn't buy a bunch more Optys, if there was that much of a
difference.

 

[keith]

i now see that the same cannot be used -- that the cpu (actually the memory
controller) determines which wrt buffered vs. unbuffered and p4's would use
buffered (for the sake of the chipSet) whereas amd64's use unbuffered (since the
memory controller is onBoard)

The terms are actually "registered" vx. "unbuffered". Confusing perhaps,
but that's the way things tend to be. ;-)

The use of unbeffered or registered isn't a matter of the processor, per
se. Yes, the controller is the real issue. That said, neither AMD64 nor
P4 go either way, by nature. Opterons are designed to be server chips, so
use server DRAM (registered). Athlon64s are intended more for desktops,
thus use unbuffered. Intel isn't much different. Chipsets that are
designed for server use will naturally use registered memory. Those that
aren't, don't.