Intel vs AMD (in general)

[Artanis]

e retinut faptu ca conroe avea rami 667@4-4-4 ,ce s-ar fi intamplat cu niste 5400UL@3-2-2?

Probabil nu mare branza, nu uita ca Conroe are 2x2MB L2.
In tot cazul, AMD trebuie sa-si suflece manecile la modul serios, ca sa nu redevina o companie de mana a doua. Si asta nu poate decat sa bucure end-userul, care va profita de CPU-uri eficiente si de preturi reduse...

[Artanis]

Hexus.net ne mai ofera un indiciu, refacand unele teste, si avand aceleasi rezultate: Conroe 2.67 vs AMD Athlon FX 60 (at 2.8) Benchmarks

Pe de alta parte, apar si criticile :

VoodooPC president and occasional DailyTech writer Rahul Sood adds, “The long and the short of it is Intel has crafted an excellent marketing strategy to show off their baby in its first trimester. They are trying to win the hearts and minds of enthusiasts half a year before they have anything to show us. They created these platforms in house, and we can only hope they unknowingly crutched the AMD system by using a chipset and motherboard - with an outdated bios - that no enthusiast supports.”

[mache]

Am inteles ca testele Intel ar fi clar partinitoare dar sa spui ca un update de bios iti aduce "a fairly significant performance gain" mi se pare cel putin stupid...
sa spunem ca diferentele nu-s de 10-40% ci de 5-25% dar tot e ceva pentru un procesor cu frecventa si pret mai mici nu? dupa parerea mea criticile respective sunt la fel de partinitoare ca si testele facute de Intel...

[Artanis]

sa spunem ca diferentele nu-s de 10-40% ci de 5-25% dar tot e ceva pentru un procesor cu frecventa si pret mai mici nu?

E ceva, tocmai ca e surprinzator. Eu nu am decat cuvinte de lauda. Mai putin despre compatibilitatea Conroe cu actualele MB si despre preturile noilor MB...
Atata doar, ca in 6 luni se mai pot schimba lucrurile...

[Corbu']

Proof that the Conroe Benchmark by Intel was rigged

Intel benchmark
AMD 64 FX-60@2.8Ghz Dual Core with dual X1900XT Crossfire.
160.4FPS




Tom's Hardware benchmark
AMD 64 FX-57@2.8Ghz with a 6800GT.
183.4FPS

So it comes back to the old saying... "AMD has better architecture, and INTEL has better marketing (bullshitting skills in this case)

CTO of Voodoo PC, Rahul Sood, was actually shocked how anand tech was lying for intel...

I would like to pipe in a simple counterpoint on a few things, because I feel it’s important that people understand the entire picture before rushing to judgment. In years of being in this business I cannot recall a time where a company debuts information on a product that is six months out. I can only assume that by doing this they have completely lost faith with their current desktop products.

Intel jumped into their time machine to show off a fetus that has six months to mature before it turns into a baby. They basically gave themselves the opportunity to ride in this time warp without giving AMD a chance to get in the passenger seat. Anytime you compare a future technology with an existing one you should expect to see some performance differences, but looking closer it seems as if they are comparing future technology with older technology, rather than current, in some respects.

First of all, though it’s claimed that you’re running an FX-60 processor on the machine, I have yet to see an established motherboard and processor with an image that says "processor unknown".

You’ll notice that the image I am referring to on Anandtech's website (the bios image) states that the AMD processor is “unknown” which makes me believe that the bios they are running is outdated. So, I did a bit of digging and low and behold, the DFI bios version “D49C-32” they are running is from 10/11/05. There has been 1 major revision with major fixes that include:

Set Cool 'n' Quiet Default to Disabled

- With Cool & Quiet enabled, AMD processors will throttle in order to save power and bring their thermal load down. This means the processor could be running as low as 800MHz in certain programs – no matter what the program is. In theory Cool & Quiet is supposed to throttle up to maximum in games but this is not always the case. No enthusiast PC goes out with Cool & Quiet enabled unless it’s a fanless machine or media center.

Add Support for AMD Athlon 64 FX60 CPU

- According to DFI the FX-60 will not operate correctly without this bios update. Without official support for the FX-60 CPU I’m not sure what we’re comparing against here.

Fix Memory Timings 2-1-1-1-1 and 4-1-1 Mode Wrong & Fix Read Preamble Table Error.

- Memory latency can make a massive difference in performance. If the latency was not running at the correct latency we can see a pretty big difference in all kinds of performance. Anandtech stated “The AMD system used 1GB of DDR400 running at 2-2-2/1T timings…” Apparently this isn’t the case, but they would not be able to tell without having the platform in house.

Fix Fill 3114 SVID&SSID under Cross fire mode.
- More apparent performance issues under Crossfire mode.

Next, when you take a future Intel chipset and compare it to a chipset that no enthusiast supports (RD480) with an outdated bios it’s like taking a Ferrari and putting it on Bias-Ply tires. It’s just not a good way to show off a “new” technology.

If we go and check out the numbers on Anandtech we’ll see the Unreal Tournament 2004 benchmark showing 160fps on the unknown AMD X2 processor while the Intel Conroe at 2.66GHz came in significantly higher at 191fps.

Though this isn’t exactly conclusive, if you go back and re-read some old FX-57 reviews on Tom’s Hardware you’ll see a benchmark for the same game set at the same resolution (and the same color depth), the FX-57 running at 2.8GHz scored 183.4fps. The thing is it’s using an Nvidia Geforce 6800 GT which seems to me that there are many variables here when it comes to benchmarking. Perhaps it's somewhere locked in the settings, but I won't know until I sit down and compare our own benchmarks with consistant settings. Note that a single core Athlon 64 4000 achieved a better score in the benchmark run by Tom (160.5fps) than the one provided by Intel (160.4) at IDF. Like I said, I don't view this as conclusive, but it shows that there are variances depending on how the benchmark is setup. Here is a link to Tom’s review..

These are just a few of the thoughts that I have been able to gather. I have received over 100 emails in the last 18 hours about this to see what my thoughts are. Quite simply, I would say go back and read my original article on Conroe – I certainly expect Intel to be back on the rails, but I don’t see them to be wiping the floor with anyone other than their Pentium 4 team come launch time.

AMD still has some big performance gains with AM2, we are talking about a new platform with low latency DDR-2 support along with new processors. While I’d love to tell you how much performance difference this would give you on a clock to clock basis, I’m afraid you’ll have to use your imaginations for now.

We can speculate all we want, but why bother? By simply changing the bios and ensuring that Cool & Quiet is disabled, that the FX-60 is fully supported, and that there are no memory timing issues I imagine we would see a fairly significant performance gain on those merits alone.

The long and the short of it is Intel has crafted an excellent marketing strategy to show off their baby in its first trimester. They are trying to win the hearts and minds of enthusiasts half a year before they have anything to show us. They created these platforms in house, and we can only hope they unknowingly crutched the AMD system by using a chipset and motherboard - with an outdated bios - that no enthusiast supports. EDITED FOR CLARITY - If you read the article you'll see that the AMD system is clearly crutched - I am hoping that Intel had no clue that this was the case. I suspect they did this unknowingly.

I’m going to give Intel an “A” for their P.R. effort, good job guys, and thanks for the show. I can’t wait to see the real substance.


Anyone reading this should also assume that AMD is not standing still. Based on these articles it's clear that this year is going to be absolutely incredible.

Link Aici

[mache]

Corbu stim si noi sa citim nu trebuia sa faci copy paste aiurea ...


PS: sunt 2 teste facute de 2 siteuri diferite... poti paria ca sunt facute in aceleasi conditii ??

[Neo]

E, ho, mache, ca omul a extras ce era mai important
Interesant all the same, tot are avantaj Intel. Era totusi stupid sa fie diferenta in halul ala de mare.
Asteptam t3h real thing si ne pronuntam apoi

[mache]

Neo - ma irita sa vad quote-uri de-o pagina intreaga si dimensiunea fonturilor pentru tineri de varsta a 3-a

PS: de exemplu in VGA Chart-ul de la THG este folosit 1280@High No AA/AF ... ma indoiesc sincer ca X1900XTX in Crossfire ar da mai putin ca pe un 6800GT in aceleasi conditii doar de dragul de a face Intel show-off...

[Corbu']

Conroe Performance Preview Follow-Up @ Anandtech.

Erorile din primul test au fost corectate, sunt puse sus teste corecte. Rezultate impresionante in continuare (cu ceva modificari insa...).

[Neo]

Oricum, Vista suporta si procesoare pe 32 biti...in toate versiunile.
Sursa.

[Corbu']

lmost all Windows Vista editions will be offered in both x86 (32-bit) and x64 (64-bit) versions, and these versions will ship in the same box. So, for example, when you purchase Vista Home Premium, the version you get will depend on which type of PC you have: If it's an x64-based PC, the x64 version will be installed. Microsoft expects to transition its client product lines completely to x64 after the release of Windows Vista.

Deci x32 bit e suportat dar o sa devina repede doomed.

[Artanis]

Si ce-are de-aface asta cu topicu' ?

[Neo]

Era vb despre anumite posturi sterse de subsemnatul si mi-am amintit ca am gasit dupa aceea ca x32 sunt suportate de Vista. Nu mai stiu al cui era argumentul anti-Dothan

[Zyklon5]

Te doare capul .. au sarit de cur in sus THG sa demonstreze ei ce-i corect pe lumea asta .. lolozaur.

[Artanis]

Anand raman cei mai seriosi. Remake-ul testelor (cu RDX200 cu BIOS-ul adus la zi) au mai indulcit putin socul initial, insa nu cu mult. Cel putin in FEAR, diferenta s-a redus la jumate.
Concluzia insa ramane in picioare:

The performance picture with regards to Conroe hasn’t really changed all that much - on average we’re still seeing a bit over a 20% increase in performance over an overclocked Athlon 64 FX-60. While it’s worth noting that these results should be taken with a grain of salt, we really were not able to determine any cause for suspicion based on Intel’s setups. The machines were as clean as they could get, with the BIOS oversight having no tangible impact on most performance.

Believe it or not, Intel doesn't seem malicious in their intent. The AMD system could be better configured by using a RD580 based motherboard instead of a RD480 platform, but other than that there's not much else that can be done to improve the performance of the system Intel used. Obviously we're not going to rely on these initial benchmarks for our final take on Conroe, but the scores are extremely interesting to say the least.

[Caligula]

Nu mai stiu al cui era argumentul anti-Dothan

Al unui meserias... Stii cum e, marii razboinici se apuca la un moment dat de filozofie

[Corbu']

Da al meu era argumentul si in continuare sunt de parere ca Dothan e bai cand o sa apara Vista. Punctul meu de vedere...si care ar fi problema ?

[Artanis]

Un articol interesant aici si link-uri despre Conroe vs A64 puse la un loc aici.

[Artanis]

Eight Core Servers: Opteron 880 (Egypt) vs. Xeon MP 3.0 GHz (Paxville)


At present, Opteron has a commanding lead in 8-way configurations. Looking at the prices of the processors we used, AMD has the advantage there as well. The Xeon MP 3.0 GHz processors currently cost upwards of $3000 each, whereas Opteron 880 are about $1000 less. Of course, for enterprise servers price is less of a concern; performance, scalability, and reliability take precedence. Reliability might be a tie, but that's about as close as Intel's Xeon MP currently comes to Opteron.

Nothing that we've written in this article should be a surprise. All of our Opteron benchmarks have shown the scalability of the K8 architecture. The elusive question is, what next? AMD is completely quiet about anything other than a socket and memory controller change; is that enough to fend off Woodcrest? We speculate that the end of the year will be interesting to say the least. What we've seen of initial Bensley performance looks promising, and the Woodcrest addition later on should kick the competition up another notch. If everything goes as planned, Intel may just regain lost ground.

[Artanis]

AMD Opteron Now in 22% of X86 Servers – Report

According to a recently released report from Mercury Research, AMD’s first quarter market share growth reflected substantial gains in the x86 server market and now represents 22.1%, a 26% increase over AMD’s share in the fourth quarter of 2005 and a 254%increase over the first quarter of 2005, the Sunnyvale, California-based chipmaker indicated.

[Artanis]

Intel Core versus AMD's K8 architecture

The Intel Core architecture is clearly the heir and descendant of the hugely successful P6 architecture. However, it has state of the art technology on board such as micro-op/macro-op fusion, memory disambiguation and massive SIMD/FP power.

Compared to the excellent AMD K8/Hammer architecture, the Core CPU is simply a wider, more efficient and more out of order CPU. When I suggested to Jack Doweck that the massive execution resources may not be fully used until SMT is applied, he disagreed completely. Memory disambiguation should push the current limits of ILP in integer loads a lot higher, and the massive bandwidth that the L1 and L2 can deliver should help Core to come close to the execution utilization percentages of the current P-M. 33% more execution potential could thus come very close to 33% more performance, clock-for-clock.

So is it game over for AMD? Well, if you read the previous pages, it is pretty clear that there are some obvious improvements that should happen in AMD's next generation. However, there is no reason at all to assume that the current K8 architecture is at the end of its life. One obvious upgrade possibility is to enhance the SSE/SIMD power by increasing the wideness of each unit or by simply implementing more of them in the out of order FP pipeline.

To sustain the extra (SIMD) FP power, AMD should definitely improve the bandwidth of the two caches further. The K7 had a pretty slow L2-cache, and the K8 doubled the amount of bandwidth that the L2 could deliver for example. It's not unreasonable to think a 256-bit wide cache bus could be added to a near-future AMD design.

Finally, there is also a lot of headroom for increasing integer performance. The fact that Loads can hardly be reordered has been a known weak point since the early K7 days. In fact, we know that engineers at AMD were well aware of it then, and it is surprising that AMD didn't really fix this in the K8 architecture. Allowing a much more flexible reordering of Loads - even without memory disambiguation - would give a very healthy boost to IPC (5% and more). It is one of the main reasons why the P-M can beat the Athlon 64 clock-for-clock in certain applications.

Those are just a few examples that are well known. It is very likely that there are numerous other possible improvements that could take the K8 architecture much further.

Looking at the server version of Core ("Woodcrest") and considering that it is very hard to find a lot of ILP in server applications, the only weakness of Core is that there is no multi-threading in each Core. This small disadvantage is a logical result of the design goal of Core, an architecture which is an all-around compromise for the server, desktop and mobile markets. The lack of Hyper-Threading in Xeon Core products might give Sun and IBM a window of opportunity in the heavy thread server application benchmarks, but since Tigerton (65 nm, two Woodcrests in one package, 4 cores) will come quickly, the disadvantage of not being able to extract more TLP might never be seen. Our astute readers will have understood by now that it is pretty hard to find a weakness in the new Core architecture.

[Varzmaster]

Our astute readers will have understood by now that it is pretty hard to find a weakness in the new Core architecture.

Ummm... FSB, IMC, ETC?

[Artanis]

Insa rezultatele vorbesc, si alea ne arata ca arhitectura Core are destule avantaje real-life comparand-o cu K8. Insa in configuratiile multi-core, multi-CPU e posibil ca solutia FSB sa fie un bottleneck serios si sa nu prezinte scalabilitatea dovedita a arhitecturii celor de la AMD...we shall see.

[Varzmaster]

Insa in configuratiile multi-core, multi-CPU e posibil ca solutia FSB sa fie un bottleneck serios si sa nu prezinte scalabilitatea dovedita a arhitecturii celor de la AMD...we shall see.

Pai de ce crezi ca am zis tocmai de acele atuuri?

[Artanis]

I got it

[Artanis]

Meet the Viiv Platform: Intel Core Duo for Desktops
Daca ar fi fost si 64bit ready ... ca la consum e...

[Artanis]

AMD Sees 33% Market Share

CNNMoney

[van helsing]

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/06/...-62/index.html
Intel's Conroe Takes On The AMD Athlon 64 FX-62: First Official Benchmarks

[Corbu']

Hmmm, cam slabut, din ce am vazut pana acum pe net ma asteptam la mai mult.

[Alice]

majoritatea aplicatiilor fiind single-core, intel a avut ~8mb l2 cache la dispozitie, pe cand amd doar 1mb. dar a avut 'avantajul' ddr2@800. per ansamblu intel e mai bun, dar ceva imi spune ca M2 mai are MULTE de aratat...