AMD or Intel?

Originally posted by [Corporal Dan]
A p4 OC'd by 400MHz performs 25% better.

An Atlmonxp OC'd by 40Mhz also performs 25% better...

Please... I love AMD as much as the nexted guy but give me a break dude I mean really. I had the Athlon overclocked 200mhz and I never saw anything close to that. Your point is good but the math doesn't fly. When I put my AMD 1.4 to 1.6 that 200 didn't come close to the gain I got with my P4 2.26 overclocked to 2.77.

[mavis]

Originally posted by tryx


Please... I love AMD as much as the nexted guy but give me a break dude I mean really. I had the Athlon overclocked 200mhz and I never saw anything close to that. Your point is good but the math doesn't fly. When I put my AMD 1.4 to 1.6 that 200 didn't come close to the gain I got with my P4 2.26 overclocked to 2.77.

That's what I'm talkin about.

I know AMDs have a higher IPC, but what difference does that make when you're comparing a 1.9GHz chip to a 2.7GHz chip??

As for price difference, I don't really believe that either - as has been mentioned earlier, right now you can buy a P4 2.26b for about $30 more than an AthlonXP 2200. The P4 chip can be overclocked (using stock hsf, lest we forget) to about 2.7GHz. The AMD can only be overclocked to about PR2400, if that.

Now as for RAM - yes, RDRAM is more expensive than DDR RAM, but then again you buy 512MB of PC1066 (4.2Gb/s) RDRAM for about $260, or you can buy 512MB of PC3200 (3.2Gb/s) SDRAM for about $170 (source: Pricewatch). Ok, a difference of almost $90, but with RDRAM you get much higher bandwidth - better performance.

So the way I see it, my 2.7GHz Intel rig will cost roughly $120 more than the fastest Athlon rig, yet I won't have to invest in any kind of additional cooling, and will have significantly better performance.

So, what happened to the price argument???

mavis

ps this doesn't even take into account the Sept. 1st price drop either - at that time, the price difference will be less than $100.

[SavagePaladin]

RDRAM has much higher bandwidth yet higher latency. What's the point
Seriously, this has been done to death. I use AMD because I hate being bombarded by p4 ads, I don't like the prices, I like NVidia a hell of a lot, and it is, no matter how much/little, cheaper. Especially since I don't BUY a 2200+

The cooling thing is an issue, but one I really don't care about as it never affects me (thats what they put protection on the motherboard for now)

Intel is certainly ahead right now, but from what I know, they usually are before the launch of a new AMD processor. AMD can't concentrate on everything with the kind of resources Intel has yet.

[nin_fragile14]

Intel. The 1.6a P4, along with all the other Northwoods, are an incredible value, more so than AMD.

[DaveW]

RDRAM is crap... but you don't have to go Rambus when buying a P4 anymore, most of the new P4 motherboards are DDR.

I have a P3 right now, I used to think that my next upgrade would be AMD, but now I am thinking it will be Intel. You simply get more performance for a cheaper price.

Originally posted by DaveW
RDRAM is crap... but you don't have to go Rambus when buying a P4 anymore, most of the new P4 motherboards are DDR.

I have a P3 right now, I used to think that my next upgrade would be AMD, but now I am thinking it will be Intel. You simply get more performance for a cheaper price.

that's right. the new DDR333 motherboards from Intel(coming in October) slap RDRAM around right now. they are very close to dual channel PC1066 RDRAM. the new DDR400 SiS motherboard is right on par with dual channel PC1066 RDRAM. RDRAM is done. next year dual channel DDR mobos will be out. Although I think the P4 bus is too slow to take full advantage of them

PS. your overclocked P4 scales better than your oc'ed Athlon because you're increasing the FSB so much

[mavis]

Originally posted by StealthHawk


that's right. the new DDR333 motherboards from Intel(coming in October) slap RDRAM around right now. they are very close to dual channel PC1066 RDRAM. the new DDR400 SiS motherboard is right on par with dual channel PC1066 RDRAM. RDRAM is done. next year dual channel DDR mobos will be out. Although I think the P4 bus is too slow to take full advantage of them

PS. your overclocked P4 scales better than your oc'ed Athlon because you're increasing the FSB so much

Yes, the DDR400 on the SiS648 chipset is close to RDRAM performance, but not quite there. So, if you want the best performance from your P4, RAMBUS is still the way to go. Sure, if I want to wait until next year I can get something faster, but then again, I'd also have a choice between several new processors, a few new video cards, etc. There's always something beter coming, but right now (today, this summer, right this instant, etc) RDRAM is the FASTEST choice for a P4 platform.

Also, despite what you may have read at tomshardware or anandtech, I think it's a bit early to say "RAMBUS is done." It's still the fastest, and the price has dropped to the point where it is actually competitive with the faster DDR SDRAM chips...

mavis

mavis,

yes it is VERY close. considering that CL2.5 DDR400 is within +/- 5% of PC1066 RDRAM i would say the performance difference is negligible. in many cases that difference is less than that even. one thing i do not know is the availability/price of PC1066 RDRAM. how much more expensive is this variety over PC800? DDR333 and even DDR400 are already on par or below PC800 prices. i was under the impression that PC1066 RDRAM was pretty rare.

[mavis]

Originally posted by StealthHawk
mavis,

yes it is VERY close. considering that CL2.5 DDR400 is within +/- 5% of PC1066 RDRAM i would say the performance difference is negligible. in many cases that difference is less than that even. one thing i do not know is the availability/price of PC1066 RDRAM. how much more expensive is this variety over PC800? DDR333 and even DDR400 are already on par or below PC800 prices. i was under the impression that PC1066 RDRAM was pretty rare.

hmm... yeah I admit I was looking at that SiS chipset for myself, the problem is I know nothing about Shuttle or SiS, so ...

Anyway, you can pick up PC1066 from a variety of places. googlegear.com, newegg.com, etc. I would check pricewatch.com for pricing, but I think right now you can get 256MB modules for about $130.

mavis

[netviper13]

Intel abandoned RDRAM. Plus with DDR2 set to be released, as well as dual-channel DDR, RDRAM is dead. Big prices + big latency does NOT = big sales.

[volt]

Hammer time baby!

[mavis]

Originally posted by netviper13
Intel abandoned RDRAM. Plus with DDR2 set to be released, as well as dual-channel DDR, RDRAM is dead. Big prices + big latency does NOT = big sales.

Yeah "set to be released" is really the key part of your post there, isn't it?

I'd love to know when exactly it will be released ... Anyway, my point was that RIGHT NOW, as in this month, this summer, right this second, with the choices CURRENTLY ON THE MARKET, RDRAM is the best performer. You seem to forget that SiS is releasing a new RDRAM chipset, and that Rambus is going to be releasing a new 1333MHz module, with greater than 10Gb/s bandwidth.

If the fastest DDR is at PC3200 right now (3.2Gb/s) I expect DDR2/Dual channel DDR will theoretically double that, right? If so, it's only about 4Gb/s slower than next generation RAMBUS ...

As for price, I have already illustrated that the difference is negligable... Yes, RDRAM used to cost substantially more than DDR RAM, but that is no longer the case. So the argument you posted should read: Slightly above average prices, Big Latency, Big Bandwidth= Decent sales. Or am I missing something here?

mavis