Are AMD defeated ?

[Deleted member 64478]

AM2 boards are been supported and the bioses have started been released now.

Like Jokester said
"All Phenom does is give someone who is already on AM2 a painless upgrade to quad core."

People know at the moment that Intel are good and theres no advantage of buying an AMD system over Intel at the moment, however people with AM2 systems can now enjoy the quad cores.

Spoke the truth now stop ranting.

 

[something_totally_different]

nobody is ranting, simply explaining...

here. have a flower.

 

[Deleted member 64478]

nobody is ranting, simply explaining...

here. have a flower.

It doesn't take 3 pages to explain something. Thats how it turns into a rant.

Thanks for the flower

 

[mmj_uk]

It will be interesting to see how Phenom performs compared to Core 2 in a heavy multi-threaded environment (all cores maxed), Core 2 has lots of cache to play with in single threaded environment so it's performance is somewhat inflated.

 

[B@Th*nG]

sorry if i take this a little off topic, but what's actually wrong with am2? or is it just that 939 was done away with too quickly?

B@Th*nG

 

[something_totally_different]

sorry if i take this a little off topic, but what's actually wrong with am2? or is it just that 939 was done away with too quickly?

B@Th*nG

the problem with AM2 is that if your already on a high end 939 platform there is very little difference in the performance, hell the only major benefit i can see is DDR2 and now access to one or two quad cores, but overall, it just should never have been bothered with, all AMD have effectively done over the last 14 months is re release 939 chips on an AM2 platform and tout AM2+ when they should have just not bothered, stuck with 939, released some quad cores made up of abridged opterons and released AM3 with Barcelona.

 

[FatRakoon]

Sorry, I dont understand what you are trying to say?

One minute you're saying AMD is better CPUs and then in the same breath telling us you are fed up with them

You are missing the fact that Intel did worse, and that AMDs system was ( if you knew about how it worked) pretty straight forward... It still is!

With an AMD, a 4000 is 25% faster than a 3000, an X2 3800 is exactly that... Its a 3800 but its 2 cores... Its perfectly simple in my books and its based on the TB Ratings

Now, take an intel... What the hell do we have?

What is quicker, 2610 or 6300? - They are the same apart from cache which does sod all to make any real world difference !
The Celeron 356 or the 440 ? - The 440 surely, but no, its the 356 actually, but WTF??? - Come on FFS!

It will be interesting to see how Phenom performs compared to Core 2 in a heavy multi-threaded environment (all cores maxed), Core 2 has lots of cache to play with in single threaded environment so it's performance is somewhat inflated.

By all accounts, its not bearing up too well it seems.

I will say though, that the whole AMD v INTEL thing has made me chuckle.

While my C2D system is by far the fastest bugger I have ever owned, and it can convert a 700MB Movie into a DVD in 10 minutes flat, where my best AMD takes half an hour, when it comes to heavy multitasking, running dozen of apps at once, running in and out of each app, while defragging several drives, as well as converting AVI to DVD, and such like all at the same time, I can still play a game like Doom3, Quake4, HalfLife2 etc etc withotu any real issues on the AMD, yet on the Intel, it dies a death and can seem like its hung.

So, I personally feel that the AMD can handle multitasking better than Intels can.

FWIW only 2 days ago, I ran a few tests, and I found that my Opteron system, was able to defrag C: E: and F: all at once, at the same time it was running COD4 off D: and also recording TV from...erm...TV? to E: and during the COD4 loading screens, it did not flicker once.

The Intel was doing NOTHING, but it flickers like a bugger.

I defragged, cleaned the system out and it helped a lot but it was still glitchign a little.

Oh, hang on, Im folding with both cores, but then Im also folding with the Opteron too!

The Opteron is a single core @ 2.5
The Intel is a Q6600 @ 2.8

The Intel CPU v CPU kills the AMD but under load, the AMD handles it all better... I also found similar results when I went from the x2-3800 to the E6300

 

[FatRakoon]

sorry if i take this a little off topic, but what's actually wrong with am2? or is it just that 939 was done away with too quickly?

B@Th*nG

My personal feelings is that there is nothing actually wrong with the AM2.

The problem really lies in that if anyone already has an AMD socket 939 then they wont be doing themselves any favours by selling off their current kit to go AM2

Now, AM2 CPUs do go over the 3GHZ Barrier, no one will argue that one, but then again, the Conroes are seriously powerfull and quick Processors

I will admit that I would certainly consider an AM2, but with AM3 around the corner... Why bother?

AMD should have just given 939 a longer lease of life, taken it a few steps further in the power field perhaps, such as 3Ghz and a bigger cache as this would certainly have staved off the Intel attack, which has been ****** big and ****** effective has it not?

Well the number of AMD users who defected ( Im one of them - A stout AMD fanboy as they say, and my main PC is an intel ) now, had they just taken the 939 CPU to a better price range like Intel did, and took the speed up a notch or two, then I would never have gone to Intel.

The Conroes are not THAT much quicker than the AMDs, but thats just it.... They are still quicker.

So, no, its not that the AM2 has anything actualyl wrong with it as such.... Its just wrong that AMD had bothered with it in the first place.

 

[B@Th*nG]

furry muff. tis just that atm i've got a 2.8 socket A and a 3500am2 chip sat here doing nothing. to get that chip in there i'd have to get a mobo, new graphics card and new ram. just gotta factor whether it's worth it... tis just the mobo i can't use on the next boards i spose. depending on whether the ram goes ddr3 sooner rather than later, not that i can afford it

B@Th*nG

 

[manveruppd]

While my C2D system is by far the fastest bugger I have ever owned, and it can convert a 700MB Movie into a DVD in 10 minutes flat, where my best AMD takes half an hour, when it comes to heavy multitasking, running dozen of apps at once, running in and out of each app, while defragging several drives, as well as converting AVI to DVD, and such like all at the same time, I can still play a game like Doom3, Quake4, HalfLife2 etc etc withotu any real issues on the AMD, yet on the Intel, it dies a death and can seem like its hung.

That shouldn't be the case, must be something wrong with your installation of Windows or your motherboard drivers.

 

[Bleek]

Well I threw caution to the wind and went AM2+ (790FX), ditching my single core Opty 144 for a 5000+ BE.

Once that baby is running at 3.2-3.5GHz why on earth would I need any more power then that? Affordable, cool and efficient.

 

[Bleek]

The server market:

Intel's flagship still has an Achilles heel: the platform it is running on has higher latency and much lower bandwidth than AMD's platform. Once you really stress all those cores with many threads, AMD's platform starts to pay off.

http://anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3162

AMD defeated? Don't be ridiculous!

 

[snowdog]

AMD still sells okay, the top end of the market is still just a small part of the market, most of the sales are probably stuff like amd 3700+'s to 4400+'s and intel E2160's/e4xxx series. I think anyhow.

Still though, a lot of people still have amd, and untill people dump their amd's ( for no real reason, most people just browse/work at their pc's) it'll still be a valuable compadator.

 

[Final8y]

the problem with AM2 is that if your already on a high end 939 platform there is very little difference in the performance, hell the only major benefit i can see is DDR2 and now access to one or two quad cores, but overall, it just should never have been bothered with, all AMD have effectively done over the last 14 months is re release 939 chips on an AM2 platform and tout AM2+ when they should have just not bothered, stuck with 939, released some quad cores made up of abridged opterons and released AM3 with Barcelona.

That about sums it up & my thoughts also.

 

[mrthingyx]

That shouldn't be the case, must be something wrong with your installation of Windows or your motherboard drivers.

Hehe - you missed the detailed analysis FatRakoon did of his systems about a year ago querying this descrepancy. I think the conclusion was that (something like) AMD platforms had more bandwidth and a nice low-latency memory controller, making memory acces (i.e. goofing around with lots of applications) a much smoother procedure.

Which would also make logical sense.

 

[the.m]

One minute you're saying AMD is better CPUs and then in the same breath telling us you are fed up with them

Read my post propery, I said I was fed up with AMD back then not now, my reason was because they led the enthusiast market with Athlon 64, they charged a premium which I fealt took the P.

You are missing the fact that Intel did worse, and that AMDs system was ( if you knew about how it worked) pretty straight forward... It still is!

With an AMD, a 4000 is 25% faster than a 3000, an X2 3800 is exactly that... Its a 3800 but its 2 cores... Its perfectly simple in my books and its based on the TB Ratings

Before Athlon64 when intel led, they were tarred with the same brush I agree, but I was saying that I liked intel at the moment because their chips are fast and they are cheap, thats all.

 

[snowdog]

Hehe - you missed the detailed analysis FatRakoon did of his systems about a year ago querying this descrepancy. I think the conclusion was that (something like) AMD platforms had more bandwidth and a nice low-latency memory controller, making memory acces (i.e. goofing around with lots of applications) a much smoother procedure.

Which would also make logical sense.

That is rubbish I think: everest memory benchmark shows that on a high enough fsb and proper chipset, intels ram latency beats AMD's, I beat my mates latency anyhow since I got my c2d @ 400 mhz fsb ( 1600 mhz quadpumped) and my ram at 1:1 with it and a 965p board.

Used to be like 80 ms for me with 945 p and 260 fsb and is now 46 ms or 56 iirc on 400 fsb and 965p, while my mates amd 64 3800 @ 2.8 or so had 57 ( or was it 65?) ms iirc.

Anyhow just test your RAM latency in everest and then compare it to amd's...

 

[mrthingyx]

I did not conduct the test. I merely observed the results and drew my conclusions according to FatRakoon's observations.

Whether or not it is rubbish is largely irrelevant, to be honest, because FatRakoon felt there was a difference. What are the only areas in which AMD and Intel chips differ? Latency and bandwidth.

According to the TechReport's cache, latency and bandwidth analysis, AMD64 (as in all Athlon 64/FX/Opteron) has always had lower latency than Intel chips, which is why they took such a hit with AM2 - DDR2 has much higher latencies than DDR and so needs higher frequencies to make up the difference.

Cache latency in the AMD64 is also much lower than Intel's (Barcelona excepted, and even that's still pretty low by comparison), although Core2 has improved upon this through beefed up branch-prediction algorithms.

Memory bandwidth on AMD64 is also massively in excess of anything Intel have to offer the desktop and server market at this time, too (again, except BArcelona at this stage)...

I don't make the numbers up. The posters in that thread may have been rationalising; FatRakoon may have had green-tinted spectacles (they'd have to be pretty rosy to elicit the differences described above) on when analysing his two systems. But again - the numbers speak for themselves.

There is also Intel's migration to the integrated memory controller/HyperTransport-type setup on the up-coming Nehalem chip to consider. I wouldn't have thought they'd apply AMD's logic just for fun...

 

[manveruppd]

I'm sure that core-to-core A64s have lower latencies than even Conroes, and that therefore an AMD core would multitask better than an Intel core, but when you have a single-core going up against a dual-core then surely the ability to handly multiple simultaneous threads and the increased cache size should more than make up for the Conroe's extra latency!

 

[helmutcheese]

Its well known the AMD's have more Memory Bandwidth since getting rid of the Memory Controler in the Mobos Northbridge and fitting it in the CPU, thats why Intel are to do that soon.

I notice a lag like older PC's used to get coming out of a memory intentsive stress test which I did not notice on the AM2 Set up I had (Crosshair RIP+6000+), not sure if thats reason why.