AMD or Intel?: Part Deux!

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by Nuno
3dnow "pro" is SSE as found originally on the PentiumIII. So any SSE enhanced app will take advantage of Athlon XP. SSE2 is nice too, but few software is heavily optimized for it.

Well, the assembly commands are the same, but it actually does things different in hardware, from what I understand.

[Nuno]

Yes, but from an application point, when it checks for the Athlon XP cpu caps it sees MMX, 3dNow!, ehanced 3dNow! and SSE. So if the app is coded to use SSE, it´ll use it.

Point is that despite diferent hardware pathways, SSE is completly transparent to the application on the Athlon XP.

Edit: typo

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by Nuno
Yes, but from an application point, when it checks for the Athlon XP cpu caps it sees MMX, 3dNow!, ehanced 3dNow! and SSE. So if the app is coded to use SSE, it´ll used.

Point is that despite diferent hardware pathways, SSE is completly transparent to the application on the Athlon XP.

Agreed.

All of my PC's are AMD's, however right how I'll have to hand it to Intel. They've come a long way with the P4. If you want the fastest single CPU desktop solution, the P4 is the way to go.

But if you're not getting at least a 2.6, go with an Athlon.

[Nuno]

If you want the fastest single CPU desktop solution, the P4 is the way to go.

Now that´s debatable

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021218/vgacharts-02.html

With a P4 3.06 going for $735.00 and a XP2700+ for $328.00 it really makes you figure who has the upper hand...

[Novdid]

The Athlon beats the P4 in all those tests!

But mind the p4 was running on a i845PE chipset. But then again the system cost would skyrocket even more if you decide to go with the i850E...

[Kurt]

yep...an excellent combo is the XP2600/333 and nForce2 at 166MHz FSB. The higher clocked bus does make a nice difference for the Athlon (you can probably O/C it to 200+ MHz )

[[GDI]Raptor]

Intel might have the fastest solutions now, but It will be interesting to se what happens when AMD is releasing the Athlon-64 processor this spring with 2,0Ghz, it will also be interesing to se what the Barton core can do (Athlon XP w512kb cache)

But currently a nForce2 board (ie ASUS A7N8X) and a AMD Athlon XP 2600 (w/ 333Mhz bus) will give alot of preformace for your money.

[Nuno]

But mind the p4 was running on a i845PE chipset

Yes I was expecting someone to notice that. But it´s not such an unfair comparison as both systems use DDR333. Anyway to be completely fair, the nForce2 should be on 1 channel mode (that isn´t much slower than 2 channel) or the P4 using a granite bay chipset with dual-channel DDR (even more expensive and not much faster than the i845E).

I think even with the i850 and Rambus and HT, the P4 would have a slight advantage (maybe less than 5%), very hard to justify for a system (CPU+MB+RAM) that easily costs twice than an perfectly affordable XP2700+/nForce2/2 sticks of DDR333.