Why Pentium?

Mxsmanic wrote:
writes:

70C? No way. It probably takes at least 100C to
actually damage the silicon.

Then why would it become unstable at 70° C?

Some gates slow enough to not be ready for the
next clock phase, but that's not the same as
transistor destruction.

Rod Speed wrote:
wrote:

There was only one reason to ever prefer a Pentium
over an Athlon or later AMD CPU: Pentiums couldn't
burn out from heat. But this isn't a problem with
64-bit AMD CPUs either.

It was more complicated than that. The other real advantage
with Intel cpus is that you could choose to use intel chipsets too.

I doubt most business owners care about chipsets but only factors
they can notice (at least on paper), like clock speed, memory and
disk capacities, and cost.

I'm not a speed demon. I simply buy the third-slowest or
third-fastest motherboard that doesn't have Taiwan capacitors
in the voltage converter.

Talal Itani wrote:
Hello,

I am in the market for a good computer, with a dual-core CPU. I keep
reading that Athlon is better than Pentium, Athlon is faster than Pentium,
and Athlon is lower priced than Pentium.

Eh, these are all true and false to varying degrees. IT depends which
Pentium, which Athlon, which workload etc. Right now, desktop Athlons
are faster (I don't know about cheaper) than desktop Pentiums.

But if that is the case, why do
most businesses have Pentium based PCs and not Athlon based PCs?

Think about why a business buys PCs. They don't buy them so that they
have bragging rights about what is 'best'. They want to spend the
least money possible to get the job done. If you want to understand
why a particular type of customer behaves, put yourself in their
shoes...sometimes 'better' doesn't matter.

Surely most
businesses research the pros and cons of a product before they make their
purchases. Thank you for clarifying this for me.

You'd be surprised...

DK

Mxsmanic wrote:

writes:


70C? No way. It probably takes at least 100C to actually damage the
silicon.


Then why would it become unstable at 70° C?


Because internal time delays increase with temperature, mainly because MOS
channel resistance increases with temperature making it slower at driving
(the next stage's) gate input (and leakage) capacitance.

It means the signals ain't getting to the proper places in time.

writes:

Some gates slow enough to not be ready for the
next clock phase, but that's not the same as
transistor destruction.

Is this something that varies from chip to chip, or is it fairly
constant for all chips of a given processor model?

I recall hearing somewhere that chip manufacturers stress-test chips
individually, then market the ones that won't run at high speed as
lower-speed submodels (rather like CCD manufacturers that test their
CCD sensors, selling the perfect ones to pros and putting the rest in
consumer gear).

It seems to me that most chip defects would be all or nothing--either
the chip runs or it doesn't--but perhaps there are things that can
affect individual chips without ruining them (?).

In any case, it makes me uneasy to stress my processor just to see if
it stops working.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

David Maynard writes:

Because internal time delays increase with temperature, mainly because MOS
channel resistance increases with temperature making it slower at driving
(the next stage's) gate input (and leakage) capacitance.

It means the signals ain't getting to the proper places in time.

Is movement of dopants through the substrate a significant issue when
chips run hot? Or does that occur so slowly that it's not likely to
affect a chip over its lifetime? And how quickly does it accelerate
with increasing temperature?

I know that silicon itself is incredibly resistant to heat; you could
add a zero to the typical operating temperature of a processor and the
silicon wouldn't care. But the structures you build on top of the
silicon are a lot more delicate.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Rod Speed writes:

It was more complicated than that. The other real advantage
with Intel cpus is that you could choose to use intel chipsets too.

Well, times change, but all I can say is that I lost to machines to
AMD processor burnouts (they overheated and just continued to run
until they destroyed themselves and surrounding components), and that
pretty much soured me on AMD for a very long time to come. I'll take
a slightly slower processor at a slightly higher price, if necessary
in exchange for the benefit of a processor that's smart enough to shut
down if it overheats.

As you say, chipsets are an advantage, too. I've had trouble with VIA
chipsets for AMD in the past, but no trouble with Intel chipsets for
Intel.

I suppose that if one is extremely strapped for cash and/or one wants
to be on the absolute bleeding edge of raw performance, one might
occasionally prefer AMD. But performance is really only important for
games these days, and the price differences between the two processor
vendors are small.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

writes:

I doubt most business owners care about chipsets but only factors
they can notice (at least on paper), like clock speed, memory and
disk capacities, and cost.

The list is even shorter than that: all they care about is cost. Most
PCs today will do any type of business tasks that anyone might care to
perform, so clock speed, memory, and disk capacity are all
irrelevant--any PC will have more than enough of each for business
use.

I'm not a speed demon. I simply buy the third-slowest or
third-fastest motherboard that doesn't have Taiwan capacitors
in the voltage converter.

You write off anything from Taiwan? I should think there are both
good and bad vendors. Don't some Intel motherboards come from Taiwan?

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

wrote
Rod Speed wrote
wrote

There was only one reason to ever prefer a Pentium over
an Athlon or later AMD CPU: Pentiums couldn't burn out from
heat. But this isn't a problem with 64-bit AMD CPUs either.

It was more complicated than that. The other real advantage
with Intel cpus is that you could choose to use intel chipsets too.

I doubt most business owners care about chipsets

Yes, but the designers of systems that are aimed at that market do.

but only factors they can notice (at least on paper), like
clock speed, memory and disk capacities, and cost.

And not that burn out question either. Funny that.

I'm not a speed demon.

I'm not either, amazing tho that may be.

I simply buy the third-slowest or third-fastest motherboard
that doesn't have Taiwan capacitors in the voltage converter.

Irrelevant to what is being discussed, why some
prefer pentiums over athlons or later amd cpus.

Mxsmanic wrote
Rod Speed writes

It was more complicated than that. The other real advantage
with Intel cpus is that you could choose to use intel chipsets too.

Well, times change,

Not necessarily for those who design systems aimed at that particular market.

but all I can say is that I lost to machines to AMD processor
burnouts (they overheated and just continued to run until they
destroyed themselves and surrounding components), and that
pretty much soured me on AMD for a very long time to come.

Sure, it was always a very crude approach.

I'll take a slightly slower processor at a slightly higher
price, if necessary in exchange for the benefit of a
processor that's smart enough to shut down if it overheats.

And I preferred the intel cpus just because
they were generally quieter for quite a while too.

As you say, chipsets are an advantage, too. I've had trouble with VIA
chipsets for AMD in the past, but no trouble with Intel chipsets for Intel.

Yeah, I generally prefer to use intel chipsets, because
of problems in the past, even with intel cpus.

I suppose that if one is extremely strapped for cash and/or one
wants to be on the absolute bleeding edge of raw performance,
one might occasionally prefer AMD. But performance is really
only important for games these days,

And the most demanding game I play is Freecell Pro.

and the price differences between the two processor vendors are small.

Yep, which is why stuff like the chipset can matter instead.